Great job! Thank you for sharing your findings and the great fruit descriptions! Nice trees and fruit!

Great to know! thanks for sharing your results! I wonder if Shikwasa is available anywhere in the US?

Laura, I think us cold citrus guys gotta stick together! I get tired of the glib comments from California et al, lol.

Sammers, not sure. It’s native to Okinawa, which is why I’m surprised it does so well here with a long snowy winter. I really like them, they’re like little balloons, when you cut them there’s juice going all over the place. I’m drinking some right now with hot water and vodka!

Yes!!! Agreed. I have a Prague citsuma? that I’ve had in a pot for two years. I’m afraid to plant it in the ground still,

That's a neat idea! I'd love to see how that works!

Well, first frost hit last night. Caught me by surprise, as the garden is in a frost pocket. All my mandarins and juicers ripened up enough though, so that’s great.

My lemons choose now to explode with blossoms and little fruit. Iiuc it takes 2 months to ripen, so I think there’s no way I can boost the temperature enough. For the last three years, my Eureka lemon only sets fruit at this time of year, so I may have to give up on lemons. I did get a few blossoms in the spring, but they fell off, I assume because I had to give high doses of nitrogen to replace the lost foliage from the winter.

My kinkan kumquat is doing the same. Last three years I get a heavy fruit set, and the first ones are just starting to turn orange when the frost hits. I’m wondering if I could cover it with clear plastic vented just to try booster daytime temperatures for couple of weeks at least. Maybe that would allow most of them to ripen?

Thank you for posting all the different varieties and how to grow them in ground. Shikwasa sounds interesting indeed. Maybe available here under a different name? I have not heard about kinkan kumquat either. Could you please tell a bit more about this one?

I saw somewhere a portable greenhouse around a citrus tree. I could see this working for couple of weeks to ripen the fruits. At the coldest nights hang christmas lighting around the tree for a little bit extra warmth or black water bucket that radiate the warmth during the coldest part of the night.

If you give them a light source in mid spring to length the day light length and then slowly reduce the time, your tree may flower earlier that if it has to wait till the after solstices day shortening. They will ripen before frost. Easier to give them an early jump start with long spring days than extend the fall when days are short and the sun is so low.

[check my last entry[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/im-breeding-new-cold-hardy-citrus-varieties-for-zone-8-dsvw-vd~4738788?n=100)

That’s pretty funny, the dead as a door nail category.

I don' get the dead as a door nail joke. These are some citrus sweet and sour capable of 0F to 10F

cold hardy

cold hardy

cold hardy

cold hardy

cold hardy

cold hardy

cold hardy

cold hardy

cold hardy

flavor hardiness chart

That blog speaks pretty favorably of Morton citrange. Is it really that good, flavor-wise? http://hardycitrus.blogspot.com/2013/12/morton-citrange.html

Stan Mckenzie

caries the 0 F US852 and the 0 F Citsuma Prague. That is with an I not A

It’s just a colloquial expression to mean super dead.

Some of my winter deaths differed from his findings. For example, my favorite tree, an established shikwasa, completely died, but my 3 sudachis pulled through with some vigor.

He mentions a shikwasa/Mandarin hybrid. I’ve never heard of such a thing.

Here’s a video of the winter damage my trees sustained (bit pissed off as the police had just come in to my garden and asked me to leave):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arn1S4VPjtw&feature=youtu.be

I just watched your video and saw the rolling hills in the background and a (snow-topped) mountain off in the distance. :-D Based on you indicating that you had a temp of -10C for a few nights in a row, I expect your zone equivalent is probably more around 8a/b, which would range from ~ -12C (10F) to ~ -7C (20F). The USDA hardiness zones are determined by taking the lowest temperature recorded for each year, over "x" number of years (where "x" would be at least 20 - 30 years), and then averaging them. There are a bunch of folks here in that range who are in the coastal Pacific NW, parts of AZ, TX, coastal VA, and the coastal areas of the Carolinas for example.

Even with the damage that you had, I was really amazed at the re-sprouting on much of what you had planted! And you just confirmed why Yuzu is so popular in the cuisine. :-D

Theniceguy, it looks like most of your tree's have actually survived! That's great. Hopefully they will make a strong comeback now that the weather has gotten warmer. Maybe next winter will not be as cold. If only the rootstock survives on some of them you should try grafting to it. Enjoyed seeing your video.

Cory

Saw your video. You will have much more luck building a hard removable shelter I showed above and use a citrus heating candle for each tree. They last several days and are cheap. Keep the tree short bush low to the ground so they are easy to protect My trees are outside in ground with a removable solid cover and they did well with a light bulb in-7F temps one night.. We average a 0-F or below 33% of the winters but have gone down to -20 or below numerous times in the past 150 years

Jenny, that’s very useful, understand how the hardiness zones are calculated. Since my area has hot humid summers, I’m gonna guess it’s probably a lot like Virginia or the Carolinas? Crazy pest and mold problems here, but when things grow they grow like crazy. The weeds in the summer are like nothing I’ve ever seen.

Yuzu was the first citrus people recommended for this area. Mikan (mandarins) were recommended too. The resprouting is kind of neat, and at least before the moles showed up, they had very extensive root systems, which should help with regrowth. I’m not expecting much or any fruit though, as there’s no leaves to support them, and all has to be regrown in one season. Not sure how useful that is.

Thanks Cory. The last time I tried grafting I cut my thumb open in the grafts never made it anyway!

Pon, I agree with you, it’s nice to use the passive heat systems. I’m still interested to experiment with some ideas. The typhoons really make it tricky here though, as things being blown away can be a bit dangerous. I don’t miss low temperatures like that anymore. I would have no problem moving to an even warmer area that I’m in now.

theniceguy - The Japanese islands are running right within the same latitude range as southern Virginia and North Carolina, so there would be a similar number of hours of day/night through the seasons. And yes, it is hot and humid, particularly along the coast. You do see a number of Japanese native plants here in the Mid-Atlantic states in any case (e.g., the kurume azaleas).

The nice guy

How are you doing this year. Did your container citrus do a lot better

Steve

Trying to grow my lemons from scratch here in zone 6

The nice guy

Are you still with us.

Steve

I ama i had to get new phone