Harumi mandarin…from Chinese supermarket. Got 4 seeds from roughly 30 fruits. Now trying to grow from seeds.
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I’ve found my finger lime to be my least hardy citrus. My winter low was 23f and eastern half my small, unprotected tree died when fully dormant. Comparatively, my Meyers and satsumas were unscathed.
The next worst was Excalibur Red lime from Madison (labeled ‘Red Lime’ on the tag), but it was mid-flush and I think suffering from severe root rot as its still dying.
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I agree that finger lime does not like hard freezes. It does seem to sail through hot, dry weather and recovers pretty well from droughts by blooming once rains return. I do not have any first hand experience with Red lime.
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I’ve been thoroughly enjoying this thread. I feel like there’s some real knowledge here.
I’d love some suggestions on in ground citrus. Is it possible? If not, what can produce well in large pots? I’d love to have kumquats or satsumas. I’m thinking something that ripens relatively early? October-December?
We have three citrus in large pots already, a Myer lemon that’s given us 3 fruits in 8 years, an unknown orange that has never fruited in 8 years, and a Kaffir lime. We just use the Kaffir lime leaves for curry, so no complaints on the no blooming or fruiting on that one.
I’m in middle Tennessee, recently pushed up from 7a to 7b. For the last 3 years we’ve had at least 5-10 days of -10 degrees in the winter. I do have a very sunny south facing spot that’s sandwiched between our driveway and the house. I don’t mind doing winter protection. Could that work or wishful thinking?
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I’d say if you do kumquats it has to be Meiwa or marumi. All Nagami types will ripen far too late for you to save them, I struggle some years with them. Meiwa and marumi are all ripe by the first of December with them ripening slowly beginning in November. I don’t think growing citrus is an issue to keep them alive there, however getting fruit could be an uphill battle, due to your cold weather beginning while fruit isn’t ripe yet. They have limited to no hardiness while holding fruit in my experience. Only early ripening varieties could possibly work, Meiwa, and Wase type satsumas, but I’d think keeping them in pots would guarantee fruit. Don’t get me wrong I żonę push a lot, but citrus ripens in winter so it will be only viable with the earliest ripening varieties.
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Man, that is super helpful to narrow down all the options out there. I was torn between those kumquats varieties.
Are there any Wase varieties that you’d recommend?
Anyone grow yuzu? There’s a Japanese restaurant here that has a yuzu lemonade that is mind blowing.
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Klawiatura z polski haha
I don’t have any Wase varieties producing just yet, but quite a few grow Yuzu; I’m not one. I don’t grow anything for cooking or processing, only fresh eating 
but maybe I will add one one day.
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I agree that Meiwa is a good bet for early ripening and small stature. Chnagshou (aka fukushu) is another early-ripening kumquat. Any of the wase (Japanese for “early”) would be worth trying. I start checking mine (about 30 miles north of Houston TX, supposedly zone 9a now) for edibility in late September. Most of my Satauma have all been picked by early December. If you haven’t already done so, sure to check out the thread on this site called “All things cold hardy citrus” (or something like that). There was a post on there about a guy in northeastern Oklahoma growing Satsuma and Meyer Lemons in-ground near Tulsa Oklahoma. Very impressive! Ping me if you can’t find his post and I’ll dig it up for you.
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Are they getting enough sun throughout the year? Meyer is reputed to be quite prolific.
The cold hardy citrus thread mentioned in here: All Things Cold Hardy Citrus, news, thoughts and evaluations
Kumquats, Mandarins, and Ichang Papaeda (Yuzu, etc) hybrids are all among the more cold hardy “good” citrus.
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Sorry, I mentioned the wrong thread. Here is the post about in-ground Satsuma and Meyer in northeastern Oklahoma: Growing citrus outside the citrus belt - #20 by mksmth
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Amazing, thank you @Gkight , @Johnsgard , and @evilpaul
From late April to early October they get 8 hours plus a day. They will all bloom but no fruit forms.
Meiwa kumquat on flowering dragon with volunteer cook-your-bitt growing under it. The yellow flowers are from the vine. The flying dragon rootstock is a strait stem strait thorn reject seedling. The soil is 1 inch deep over hard pan clay.
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I did not know that Flying Dragon can revert to non-contorted trifoliate form. Interesting!
the seeds from lying dragon are about 50/50. This doesn’t mean that they revert back to PT. I failed to see this thread is for fruits so here is a fruit from my Meyer lemon tree on unknown rootstock.
An below a few school dropouts.
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Post petal-fall flower-drop and so-called “June Drop” later are brutal in Citrus. I have read that a full-sized commercial grove orange tree may open as many as 50,000-100,000 flowers, set about 5,000-10,000 fruitlets, and abort down to perhaps 500-1,000 final fruits at maturity. At a smaller magnitude I have witnessed this phenomenon first-hand in my Citrus orchard near Houston, TX. My largest Meiwa kumquat bush (circa 7’ diameter and height) just finished its first flush of blooms (it will repeat flower 1-2 X again, but with low fruit set). It had thousands of blossoms, but only a few hundred fruitlets have resulted. Many of those will drop soon. Mother Nature’s way of regulating crop load to match carrying capacity. Wish my stone fruits and pomes had that much common sense!
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My 7’ tall Meiwa bush with poor fruit set (each leaf axis had 3-4 flowers a couple weeks ago.
(My 10’ tall Nagami tree with ok, but not great, fruit set.
This is my 8’ tall Indio tree just starting to bloom. Most of these flowers will drop too. I harvested about 20# of fruits from this single tree last year. See photos of fruit in thread above.
(My 10’ tall Nagami tree with ok, but not great, fruit set.
This is my 8’ tall Indio tree just starting to bloom. Most of these flowers will drop too. I harvested about 20# of fruits from this single tree last year. See photos of fruit in thread above.
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