Need suggestion for citrus to grow in a container in Zone 9a

General Fruit Growing
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We have a couple of nice 28 gallon containers we’d like to grow some citrus in. We live in Z9a in coastal southern Georgia, and we’ll be able to drag them inside during cold weather. My first thought goes to Valencia because we can’t plant them in the ground, just too cold in winter, but might be perfect for a container. Just not sure how they’d do in a container though. Any thoughts on some other tropical citrus? We are big orange and grapefruit fans. Thanks, Ed

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I’d pick Dwarf Washington Navel and Dwarf Rio Red Grapefruit. But if you prefer grapefruit that are not sweet choose Dwarf Oroblanco. If you bring any large citrus (like these) indoors, to get a quality crop you’ll need to supplement with several hundred Watts for at least 8 hours per day of 6400 or 6500 Kelvin color temperature light. For fluorescent bulbs, you’ll find color temperature information on the packaging.

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Thanks for those excellent suggestions. I’ll do a little research on them. When I say “bring inside,” I only mean for a night or two. Last year we only had a handful of frosts and two freezes.

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http://www.citrusvariety.ucr.edu/citrus/washington.html

http://www.citrusvariety.ucr.edu/citrus/riored.html

http://www.citrusvariety.ucr.edu/citrus/oroblanco.html

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My weeping Washington navel has produced several decent oranges even for a small citrus tree and it’s in a 5 gallon pot I believe. It even survived our terrible 2016-17 icy winter when Temps dropped to -15 c for several nights.

Anthony

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