Limited usefulness as far as fruit goes. pretty bush type tree. I was just looking at one at my local nursery yesterday actually. I passed.

Thanks Ryan. I think I'll hold out for a ponderosa lemon :-)

There are 2 or 3 different crosses that are called limequat, one with the oblong kumquat being the best IMO; but also IMO I think people buy limequat trees; because the name sounds a lot better than it is.

John, I have a meiwa kumquat, but it is young and has no fruit yet. I'm looking forward to trying one!

I have a Meiwa kumquat with 10 or so fruit. One is turning yellow orange and is 3/4 inch diameter. We will see what it taste like in a month or 2. I would stay away from the limequat. You might look at a Thomasville citrangequat. It can be planted outside and its just "less than ripe" fruits are excellent lime replacements.

Actually, I'm now considering a Santa Teresa...I've read good things about them...we shall see...

I have a young Santa Teresa. Got my first lemons a couple months ago and they were very good! Very juicy, strong traditional lemon flavor and the peel smelled heavenly and very strong.

It's a good strong growing tree with very attractive foliage. The leaves are more smooth edged than Eureka and come to a pretty point.

It came through a few nights last winter that got down to 32*F for a few hours before dawn just fine with no damage. I'd recommend it.

I just wanted to clarify here, the temps were that low but the tree also had a thin temporary canopy over it and was sheltered from wind. In the open with wind, idk. But it seemed to not even blink over it, where as my Key lime did get a little frost burn on the leaf tips. It's fine now.

Laura, the issue with most true limes is their limited cold tolerances. I believe they are among the most cold sensitive of Citrus. I overwinter my collection in a large detached, sunny garage. In my unintentional experiment, all my Citrus and Fortunella (kumquats) made it except my Key Lime (though Persian was okay). It was one bone chilling day in February that ended that one. Limequats are obviously cold hardier (so if that is a concern). The only Citrus I overwinter in thehouse is my Kaffir Lime because they are really tropical.

P.S., HD had smallish treeson sale around me, so just so happened to have replaced the Key Lime with another..., next season, it stays in the house with the Kaffir!

Thanks Barb and subtropix! All of my citrus come in my house during the winter months. No chance of survival outdoors in Maryland! I have a Key lime and it seems fine. It did grow larger leaves when indoors, but it is adapting beautifully to being outdoors now. I have a sunroom that I can line with citrus along the windows :-) I will need to move some toys and chairs out of the way, but that is fine. I have read about the Santa teresa and it does seem like a great tree. I am very tempted by the oro blanco also (to order two more - the santa teresa I am pretty set on), but have heard it is a larger tree with larger leaves. I read a post where Mike talked about how his is thriving in a pot and how the flowers smell spectacular. That is very tempting....I LOVE the scent of citrus blooms. When my Meyer blooms indoors, my entire kitchen, living room and dining room smell of blossoms. It is delightful!

I like them, but have had erratic results. They are highly freeze sensitive (small fruit, late maturing), so you may or may not get a harvest if they go through a freeze. The flip side is that the harvest season is longer than the Bearss/Persian so you don;t get bombed with fruit all at onece.

The Eustis got traction after our severe 16F dip (killed down to just above the Volk rootstock) and is a rock star now. It grew 6 ft. in two years and produced an amazing amount of fruit. I use the juice and my neighbor pickled a bunch. For the Tavares, i had three, then two... and now only one. I thought they were on C35, but it turned out they are on that crappy Cuban Shaddock rootstock. The two goners' graft failed, and the third one's graft is looking iffy. The Tavares may be better on C35 and i may try to graft that in the future. CS rootstock has been banned from my yard.

Thanks for your input...I don't want to call you molewacker...lol...what is your name?? I ended up ordering a Santa Teresa lemon and put off the limequat for now. I'm curious, is the Cuban shaddock actually from Cuba? I know it seems a silly question, but I am from Cuba and don't remember anything resembling that...although I was right when I left for the US..;-). Just curious.

molewacker What is wrong with Cuban Shaddock as far as rootstock other than cold sensitivity. I have 2 CS because the Meyer lemon tops had died

Only one mole this year... non-wacking methods have been rather effective : - )

Santa T Lemon is a great choice, I have one and really like it. If i was replanting it all, I'd have one STL and one Meyer per property in the lemon category. Two Meyers and two Lisbons + STL is way too much. [family on the east coast is amazed at the quality and flavor though!]

Bearss & Persian limes are delicious, but certainly more cold sensitive than the lemons. The limequats are good for me because of their long availability on the tree/season of harvest - but all are at risk beginning in December when the typical Northern CA freezes come. They are small fruit and so will freeze more easily than the larger limes.

Laura, i recall hearing some sort of story about the CS as a hybrid, i don't recall it right now. Perhaps someone here can offer a dramatic history?

Steve: I have banned CS from any further plantings / purchases for a couple of reasons. 1) graft failures with Tavares, Orangequat platns, and cold tolerance. Because most all my citrus [now 65+ between two locations] are in the ground. I can, and have, gotten nighttime dips to the low 20's. A couple of dips to 16-18 proved very damaging to many of the scions and CS rootstocks. They are growing again, but the damage took more than 2 years to recover from. So, in my opinion, if you are going to put up with a slow growing (meaning dwarfing) rootstock such as CS, why not make it Flying Dragon - which is rather cold tolerant. With all the pests and diseases now in play, i want a fast growing, fast recovering tree. Looking forward to a GMO and / or bactericidal solution to HLB, otherwise, within 10 years my yard will be figs and pomegranates. - George

George...that's better! Hey, I have five Figs...nothing wrong with that! :-). My ST lemon looks great so far. I can't wait to taste one. I would love to hear about the CS. I'm going to find a pic and ask my uncle who now lives here, but did not come to the US till he was in his 40s if he ever saw it in Cuba. Any good stories are welcome!

Nice - 5 figs - ya gotta eat!!!!

I've interplanted figs where i could cram them in. If a bactericidal fix is found and i can save my trees from HLB, i will need to open a fruit stand! California's citrus is only a 5-8 years away from being toast. Florida is already totally 90% gone... From an Ag expert "done".

I have been meaning to do a comparative taste test among my lemons. I will post it if i can get good pics and family cooperation! I have Pink, STL, Lisbon, & Meyers still hanging on the trees.

-George

George, I'd love to hear about a taste test. I am not familiar with the citrus problems in FL or CA. I grew up in S Fl after moving from Cuba and still have memories of smelling the orange blossoms along the FL turnpike when driving to UF in Gainesville. I hope they are not gone. I've not been down in a while. I do know that my stepmother told me that the state came by and chopped down every lemon tree in people's houses...so sad.

George I have 9 hardy Chicago figs in 30 gallon containers and 1 in ground. Fig are much easier to grow than citrus. I have my citrus and I will keep them until they or I die. As for Cuban Shaddock I will keep mine for fruit production. My premature CS fruit had good taste to it.

Laura: search HLB - Citrus Greening. its sad. Florida is done; 90% of the trees are infected with this terminal infection. Texas is next. and California after that with initial signs of infection clearly in place. Bananas are soon to follow. - That is another sad story.

Steve - yes, i love figs and they ARE much easier to grow and maintenance free compared to citrus. But, i cant seem to squeeze the fig into my cocktail as easily!

Thanks for the comment about your CS fruit. i am just about to taste some - my CS rootstocks produced a bunch this season. They are ready for grafting too... but i am seriously considering just trashing them.

- George

It must be getting bad in Florida, I have been finalizing my citrus orders for this year and all the suppliers are getting back to me saying they can't get even half of what they normally get from down south due to greening. I am still getting most of what I want for this year but who knows if it will be even worse next year.

It looks like the northern state and Canada will become the new citrus belt long before global warming comes

I just looked it up. Awful! I had no idea this was going on. It is so very sad. I am a beekeeper and feel like this is somewhat similar to the many pests that plague honeybees, which were not around 20-30 years ago. Is this something that we should be worried about up north?

Laura

We will not have to worry about HLB because there are so few citrus that the ACP has nothing to feed on or pass desease onto.

BEES ---- I had bees 15 years ago. I was working on a box that was 15 frames wide and would hold t swarms side by side. Bees prefer narrower hive that high-rise and my hive would be narrow for each family but would be wide overall to avoid tipping.in high winds. I was also making frames out of glass with a wax honey comb imprint for the bees to build on. These would last forever and save money on the constant replacement of wax foundation. It would also eliminate warpage and stop wax moths from destroying the foundation infrastructure.

Then came the small hive beetle and I found another hobby

Steve, I've had bees for seven years now and although I've had problems with both, wax moths and SHB, the biggest source of losses have been queen failure. As you know, once she's gone, if not replaced immediately, all hell breaks loose. I don't fully understand the reason they fail so often, but I suspect it's a combination of pesticide exposure and genetic inbreeding. I did have one hive (of two) survive the winter strong....wanna bet they swarm now...argh! I need to go put more honey supers on...very soon. I'm glad to hear that our trees should be ok, but that is a terrible disease.

That is why they crossed the kumquat with the lime making the varities of limequat, tried to pull the flavor of lime mixed with the cold hardiness of kumquat. I do believe the quality of the limequat has a ton to do with microclimate and soil type, much akin to growing tomatoes a cherokee purple in a crap spot produces small underperoming tomatoes vs a 6 foot high baseball size perfection. Limequats are underated. You'll like the meiwa, my favorite kumquat. http://kumquatgrowers.com/recipes.html

That recipe looks great Brad! I will definitely try it when I have some!!

mole,

Like I said with citrus in general a lot of it has to do with microclimate. There are always variances like a random overly hardy blood orange like yours. People around here know what to do with kumquats and a lot of people eat them straight, myself included. Heck my kids and myself probably eat 300-500 kumquats a year. Another point about cold hardiness that is oft overlooked is in relation to the tree's age. A 2ft tree is vastly different than a 15 foot tree. Kumquats are generally hardier, at least along the gulf coast.