Supposedly at one time there was a fruiting avocado in the mild Ballard neighborhood of Seattle. Of course in this case the comparatively cold tolerant Mexican avocado varieties are something that really exists - presumably this tree was one of those. And there was a 10' tall citrus of some kind encountered some years ago in a former plant nut garden on Bainbridge Island, one lot away from Puget Sound; awhile back a couple on a point at Winslow (also Bainbridge Island) where they were just above the beach, with salt water on two sides was growing several different kinds of citrus; and the "known" palm enthusiast zonal denial garden near Tacoma had an Ichang lemon against the house (and above gutter level) during recent years. But the rarity of such occurrences here makes them the exceptions that prove the norm - if popular subtropical food plants like avocadoes and citrus (let alone mangoes) actually were adapted here they would be as prevalent as apple trees.

Hi guys, I need to replace my digital camera..maybe I can get a cell phone pic but they really don't look that great. Hi Mike, I did email you...you might want to check your email and then get back to me if it still isn't there. I think I emailed you yesterday or the day before. I had quite a busy week last week. Hi Josh, Thanks for the warm welcome back! Give me a little bit and I will see what I can do with thosep ictures. Take care, Andrew

John, Don't worry about thinking your are being too assertive... no offense is taken. I'm just genuinely curious as to why the soft water is perceived as being so terrible. I often see many quite firm statements on a variety of topics (water, fertilizer, temperature, sunlight, methods for planting in ground, etc...) related home gardening. There is a sound horticultural basis behind many of these recommendations, but at the same time I see many firm recommendations that for most people likely make no difference one way or the other. I don't see the point of having this huge list of varying do's and don'ts if a large portion of the recommendations either are minimally helpful, or don't really have any impact. When I began growing container citrus several years ago, I started out all gung-ho trying to do everything under the sun that was recommended to make my trees happy especially in winter (grow lights, supplemental heating, boosting the humidity, etc...). The end result invariably was sickly looking trees. I've had much better luck not really doing too much and allowing the trees to acclimate gradually on their own to whatever their current environment happens to be. Getting back to the soft water question. I completely agree that too much sodium chloride will kill plants, especially citrus. I would also add that too much salt of any kind could kill your plants, of course the lethal concentrations will vary quite widely depending on the specific toxicities. An ion exchange water softener does not add sodium chloride to the water. The sodium chloride is just used to regenerate the ion exchange resin by saturating it with sodium ions. The softening process only replaces the magnesium and calcium ions with sodium. The primary anion before and after treatment should remain carbonate, no additional chloride is added. Since sodium carbonate is much more soluble in water than either magnesium or calcium carbonate, one could argue that it would be more difficult to build up high concentrations of it in the container. This is assuming that one flushes their container with excess water on a semi regular basis. Nevertheless, I doubt this aspect really makes much significant difference one way or the other if the container is being flushed with water periodically. While thinking about this whole issue, I also came across several research papers that investigate the effects of salinity on citrus. The primary toxic effects of "salinity" on citrus are increased osmotic stress and specific ion toxicities. Again, if one is flushing their container with water semi-regularly, osmotic stress should never become an issue, as the excess accumulated salts will be washed out regularly. With respect to ion toxicity, the general consensus seems to be that chloride is a more significant issue than sodium. However, the water softening process does not really add any chloride to the the treated water, therefore its concentration is no different than in the untreated water. The concentration of sodium carbonate in the "softened" water is also not really ever going to be that high (in the neighborhood of 200 ppm, if the input water is classified as very hard). I've seen a study (link below) that subjected citrus to salt (sodium chloride and/or calcium chloride) at concentrations up to 6000 ppm. Although the differences in response to the salt challenge were clearly noticeable among the tested cultivars, the most significantly damaged trees only showed a "slight marginal burn" on the leaves. So even assuming there was 200 ppm sodium chloride in the softened water, it would take several months of watering with no flushing of the soil to build up to these high salt concentrations where there are clearly visible toxicity effects. In summary, I do not see any scientific basis for why "softened" water should be perceived as so bad for citrus culture. At the same time, there is not much evidence that it has any significant benefits. In the absence of finding any direct studies investigating this question, I think the issue is largely irrelevant for container citrus culture. If a few basic care practices are observed (mainly not treating your soil as a black hole in which an infinite amount of fertilizer and soluble salts from the water supply can be allowed to accumulate), it shouldn't really matter. I will add one final caveat, if signs of salt toxicity do happen to appear irrespective of the water source, then one should absolutely start trying to isolate and correct the problem. John, I'm curious to know if you have any additional thoughts. In any case, cheers, and thanks for the discussion! -Scott PS Susan, my sincere apologies for taking your thread off on a little tangent. Here is a link that might be useful: Salt tolerance of some citrus

Bought one of those cocktail trees from Hirts a few months back. It was impulsive as they strike me as a little "cutesy" and not serious trees. The lemon and lImequat's roots are intertwined and no way to separate. Lemon looked sickly and yellow leafed on arrival, but the limequat fine. The lemon has dropped some leaves but just noticed a few bursts of green on the branches. Someday 10 years from now want to be drinking gin and tonics and whiskey sours even though I don't imbibe- yet.