Okay, it's not a flat unqualified, "no", abu. If you're willing to do a little work, and plant in very protected ways, as well as select some very cold tolerant varieties, you may be able to grow some citrus in your area. There are several satsuma varieties that are extremely cold tolerant - down to 17 degrees. Also, interestingly, the Bloomsweet grapefruit (it's on MacKenzie Farms' web site), is another option. I bought one because we usually don't get the prolonged heat here where I am in Coastal San Diego county (although certainly not today!) to sweeten up most grapefruits, but for your opposite concerns, this is another variety that might make it for you. And, to pass on some very interesting information about one of the "Gold" mandarin crosses that UC Riverside produced, the "Gold Nugget" mandarin, which is a really exceptional cross between two older mandarins, Kincy and Wilking, is surprisingly cold tolerant. The folks at the UC Riverside Citrus Variety Collection told me that their 2 Gold Nugget mandarin trees handled a record freeze they had back in the '90's better than the Frost Owari mandarins. I heard this confirmed again, from an unrelated source - Clausen Nursery in my neck of the woods, a commercial citrus tree grower. They sent up an orchard full of Gold Nuggets to a customer in N. California (also in 8b), and that orchard is doing just fine. That was about 10 years ago, Clausen's was flabbergasted. So, that might also be an option. You'll need to plant them in a manner that they can be protected in the winter from cold winds, so on the east side of your house near the wall will give them enough sun, protect them from any brutal summer heat & sun, but also allow them some radiant heat from your house in the winter. Also, 3 to 4 inches of bark mulch to protect the feeder roots (which might be an issue for you, if you have scorpion problems.) You might need to string Christmas lights (not the LED kind, but the regular miniature kind) and cover during a really bad cold snap, as well as flood the ground with water to keep the dew point up and prevent the area around the tree from dropping much below 32 degrees. It's going to be more work, but you should be able to do it if you plant right, pick the right varieties, and perhaps take some protective measures during the really cold, cold nights in the winter. Also, be sure to plant in the spring, after threat of frost/freezes are over, so you give your citrus trees amble time to establish a good root system. Patty S.

Yes. PT = Poncirus Trifoliata. I mixed some in with other dishes and some I ate by itself. It does have seeds, and it's a powerful taste. If you like bland fruit, I wouldn't recommend it. Part of it is that some friends have recommended PT as a rootstock, so PT is a "beach head" in the citrus area that may or may not develop by grafting on, say, yuzu, or Thomasville Citrangequat. We have had new record heat here each year for the last 3 years. I'm 52 and I've never seen something like this here, so it could develop that way too. John S PDX OR

Hi all, After much corespondence with different people, we now believe this Citrandarin is a tissue-cultured clone of US-852. It took a while to investigate all this. US-852 was apparently developed at the Univ. of Cal - Riverside. Budwood was sent to Florida to a Tissue-culture lab. It was hoped this would be a good rootstock for the Florida citrus industry. For numerous reasons, they decided against it -- one being that its seeds are highly zygotic and produced maybe only 50% true clones. Tissue culture was apparently not cost-effective. So, the tissue-lab unloaded its plants and several retailers bought them up to sell as a hardy citrus novelty. I purchased the plant from Stan McKenzie (McKenzie Farms). Panama John has been growing it. Last year it had 3 fruits. This year around 15. I have not actually tasted a ripened fruit from this yet so I can't really comment on the taste of it, but my sense is it's much better than most citranges with very little trifoliate off-flavor. Even though the plant itself is quite hardy, it does take at least until the end of November to mid-December for fruits to fully ripen. By that time frost threatens. So it's beneficial to have it in a microclimate. Amazingly though, fruit seems to be able to take at least mid-20s without damage. I suppose one could maybe throw a blanket over the fruit on especially cold nights. However we will also be experimenting with Thomasville Citrangequat. I have tasted many of those and love them! Sweeter than lemon and with edible skin. We already know what Mr. Texas will say -- 'anything with trifoliate in it is not worth growing.'

Something to keep in mind about this family of roses is their rather similar -- and often inbred -- ancestry. Jaune Desprez = Blush Noisette X Park's Yellow Lamarque = Blush Noisette X Park's Yellow Smith's Yellow = Blush Noisette X Park's Yellow So these are siblings, if the reported parentage for each is correct. Then things get incestuous. Devoniensis = Park's Yellow X Smith's Yellow Le Pactole = Lamarque X Park's Yellow Safrano = Park's Yellow X Jaune Desprez Genetically, the second group of three would be 3/4 Park's Yellow and 1/4 Blush Noisette, and would essentially be as similar to each other as would be siblings, like the first three. If you then look up roses listed just as being "seedling of..." any of the three above, and keep in mind that they're likely to be self-seedlings, one can see how easily a "family resemblance" emerges. Seedlings of Devoniensis with no other parent reported: Alba Rosea aka Isidore Malton Cornelia Cook (or Koch) Desantres Edouard Gauthier Seedlings of Le Pactole with no other parent reported: Caroline Kuster Paradine Seedlings of Safrano with no other parent reported: Amazone Bloomfield Quakeress Caroline Cook Mme Falcot (and I won't even begin to follow Mme Falcot's long line of descendants) St. Mary's Rose Therese Welter Some other further inbred offspring from this family: Jean Pernet = Devoniensis X Safrano America = Solfatere [which was a seedling of Lamarque] X Safrano Golden Gate = Safrano X Cornelia Cook -- and might this be Jesse? Good luck to Malcolm's student(s) trying to match things up in this family! Kinda reminds me of Anne Rice's book The Witching Hour. Except in this family, the goal was to combine and maximize carotenoids from R. moschata and Park's Yellow to make "yellower" Teas. :-) ~Christopher