Following up on some greenhouse questions- Westgirl - I did design it myself, I wouldn't call it easy but, you can certainly do it yourself. One recommendation - if you do build your own start in spring, this way you have a lot of time to work out the kinks. My watering setup is a simple timed based automatic irrigation system, normally off until the summer, When they need watering every other day. In the winter I just water by hand as needed. Mike - The frame is 2'' PVC. its strong and flexes a little, its available and not that expensive if you mess up a cut. The plastic is called greenhouse film, 6mil bought from a greenhouse supply store online. Heating is electric with a backup gas heater, just in case. Mksmith - Dimentions are roughly 30ft long 12ft deep and about 9ft at the tallest spot in the center, its a decent size. Heating is a challenge sometimes. Like I mentioned above, Heating is electric with a backup gas heater, just in case. The good thing as its fairly well insulated but, last night when it dropped to 16F it struggled to keep it above 40F, but it did :)

SB- The pollen should be pretty obvious. The stamen, initially, look very plump, then they change to look dried out. When they look dried out/dusty, that is when the pollen is set to go. I had a ton of males all over, so the pollen was everywhere. The brush looked like it had yellow paint on it at times. If you gently flick the brush with your fingernail (in direct sunlight is best visibility) you'll see a small cloud of them. you could always pollinate the same flower several times like I did...just to be sure. Jay- sorry to hear about that. At least you know it'll yield for you soon...after another growing season. My tree is still dropping fruit. I'm guessing the mortality ratio is around 75% right now. The fruits that are growing are plumping up nicely though.

That's a great point Steve... the older the tree, the higher the chance of root problems/rot that only get exacerbated/noticed once we try to repot. This may be why I am always complaining about my record buck trees... I have tended to buy the biggest ones and the rootballs have always completely grown into hard-packed, super fine mix that I can never get rid of... hence transplant shock and an ailing tree. The one smaller one I have from them, a varigated eureeka, has bounced back the best and is doing really well. I think previously I was in the "bigger is better" camp... I may be changing my tune. Also smaller trees are cheaper to ship :). That being said, the 1 Four Winds tree I have, my oro blanco, was in quite nice mix and when I repotted it the roots came easily free of the mix so that was a pleasure to repot. It also suffered no transplant shock so perhaps you can go bigger when coming from a vendor that uses a good mix. Just my musings! :)

Here it is the beginning of April and thought I would give you all an update on how my trees fared. I know it's long and wordy which I despise, but had to give details so others can learn. I have 3 trees in a bedroom which has a southern exposure with the window having mini blinds on it. On top portion of the window is also a half moon window which has louvered wood blinds. This bedroom gets natural bright light and can get uncomfortably warm because of the sun hitting the brick veneer of the house. The trees are a one year old New Zealand Lemonade, a Eureka lemon which had root rot 2 years ago and a 3 gallon W. Murcott which I received in November and is still in the original potting medium from Four Winds Growers. So now you know the environment the trees have been in since October. These trees have bloomed, set and dropped fruit, and grew new foliage. I watered sparingly and included Foliage Pro fertilizer at half strength. The only light given was from the window by manipulating the blinds to allow as much sun/light as possible to hit the leaves. The trees are still inside because they have been mite free all winter and see no point in them joining the other trees which do have red spider mites. I did not spray these trees with water for extra humidity throughout the winter. In the foyer, I have a Eureka lemon, 2 variegated minneola and a pink variegated Eureka. The room has the same sun exposure and the same type windows as the bedroom, but more of them. I watered them the same as the trees in the bedroom. Now these trees I have been putting outside as much as possible when the temps were above 50* because they are right next to the front door. I have been having a problem with spider mites with this group since February and did spray with Neem oil twice in early fall. I need to spray with Neem oil again, but there is no shade on this side of the house so I have been using the hose and spraying the trees with water when the weather is nice for the past few weeks. It temporarily solves the problem. The trees are currently in bloom and some have set fruit as well. Spray with Neem anyway? While the trees were inside, I did not spritz the trees for extra humidity. I only have been hosing the trees down outside only to control the spider mites. The last group of trees were kept in my sunroom. No grow lights used. They all did well with minimum watering which included Foliage Pro. I have a really big problem with red spider mites with this group and couldn't spray with water because the sunroom has very poor ventilation and I was afraid the humidity would encourage mold to grow on the walls if the trees had to be brought in. While in the sunroom, they all grew flower buds over the winter and started blooming in February/March. In the sunroom, I had a Meyer lemon tree. I kept this tree inside from October right next to the window and have been bringing it in and outside lately depending on the temps as to not shock it. It only goes outside if the temps are comfortable for me and brought in at night. It currently has bloomed and set fruit. It is inside right now and will go outside when I think it is right. I did hand pollinate the Meyer this year to see if it made a difference. I have lots of fruit thus far. We'll see how they fare with moving the tree in and out and bumping into the door frame. lol. Overall, I find it very interesting the trees did as well as they did. The sunroom windows only are on one wall and is full length. All of the them are now outside, except the lemon, and doing beautifully. The trees are blooming and setting fruit. I have not sprayed for the mites yet but have seen ladybugs, a lizard and a tree frog in the trees so hopefully, they are doing a good job with the pests. In conclusion, I have learned you DO NOT NEED GROW LIGHTS to overwinter your trees inside. You don't have to spritz them for humidity either. If you acclimate your trees earlier in the season to indoor temps/light than you have to, your trees won't drop their leaves. I learned that If the environment is the same indoors and outdoors, there is no leaf drop. My Meyer lemon proved that theory to be correct. My indoor temps of the house was kept 68* but periodically bumped up the heat depending on how cold I was. I did encounter a small problem with the mandarins though. I had to put them back outside in December to get the chilling hours they needed to increase the sugars in the fruit. While the trees were nice inside, the fruit was very bland tasting. They were juicy, but no flavor. So back outside they went until the fruit was harvested and then they all came back inside when the temps got close to freezing. I didn't anticipate dealing with that issue. I had very little leaf drop with them as well as I am assuming they are much hardier all around than the Meyer. Next year, another learning curve and more citrus tree shuffling in late fall/early winter as more trees will be fruit bearing age. Last year all my trees were in the sunroom, but I had less trees to contend with which is why I had to put a few in different rooms this winter. I had trees with a northern and southern exposure and they all did well with the exception of spider mites. What they all received since October/November was natural light, damp soil, liquid fertilizer at half strength, and temps moderately warm. I did temp the pots in the sunroom on very cold days and they ranged in the 50s. The room temps were in the same range as the pots with a few degrees difference. The temps in my bedroom and foyer never got below 65* so I know the pots were in the same range. I do live in middle GA so I don't know if my location made a difference or not, but figured I would throw that information in. I hope what I learned and shared will help others with their trees next winter. I am going to copy and paste all this information and put it into my citrus journal so if something happens to me, the recipient of the trees, will know what to do.