looking for orange, lemon and lime trees that will be kept small in containers and grown outdoors late spring/summer/early fall and indoors under lights the the rest of the time in iowa - zone 5b/a.
from research these seem like reasonable choices but would like advice if not.
orange: no idea really but Owari Satsuma maybe?
lemon: improved meyer if juicing and eureka for cooking?
lime: key lime or Bearss?
i see a few places like mckenzie or burnt ridge with meyer but not sure if its the improved variety or not.
Owari Satsuma is a Mandarin, not an Orange. For a Mandarin, Iâd choose Gold Nugget.
They will significantly defoliate indoors unless there is a serious amount of 6400 Kelvin light placed 1 meter above them. For initially small plants (e.g. from Four Winds Growers) this means at least two 4 foot fixtures above each plant, each with four 6400K bulbs. The lights should be on from outdoor sunrise to sunset.
The Navel Orange will flower in the winter and then the fruit will ripen 12 to 16 months later. Same for Mandarin. The lemon and lime will flower asynchronously at seemingly random times with fruit ripening 4 to 6 months later.
I have no personal experience with Satsuma. Yet based upon my research the following 4 appear to be the 4 best.
âLouisiana Earlyâ the earliest in the season producing
âBrown Selectâ the second most early of the 4
âOwari 874â the most popular variety
âKimbroughâ produces at basically the same time as âOwari 874â, although I was told that it does have a different taste
Sugar Belle, is a great new orange variety that to me sounds like itâs a lot like a navel orange. Those are the cold hardy varieties that I know of. If you donât care so much about cold hardiness, then youâd have way more options.
Lemons for cooking Iâd go with either Siracusano, or Eureka. Siracusano is especially good if you are using the zest.
As far as a juicing lemon, that is a personal thing, some people do like Meyer for that purpose, I donât. Although Meyer is good for cooking if you donât need lemon zest, and if you donât need an exact lemon taste. Although since Meyer is less sour, and more sweet, you can not just use them in place of normal lemons in cooking, you need a recipe made just for Meyer lemons. Oh and Meyer lemons are good for mixed drinks, that is what people say, I donât make mixed drinks myself.
That is strange, I have never seen those two options when I bought from âFour Winds Growersâ before, maybe Richard would know better, not that you were asking me. If he does not know you could always contact them. Meyer lemon is naturally a dwarf, so it most likely would not matter so much with that variety.
We live in Orangevale Ca. , a citrus paradise. I would highly recommend Owari Satsuma mandarin, above every citrus as it is the most cold hardy and the absolute best tasting citrus to us. Gold Nugget is probably #2 but really hard to grow as a young tree, it must be babied. Other top citrus here that grow well are Cara Cara orange, Morro blood orange, and Torraco blood orange. Tango mandarin is also very good, but more like a tangerine with sweet/tart flavor. Nothing like juicing excellent citrus while coming down with a sickness, not only is it amazing, you will likely be better the very next day as long as you drink a full tall glass! I would also mention Kishu mandarin as another really good choice, as mandarins are sweeter and more juicy than oranges.
i had this nursery bookmarked too. what do you think of their dwarf varieties that are not rooted cuttings but are grafted onto âflying dragonâ rootstock?
do you know if the variegated pink lemon is a mutation of eureka and if you went with eureka you might as well get the cool looking one?
As far as I know, flying dragon is the only dwarf root stock that they use on their trees.
As far as I know most of their non dwarf trees or still grafted on to root stock, just not dwarf root stock.
Sadly right now their selection is not as good as before, they have probably sold out of a lot of trees, and have to wait for their smaller trees to get big enough to sell.
Variegated pink lemon, is a popular variety, yes it is a bud sport of Eureka, and itâs sometimes even called âVariegated Pink Eurekaâ, this video talks about it
I myself have not tried any pink lemons, so I can not give you my opinion on the fruit taste, or anything like that.
We have tried the dwarf, semi dwarf, and standard from Four Winds Growers, the best in the business, I believe. One of them is growing strong in our backyard, I think it is the semi dwarf. In the Satsuma the dwarf has the highest quality fruit, but grows rather slower than the semi dwarf and the standard. Between my brother, my parents, and myself we have lost 4 Gold nugget trees in citrus paradise. We have also lost a Baress Lime tree , as these are really tender to the cold weather.
Each year âMadison Citrus Nurseryâ sells fruit from their grove, and they ship the fruit in the mail. Itâs a great way to try a variety before buying.
Itâs rather surprising how different one personâs opinion is from another personâs opinion. For example a lot of people who grow âMeyerâ lemon think that it tastes nearly identical to a âEurekaâ lemon, some people even go as far as to say they taste exactly the same. To me âMeyerâ tastes more like mandarin than anything else. At one time I was thinking that there must be two very different lemon varieties going around under the name âMeyerâ, since what I was tasting was nothing like what other people were tasting. Then there is personal preference, that can vary a lot too, from person to person.
âMeyerâ and âImproved Meyerâ these days are the same thing, itâs just that some people see no point in having Improved in the name, since the âoriginal Meyerâ lemon no longer exists, it was destroyed by disease. The only thing different between the âoriginal Meyerâ, and the âMeyerâ of today, is that the âMeyerâ of today has a resistance to the disease that destroyed the âoriginal Meyerâ.
Lemon: pink Variegated is a champ. Mine has survived extreme hail, accidentally being left outside in 30 degree weather for an entire day/night, spidermites and 3 scale insects lol
Lime: Bearrs i love personally. Key lime is too small and pokey for me. It has a lot more thorns than bearrs unless you get the thornless one
I love burnt Ridge but madison citrus has better citrus plants. Burnt Ridge is about an hour away from me and theyâre better for shrubs and trees than tropicals. Also Madison now has better prices than anywhere else except I think Four Winds is tie for their smaller sizes. I like the 3 gallon ones from Madison. Alder and Oak used to have better prices for 3-5 gallon citrus trees but they jumped their stuff from 65$ with free shipping to over 115 last time i checked.
Also you need a mandarin tree i suggest Ponkan, Shiranui, or Amoa 8. Gold Nugget and Super Nova is good too. I have over 20 citrus in containers and i do the tropical hustle every year too haha. I may or may not have 5 more on the way from Madison as soon as i get my new place situated. I absolutely love citrus plants and Iâm in zone 8b so all of mine are in containers as well. I may put a few cold hardy ones out once they get a bit bigger.
This is a bit of a hot topic but Iâd say meyer arenât great container plants. They want to grow out way more than up, which sounds good but it makes any pot very unstable. My Meyer in a pot Iâm going to have to plant, which for you isnât an option. Every windy day itâs toppled over.
I recommend the Kishu mandarin, any kumquat, and a key lime. They all grow compactly and the small fruits on all of these keep them from being prone to topple. As @Richard said gold nugget I think is also a good one (similar to Kishu I believe) small fruit and rather compact growth habit. My mom however has a meyer that has a 3ft vertical trunk which is prolific also. In my experience that is hard to accomplish. But my Meyers are from rooted cuttings.
Sounds like one in need to add. Havenât seen it yet, if Iâm not mistaken itâs a seedless strain of the Nagami type of fruit right? Oval shaped and sweet/sour?
Ah ok, I was basing that assumption from a YouTube video I saw where a California grower had both and really recommended them both. Both had fruit and it looked smaller than a typical satsuma to me, but they didnât harvest any to get a good perspective.
I agree, just bearss gets far larger than a key lime. My key lime is so happy in the container and idk how much longer the bearss will remain happy.
Knowing what I know now with the experience of them in containers, the smaller fruits are easier to manage. They are less likely to topple over in wind, and easier to manage their growth in container. Your point on defoliation is super valid in such a cold climate also. Mine stay really happy outside, but before I put the greenhouse up, they mostly defoliated inside with cheap grow lights on 12 hours. We donât have a ton of light in our house unfortunately so that would maybe make a bit of difference; I doubt it though.
Another one Iâll add is the calamondin. What it lacks in taste (I like it ok) it more than makes up in beauty to the senses. It blooms basically year round and smells heavenly. The key lime also blooms year round but smells of nothing. Just my .02
The 3 gallons are much better than the gallons from Madison citrus. It would take about 6 months to 2 years to get them the same size from Four Winds and from their 1 gallon sizes. Also 4 winds sells 3 gallons too but you have to call/email them. They have limited 3 gallon stock of certain items. I recently got a 3 gallon something from them recently as well.
i suggest Ponkan, Shiranui, or Amoa 8. Gold Nugget and Super Nova is good too. I have over 20 citrus in containers and i do the tropical hustle every year too haha. I may or may not have 5 more on the way from Madison as soon as i get my new place situated. I absolutely love citrus plants and Iâm in zone 8b so all of mine are in containers as well. I may put a few cold hardy ones out once they get a bit bigger.
