All Things Cold Hardy Citrus, news, thoughts and evaluations

OK, if you don’t miss a single killing freeze which are frequent with protection. However, your summers are so short and cool it would be a miracle to get sweet fruit which require hot weather. Citrus growth also requires weather above 60F. 8B PNW Seattle gets lots of sub 60F summer night time temperatures. Citrus don’t freeze from the average low temperature, rather from the absolute low and duration of freeze.

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Bob Duncan has been growing 30 varieties of citrus in Victoria BC. Canada. His trees are 20-30 years old and thriving. Just overhead protection and Christmas lights.
He uses a south facing exposure and his trees are espalier. Absolutely loaded with fruit. He grows both sour and sweet citrus with success

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Huh, maybe I should move from 9B very hot NorCal to this citrus paradise of the PNW? Give me a break lol

I am not following you. Did you make a joke? If so, could you explain it as I did not understand it.

This was a great read thank you!

I honestly like it. I dilute it of course but I enjoy every drop of it blended juice

I turn the peals into my syrup for later

And this is from a non hybrid Trifoliate growing in Washington DC.

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Sent him seeds of seville sour orange many years ago.

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Im too from Washington, i love citruses. There are some that grow yuzu in-ground but its for juicing and making yuzu sauce too much seeds. not for fresh eating. For sweet citrus needs enough warmth lack of heat will make citruses that are supposed to be sweet bland. There can be years that citruses can be borderline need more protection, even so called newer cold hard types. So Ram is correct with the correct winter protection, next to house shelter and Christmas lights there are more choices of sweet citruses we can plant in ground. It is just more work than for me. I prefer to grow citruses in pots and bring in greenhouse. If i had more space I would probably plant in ground some varieties to test.

I used to have a mature yuzu tree in the ground here near Houston so you can’t fool me about the fruit. There is maybe a teaspoon of juice in a fruit and 50 large seeds. Perhaps it is the zest it is grown for? I never could figure out something useful for the fruit so pulled the tree up. I didn’t find yuzu any more hardy than satsuma. Since I can grow something that tastes good like a satsuma my fascination for yuzu is near nil. I still have one growing in a 7 gallon pot and it had 8 or 10 fruit this year that I gave away. My 2nd 7 gallon yuzu I got rid of this year.

Here is a local citrus rube’s description of yuzu “low quality lemon” https://flic.kr/p/2iDoiid

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Since you mention Satsumas, what varieties do you find have the best overall combination of production, flavor, and cold tolerance?

Not much difference in quality between varieties, mostly whether fruit is early, mid, or late in season that lasts from Nov 1 - Dec 25 to space out the harvest rather than having it all at once. New varieties of satsuma all seem to be early. I’ve grown a dozen different satsumas and decided just pick one or two. A bigger concern is the age of the tree. Best tasting satsumas I ever ate were from a 25 year old tree grown in sandy soil, the worst from a 3 year old tree(inedible and dry with no juice). Several of my 7 year old trees are still producing dry puffy inedible fruit. I have around 8 or 9 in the ground. In my experience 8+ years to edible satsuma fruit depending on the root stock. I’m currently growing xie shan and will plant a frost owari shortly. Lost my 7 year old China S9 to bad drainage this winter. The only one I grew that was too early was armstrong early. One spring we had a late frost and it froze the blooms. A month later and it re-bloomed.

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BTW grew up in Seattle and went to UW so I know what “8B” PNW weather is like. Have lived in Texas since 1978. 8B in the PNW is hardly “sub-tropical.” Coastal PNW is a temperate rain forest. 8B in PNW has 9 months of non citrus cloudy, rainy weather and few hot days in the summer.

I am on the border of 8b/9a here near Houston. We get 9 months of air conditioning required weather and 90F+ for May 1 - Oct 1 and only a few weeks of cool weather. This year didn’t have a solid freeze so many banana tree around getting stalks of fruit. Since 1989 have had a few hours of 19F or so on a very few days. Hours below freezing is typically 4-6 hours or so. Christmas 1989 we had 10F and all unprotected citrus cold hardy or otherwise were killed including the root stock. Stayed freezing for 96 hours. I got discouraged enough not to plant another citrus tree until 2000! BTW we are hitting 80F+ during the day now and 60F+ at night 3/11/2020.

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It’s very hard to tell, so much misinformation out there, like Yuzu is supposedly ‘Youzi’ yet that seems to be not true. ‘Youzi’ sounds very edible and very grapefruit like.

There is false identification going on, people find something they assume is the same thing and it’s not, for example ‘Bizzarria’ was believed to have went extinct, then people found plants they assumed were ‘Bizzarria’ and easily could have just been other natural hybrids very similar in ways to the original ‘Bizzarria’, if there was ever just really one.

Here are two types of ‘Bizzarria’

There is ‘Bizzarria Orange’, it used to exist in Malta, a Bitter orange and lemon hybrid, fruit can range from just like a Bitter orange, to just like a lemon.

There is ‘Bizzarria Citrus’, a Bitter orange and citron hybrid, fruit can range from just like a citron, to just like a Bitter orange.

Fully mature of course there is no juice. The peal is used like citrons and other flavor zest. You can also use the leaves. You strip off several leaves and throw them in the deep frying oil before you fry food and it imparts the food with flavor and fragrance.

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Youzi and Yukou are absolutly a diffrent cultivars.

I did some research and found out what happened to Youzi vs Yuzu.

Short version is:
Even though Youzi and Yuzu are translation of the same word 柚子, but they mean different fruits in different countries. It is very confusing.
Youzi in China means pomelo.
Yuzu in Japan/Korean means the specific citrus we see here in US.

This is from Wikipedia:
Yuzu ( Citrus junos , from Japanese ユズ or 柚子) is a citrus fruit and plant in the family Rutaceae. It is believed to have originated in central China as a hybrid of mandarin orange and the ichang papeda.

The yuzu is called yuja (from Korean 유자) in Korean cuisine. Both Japanese yuzu and Korean yuja are borrowings of the Chinese yòuzi (柚子), though this Chinese word now refers to the pomelo.

Link: Yuzu - Wikipedia

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I finally made the move and bought 2 Satsumas from Stan (McKenzie Farms), Owari and Miyagawa.

I will put them in the ground tomorrow. The low temperature during the night is around 40F. I think they should be able to handle that. In the coming winter, I will dig them up, put them in pots and overwinter them in a north facing room with temperature around 60F. Hope they will survive the first year at least. Eventually I want to put it in ground after it has gained enough size.

Wish me good luck in 7A.

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Hi,

I like to buy a Grand Frost Lemon tree. Can you please help with the source?

Satsuma won’t survive unprotected below 18F for a few hours.

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@mzaman
Try here…
https://www.1dogventures.com/