When will you have more of these available?
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I received my Carolina Lime seeds from www.toughcitrus.com- unfortunately the website is no longer working. I corresponded with them via email- toughcitrus@gmail.com. Anybody interested might email them to see if they’re still selling seeds.
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I think Aaron, the guy who set up that website, mostly stopped doing business after he moved back to Florida.
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This sounds fascinating. I haven’t been convinced any of the fruit from other cold hardy is worth the stress of zone pushing. But, I would love to waste some money and see if I can get this to fruit in ground here in 7b DMV. It’s rare we go into the single digits, so would hopefully only be less than a week of stress/protecting.
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Check these out they zip up on your fruit trees come winter then you take them off in the spring Amazon.com : Alpurple 6 Packs Winter Zipper Plant Covers - 47" X 31.5" Warm Plant Protection Cover Bags, Frost Cloth Blanket Protecting Fruit Tree Potted Plants from Freezing Animals Eating : Patio, Lawn & Garden
Then use some strings of C7 Incandescent Christmas Lights on your tree you turn on for the coldest nights. SUNSGNE 25Ft Multicolor Christmas Lights, C7 Incandescent Christmas Light with 27 Clear Vintage Outdoor Colorful Lights (2 Spare) for Holiday Prom Party Wedding Decor, Green Wire - Amazon.com
Then learn the other zone stretching tricks
Any one of those tricks would likely be plenty for you to grow even more than limes , but you might as well do all the tricks and grow all of what you want. You could grow a bunch of things in your climate.
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Thanks!
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Carolina lime are really hard to get right now.
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The Carolina Lime is an excellent hardy citrus that is very likely an F2 seedling of CiClem x Clementine, retaining that characteristic green flesh but with a noticeable lime-like flavor that is much stronger than any other hardy lime substitutes. Despite probably being 25% trifoliate orange on paper, it has a relatively clean flavor, with only trained palates being able to distinguish any trifoliate influence.
It’s a fairly slow grower except under greenhouse conditions, and even then, it’s far from our most vigorous. This works to its advantage outdoors however, since it lignifies well going into the Winter, and exhibits good dormancy. It seems reliably hardy to high single digits fahrenheit so long as the freezes are not too long, otherwise I am not sure of its maximum potential since there aren’t enough mature specimens to learn from outside of Stan’s. Zone 7 locations would definitely benefit from at least some passive protection like a good microclimate and frost cloth.
Once it gets going, it blooms profusely with these beautiful pink-white flowers, and sets a surprising amount of fruit, as we are noticing on our 2-3 year old tree now; we had to thin them. I like the fruit best when they are picked green since they mellow out a bit as they turn yellow. They can start being picked in late Summer.
What I love about this citrus is that it symbolizes the progress being made with hardy citrus in recent times, both through intentional breeding and the selection and preservation of unique variants. There are more promising examples of 25% trifoliate hybrids like the Staruzu which lead me to believe that if efforts are focused we will see more high quality hardy citrus like the Carolina Lime over the next few decades.
In regards to the availability of these plants, it is constrained for the time being until there is more of them being grown. I know Stan is trying his best to keep up with demand, and we have 1-2 dozen plants we’re trying to prepare for the Fall. The grafts grow slowly, the cuttings are not eager to root, and the seedlings have poor germination, slow-to-moderate growth rates, and often vary. This makes it a tricky variety to propagate. I planted 3 more trees this past season which should allow us to produce more budwood in the future.
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Man, I should have gotten ahold of one of these back when they were a little easier to get a few years ago.
So the presumed parentage is Clementine x (Clementine x Trifoliate)?
I wonder if there isn’t something else going on with this one, pinkish flowers are not something you’d expect to see from those parents no?
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Haha, yes it seems like there might even be more Prague than Carolina Lime available in the short term.
Clem x Tri x Clem is the presumed parentage, and it seems very similar but distinguishable from the Clem x Tri x Clem that @VirginiaFruitGrower has. I believe the seeds traded hands between European and American growers and this particular seedling ended up back in the hands of Stan McKenzie and grew up into the Carolina Lime!
I’m not too suspicious of the pink tint the flowers have, just because I’ve even noticed trifoliate oranges with a very light pink tint to their flower buds, as well as other 25% hybrids like Rangpur x Troyer. Tai Tri and US-1279 are also 50% hybrids with pinkish blooms.
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