Post by alexintx on Jan 2, 2021 13:07:50 GMT -5
Hi there y’all!
I’m from Austin, TX and I’ve recently gotten into growing citrus.
There’s quite a few good sized trees in my neighborhood that don’t get cold protection — mostly mandarins, but also one huge grapefruit, one kumquat, and a few Meyer lemons. I know that cold is a major issue this far north (for instance, one of my neighbors has several gorgeous, huge citrange bushes, clearly the result of something killed by cold), but I’m pretty optimistic about at least the hardier ones.
So far, my experience is that aside from the handful of cold nights we get every year, citrus are some of the easiest fruit trees to grow! Aside from cold the only other issue I’ve had is leafminers.
Most of my trees are young seedlings and a couple are cuttings from plants that my neighbors have. I also have a kumquat that I bought.
My current collection consists of:
Changshou kumquat — the only one to have fruited so far (absolutely delicious!)
Meyer lemon
Rio red grapefruit
Unknown grapefruit
Unknown mandarin
Plus seedlings of:
Citrange (for rootstock)
Sour orange (planning on keeping one for fruit)
Flying Dragon (as an ornamental — it’s gorgeous!)
Unknown mandarin (same as above)
My Rio red grapefruit are technically seedlings (I sowed the seed May, 2018), but they’re over 6' tall now and have decent sized trunks because I pruned them mostly up to a single stem, hoping that they’ll fruit at a younger age.
The unknown mandarin ins an interesting plant — it grew from a seed someone spat out back in the 90s. It’s about 20' tall, not super thorny, and it’s fairly weeping with kinda elongated leaves. It has a strong tendency towards alternate bearing. The fruit ripen in midwinter and have quite a lot of sweetness but also have a good amount of acid, too. They’re a tad more tart than most store-bought mandarins, but the flavor is excellent. It’s survived temperatures well into the teens — when we were down at 18° and had a long duration freeze in January 2018, it lost about a foot from some of the branches, but it recovered very well.
I’m excited to participate here! Citrus are wonderful plants and are probably my all-time favorite group of fruits.
I’m from Austin, TX and I’ve recently gotten into growing citrus.
There’s quite a few good sized trees in my neighborhood that don’t get cold protection — mostly mandarins, but also one huge grapefruit, one kumquat, and a few Meyer lemons. I know that cold is a major issue this far north (for instance, one of my neighbors has several gorgeous, huge citrange bushes, clearly the result of something killed by cold), but I’m pretty optimistic about at least the hardier ones.
So far, my experience is that aside from the handful of cold nights we get every year, citrus are some of the easiest fruit trees to grow! Aside from cold the only other issue I’ve had is leafminers.
Most of my trees are young seedlings and a couple are cuttings from plants that my neighbors have. I also have a kumquat that I bought.
My current collection consists of:
Changshou kumquat — the only one to have fruited so far (absolutely delicious!)
Meyer lemon
Rio red grapefruit
Unknown grapefruit
Unknown mandarin
Plus seedlings of:
Citrange (for rootstock)
Sour orange (planning on keeping one for fruit)
Flying Dragon (as an ornamental — it’s gorgeous!)
Unknown mandarin (same as above)
My Rio red grapefruit are technically seedlings (I sowed the seed May, 2018), but they’re over 6' tall now and have decent sized trunks because I pruned them mostly up to a single stem, hoping that they’ll fruit at a younger age.
The unknown mandarin ins an interesting plant — it grew from a seed someone spat out back in the 90s. It’s about 20' tall, not super thorny, and it’s fairly weeping with kinda elongated leaves. It has a strong tendency towards alternate bearing. The fruit ripen in midwinter and have quite a lot of sweetness but also have a good amount of acid, too. They’re a tad more tart than most store-bought mandarins, but the flavor is excellent. It’s survived temperatures well into the teens — when we were down at 18° and had a long duration freeze in January 2018, it lost about a foot from some of the branches, but it recovered very well.
I’m excited to participate here! Citrus are wonderful plants and are probably my all-time favorite group of fruits.