Maybe skip key lime? I am in 8A and mine died and I was protecting it from cold.
What has lived is
Owari satsuma 4 total, 2 different rootstocks.
Palestinian sweet lime
Rangpur lime
Moro blood orange
Australian finger lime
Nagami kumquat
All in pots and protected during cold season.
i have dwarf Owari, Minneola and pomegranate in 6 to 8 gal. pots that sit in my south facing windows in the winter. they get no supplemental light but the snow and the white siding of my garage reflect alot of light. probably why they donât defoliate. Owari is just starting to bloom right now. they are just starting to become productive. hoping for bigger crops this year.
The small limes used in bars and restaurants have been picked that size (immature). If you want limes for use at home then Bearss is the choice to grow.
For container growing in a climate cold enough that citrus have to be brought indoors, like where you live, Iâd probably avoid mid and late-ripening varieties like Navel, Minneola, Cara Cara, Gold Nugget. Itâll be hard to get them to ripen well indoors. Similarly, Iâd avoid any âbloodâ varieties since theyâre very unlikely to get their characteristic color under constant conditions indoors. So early varieties that do most of their ripening while still outdoors are a safer bet, as are âever bearingâ type citrus like many kumquats, limes, and lemons.
Itâs not that you canât successfully ripen those other varieties indoors, itâs just harder. Any citrus variety will be doable, but weâre talking beginner citrus.
Spider mites, low humidity, low or improper light, inconsistent watering, unnatural temperatures, thereâs a lot of things that can go wrong indoors that will either prevent good ripening, or can even cause the tree to drop its fruit. The longer the tree has to keep its fruit indoors, the harder itâll be to keep conditions good for long enough.
My personal though would be an early satsuma variety and some kind of lemon or limeâlimes having the advantage of not needing to be fully ripe to pick.
I mean the whole plant, not the fruit itself. A key lime wants to be a shrub and a bears lime is quite satisfied to become a large tree.
i was under the impression that the v pink lemon tasted the same as eureka because it was eureka but had a different, more lemon taste compared to meyer?
these dont say they are on dwarfing root stock. i know i can prune and train them but i dont want these things getting very big as they will be indoors a good chunk of the year and will have to properly light them. i want fruit but also ornamental.
does anyone know the difference between âOwari 874â and âFrost Owariâ?
i see semi-dwarf mandarin and oranges but none that are on dwarf rootstock, why is that? is it harder to keep them small?
also, is washington orange(âearly winterâ) an early variety?
If theyâre pots, you donât have to worry about rootstock size. Being potted will naturally dwarf and keep the plants small.
For blood oranges and if you want the color, you can set it outside when temperatures get cold and bring it in although risky if you forget. They need cold/cool temperatures above freezing, i wanna saw over 40 degrees overall, to make that red color and they need it for a couple of months or so. Mine in the greenhouse are coloring up pretty well. You could place them in your unheated garage as well as long as it stays well above freezing.
Nah, still the same taste to me compared to the other lemons Iâve picked.
A lot of people outside of the tropical regions grow them in containers and itâs a big thing across the regions. I think a lot of nurseries know that and mainly market to those of us who grow in containers but may put the rootstock in there for those who donât. The amount of people who grow in containers exceeds those who donât from my observations.
my Minneola ripened 7 fruit in late dec indoors. i kept checking for them to soften. took about 3 weeks from 1st color up to full ripe. its the biggest of my 2 potted citrus at 4ft.
Keeping them alive indoors is easy, keeping them happy enough to fruit is a whole other story. My citrus before the greenhouse would be treated exactly as you described. My experience was if they got too dry, they would defoliate. If they got too wet, they would defoliate. And as Richard said, if not under bright lights (window = hard fail) they will also drop all the fruit sets, quickly followed by all the leaves.
The good news is the green nude stems have been quite hardy. The bad news is next years growth is all for replacing the foliage and the tree grows very little. Often with glorious blooms visibly and by scent. But they almost never set if itâs been indoor stressed. So I have found alive is not too hard, fruiting is more of a challenge.
I would get a nice LED grow light used and make sure you are giving them good light. More than worries about individual cultivars. And besides, you are just like us, you will eventually try them all. lol.
Happy growing. I am no citrus expert. But no harm in reporting my failures I figured.
i water mine 1x a week and ive never had one defoliate in 3 years. i havent had any drop fruit either. maybe the extra light reflecting off the snow helps with this . ive never put out supplemental lighting because i havent had to. they have lost a few leaves if im a little late watering them but thats it. and its very dry here in the winter indoors.
does anyone use SIPs(sub-irrigated planters) for citrus to get a consistent moisture level at the roots?
Whatâs sips?
Iâve found citrus to like having schedules oddly enough. Watering schedules, light schedules, misting and leaf wipe schedules as well 
Not for citrus, but I love sips for cannabis. 
. Grow bag and sip system for bottom watering every time. 
Itâs a wicking bottom watering system. Many many types have blown up (100s of brands and diy) for homegrown cannabis. Some use air like deep water culture, some are passive like a modified kratky system, and some have reservoirs for storing water and fertilizers.
Like the string in a pot things?
Personally, Iâve found them terrible, especially in the warm months. I tried them for other plants and they all hated it as well.
When it gets hot, i like to stick everyone outside and they demand water every few days to almost every day sometimes. I suspect wicking systems may not be enough for such a demand during those times.
under ideal circumstances and in these 1 to 3 gallon sizes that are sold, how long does it take to get them to start fruiting in my situation?
If you get the older 3 gallons, then it should be fruiting this year or next. The 1 gallons will take 2-3 years to fruit depending on how big they are overall.
Some of the ones Iâve gotten look like theyâre young grafts which will be years. But Iâve also gotten much older 1 gallons which lol like they can start fruiting within a year. Iâve had 1 gallons fruit and hold a small amount of fruit in less than year as well. Just depends on how old the plant is before it got to you.
Most of the 3 gallons from madisoncitrusnursery look like they would be fruiting this year or next. Most, not all. Some i got already had a few fruit on them.
I can tell you for sure though, the Variegated cara cara wonât fruit for a few years even at 3 gallon. The Minneolaâs that they have might since theyâre much bigger. The amoa 8 already have fruit on them (i bought 2 of the 3 gallons because the first one gave me such amazing fruit that came with the plant lol). The 3 gallon Shiranui needs about a year as well. The 3 gallon ponkan is of fruiting size.
The rootstock they use at Four Winds Nursery for dwarf, semi dwarf, and standard. Not Flying Dragon, this one is not used here very much. I agree Sacramento is pretty good for citrus but not ideal. We are in Orangevale at a higher elevation, out of the winter fog that lays up in the valley. So we get sunshine and some frosty mornings here most of the time when its not raining that make much sweeter citrus than in the fogy valley. We are about 20 miles northeast of Sacramento. The home I grew up in as a kid in Fair Oaks, about 5 miles from here was a former Washington Navel orchard. We grew up eating the best oranges around. We now have 10 different varieties of our favorite mandarins, oranges, blood oranges, and they are amazing! Some of our best Owari Satsuma mandarins peak out at 20 brix!
thanks for the list! i was looking them up and i dont see that these are early varieties, though 