I forgot to mention that the Meyer lemon tree is still blooming outside! You can see that in a couple of the pics I posted in the last comment. I’m really floored by how hardy is the Meyer. I’ve seen them survive a freeze down to 17 in Sonoma County about a decade ago, so I know they are rugged. But those times were when they were sleeping in the middle of winter.
Mostly I’m perplexed by why the internet is mostly filled with sources saying Meyer lemon can’t survive much lower than freezing (32 F). It’s flat out not true. I think a lot more people would give citrus a shot in these marginal areas if they knew how damn hardy they are.
You can say the same thing about the hardy avocados. I’ve got a few cultivars just cranking out the growth despite being exposed to what for avocados is very cold weather. I have three that are over 7 feet and started blooming last spring. These are going to make fruit soon which is fantastic.
Alright, now I’m rambling. Feel free to hit me up if you want to discuss this process or trade cuttings. Same goes to anyone else who is interested.
I keep losing the little fruits from my Meiwa kumquats. The last ones fell about a week and a half ago, during rain in the 40’s F. The plants survive, but without fruit. The fruit is why I want to grow the plant.
That’s odd. Must be something unique to your plant, because none of my citrus drop fruit on account of the cold. Not even 28 F for several hours causes fruit drop. My Meyer lemons hold fruit all winter here. I only add Christmas lights if below 25. Even low 30’s with snow does not phase them. Same with the meiwa, the fruit is fine in the cold, but some did drop for me last summer above 105.
Here are some pics of the Meyer and sudachi tonight. The Meyer typically sets some fruit in late summer and early fall that hangs on the tree all winter before ripening next season. This is consistent with my neighbor who has 10 meyer lemon trees. We are in Salem. Also I should mention they are planted in the ground outside.
I think this is why I have good results. They are planted right against a south wall with two buildings that create an L shape to protect them. The microclimate stays 5-8 degree warmer than out in the yard. And when we get fluke cold snaps that stay below freezing the whole day it is easy to drape plastic from the roof’s awning. The more cold hardy stuff like yuzu, citrumelo, Prague citsuma and citrange i grow away from the house in full exposure to the elements.
Here is the Meyer, meiwa and sudachi bed beside the building and the yuzu trees in more exposed location:
We’ll see how my citrus looks after this cold spell. My thermometer has had a lot of connectivity issues during this, but I suspect its stayed below freezing for at least 36 hours straight and has had other freezing dips too. Not terribly cold at only ~30°f but still worrying for my actively growing avos and citrus as its prolonged.
In other news, I have gotten to try my satsumas. Very tasty, they still have a little acid but it balances them out perfectly. Thin, easy pealing skin, and tender wedges that are completely seedless. Everyone who got to try them over Thanksgiving loved the fruit. I ate five and I believe there are around 15 more on the plant so around New Year’s I plan to try more. Now I’m really hoping it’s hardy to this cold I’m getting.
What variety of satsuma are you growing? I was just reading there are over 100 varieties but only a handful are available in the United States. That’s a bummer because there are some really hardy specimens. I suspect there must be some super hardy. Jeju Island in south Korea gets incredibly wintry weather with much snow and ice, and yet they are known for their commercial mandarins. This is a cool article about the citrus history of Jeju. I would love to visit.
Here is the climate of Jeju Island. Average January high of 37 and low of 24. seems to me that those varieties of mandarin growing on Jeju Island would do well in northwest California and western section of the PNW. Perhaps they’d still require some protection but certainly not as much as the varieties we currently have. Where I live the January averages are high of 48 and a low of 36.
Yeah, I remember this from a past thread of your’s Citrus of Jeju Island. Last February when I was on a dive boat in Thailand, I met up with a group of South Koreans so I asked them about Jeju Island. Apparently they go there all the time (showed me videos of them catching squid off the island). I got their number, but my phone provider doesn’t take kindly to me trying to send something over there, so I’ve been kinda stuck on furthering any contact.
Try WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal. As well as whatever messenger services might be more common over there. Usually you can add contacts based on phone numbers and then use the service (which uses the internet rather than SMS) to send messages.
Those are looking great. What are the averages and all time low at your location? What temps do you cover? They still look young so maybe need more protection than then they will eventually need. I still provide some protection for some varieties that is beyond what’s absolutely necessary. I want to get them really mature before I challenge the coldest nights.
Dang, talk about ocean influence. While most of the Korean peninsula is zone 6 and 7, Jeju Island is, according to a quick goggle search, zone 10. That’s the same as Tampa Florida.
Might be useful to see if they have varieties that don’t require much heat, but I wouldn’t expect much additional hardiness from plants growing there.
We were forecast to get low twenties last night (the day after our first frost… Talk about a sudden hard freeze sheesh) so I picked what was left on the trees. We ended up getting a light frost but the next few days will probably be on the mid twenties at night so I don’t feel bad having picked everything already despite it not actually getting that cold last night.
A massive Owari, a nice Silverhill, two clementines, and two Thomasvilles. One Thomasville had a soft spot with some damage so I went ahead and ate it, everything else I’ll let ripen a bit more. The one I had was decent and already sweet/tart. Ate the whole thing, the skin adding some interesting flavor and some lime undertones. There’s a trace of something trifoliate about the skin, but it’s mostly a bit of mouth feel and maybe an aftertaste, not bothersome. Otherwise a good little citrus. Much less sour than the one I picked a month ago haha.
Actually the island has several zones. As you move inland a few miles the zones get colder. While it is the same zone as Tampa at the immediate coast, the overall climate is not at all like it. Snow and ice is common on Jeju, falling every winter. Have you seen the averages? Way colder on average than Tampa.
As you can see from the climate data, Jeju Island is not at all like Tampa:
I’d like to see some daily weather tables, because it only freezes on 10 nights each year. So it probably gets very close to freezing and then stays just above most of the time.
Yeah, the climate is a world apart from Tampa for sure. My zone 8 is way closer to Tampa’s zone 10 than Jeju’s zone 10 for sure.
But in terms of USDA climate zones, they’re much closer. While it does make a difference that the winter is much longer and much cooler, the annual minimum temperatures are also very important when it comes to hardiness. That’s the main reason I’m not especially hopeful that the citruses over there would be able to survive much further north that what’s currently in the US, at least on the East Coast. Maybe their satsumas would do marginally better on the West Coast than the satsumas currently in the US, but even then, a tree that’s never experienced freezes below 20 F just isn’t a tree I’d expect to be much harder than trees that have survived 15 F or even 12 F in Florida and Louisiana.
The long, cool winters also take their toll, I’ll be the first to admit, but still, it’s sitting those major cold events that trees get killed most of the time.
Agreed, despite being a much warmer climate on average and by a significant margin, Tampa’s record cold is 18 F, while Jeju City’s is a milder 21 F, making Tampa, in some respects, also colder than Jeju.
They are all in ground 3 years. I don’t cover them until forecasted 20s but they have all taken 14 as their low (Avocados too)
I’ve found incandescent lights and a frost blanket improve by orders of magnitude and can hold a +10-20 degrees. Granted our daytime temps never stay below freezing (with two christmases ago being the one exception)
