What kind of citrus are you looking at? You should be able to see a graft line. Think we need to know what exactly your looking at?

This is where Lowes buys their citrus...
http://www.mycitrustree.com/component/content/article/11-partners/29-record-buck.html

They were the small citrus Lowes carries. I think just a gallon or two size pot. A few had two citrus varieties in there like persian lime and a meyer lemon together (separate trees not grafted together like a cocktail tree). I looked closely and saw no graft lines on theses smaller plants. I know some places like Logees regularly sell citrus cuttings but have never seen them at Lowe's, HD or anywhere like that. All the larger trees I saw there did have clear graft lines. Anyhow, I have grown citrys most of my life and am still replacing stuff since I couldn't bring my trees when I moved out here a few years ago. Just thought it was wierd that the small ones had no graft lines. I will have to go with the larger trees.

It is my understanding that lemon and lime trees can be grown from seed or cuttings. Now if you want a certain type of orange or grapefruit tree you need to get it on a grafted root stock which is a sour orange host.

When i went to homedepot. I saw some Grapefruit for $45 and one of them even had 1 big size fruit on it! It was only rated to 20 degree F (Which is the avg low for my zone). I would not buy it because it could get lower than that every few years (Record low in jan is 8 degree's). (I also saw some grape vines that were rated zone 3-7. I'm not even sure why they sell them here!)

Meyers lemon and Persian limes are not grafted.
They grow on their own rootstock.
Both are cold sensitive- the lime being the most susceptible to freezes.
Lost my 35 year old Meyers lemon after year two of our freeze cycle.
It just couldn't take temps in the teens.
Persian lime died as soon as it went below 32.

r.b. sells one gal citrus bushes...not grafted. three gallon stuff is all grafted. hd has the same stuff, so do most of the private nurseries, not tooo many citrus growers left.

I have a improved meyer lemon and it is grafted. I used to have a persian lime and it was grafted too. Key limes will come true from seed but many that you buy at the stores, nursery etc. come grafted so it has a cold hardier/more disease resistant rootstock.

Hey SJN,

Mmm good question. I had no room but...I really want to add a couple of lemons or limes lol. Where did you get your meyers improved?

Gatormom - I once bought a Meyer lemon up here in JAX that was grafted onto a cold hardy stock called Flying Dragon. Did fine for a few years. Then the tree froze back below the graft line. Was left with one 4 foot high very thorny bush! Oh - and the year before that - we had a northeaster when the tree was in bloom. Blooms all blew away = no fruit. Some citrus does ok here if it's somewhat cold tolerant - and planted in a friendly microclimate specific to a particular location. Otherwise - it's pretty much a waste of time and money.

Also - apart from canker problems these days - there's now citrus greening. And for those of you not familiar with citrus - they are *very* heavy feeders in terms of fertilizers (worse than grass) - need bug spray - etc.

Also - for those of you new to the state - the trees in your backyard can be condemned if a problem like citrus canker is detected in your area. My folks in Broward had to cut down their citrus trees. They got a couple of $25 coupons that they could redeem at Walmart for them. Our commercial citrus crops are more important to the state than people growing a tree or two in their yards.

I've concluded that growing citrus is - in most cases - a job best left to professionals. And even they are having a tough time of it these days. So let's try to support our local citrus industry (because I suspect - especially with citrus greening - we're not going to have it for very long).

The citrus growing area used to be centered around Orlando. Then - after some years of hard freezes that killed the trees - the industry moved south - near Belle Glade. And we have many places in Florida named after things that grow (or used to grow) here). There's an area of JAX called Mandarin (from Mandarin oranges). Robyn