Plant it outside. It will grow much better

Are you sure that is a citrangequat? All the ones I have seen don’t have the trifoliate leaf pattern. Do you mean a citrange/trifoliate hybrid like C-35 or Carrizo?

No the $15 Woodlanders original nursery tag is still on it, Thomasville Citrangequat. I've read here that as they mature you get different leaf combos. I took Steves advise and planted it out. It's about 2" above surrounding soil with a very light mulch dusting to cover roots. I'll build a frame around it in Fall

It's hard to tell but its planted about 2" higher than surrounding soil. This is a 100 year old garden so true subsoil is a good 10 to 12 inches down

Very interesting guys. Always intriguing to learn about some of these cold hardy citrus varieties and your methods for growing them. Good luck!

Dave, explain why no winter sun? Are you saying this can take total darkness once dormant? I'm essentially re-planting this same younger tree in the same spot it survived in 2 years ago, using only one layer of plastic and an old window roof. It dropped no leaves and kind of did nothing but was fine all winter. On a hot spring day I took off roof window, blame beer and time on my hands, then we had last snow of year and it filled enclosure. It then took bark split which I cut way back and put tree in pot.

The pic shows an l d screen but I was using a old window for a roof, a totally dark roof would be easier, piece of plywood and then there would be no direct light ( I know its a $15 stinking Citrangequat but thats besides the point, not easy to get anything hardy here)

My winter enclosier

All shoots should be at equal height, one is way too tall. Do your tree a favor.

Anyone know if Citrus can take total darkness when dormant, or more likely how low of a light level can they go? When I had it out there last time it didn't grow one bit, which is OK during winter.

Total darkness for short periods of time is OK

I took persimmonbob's advice in May 2018 and removed the second shoot and pruned the top to encourage branching. What does it do? It sends out a new second major off the main stalk from way down below, and done nothing from the old top pruned main stalk.........makes no sense but sometimes they do what they want to do. At this point I'm going to just let it freestyle

Your tree will want to grow upright so don't prune it. It will fill out when it is ready. All trees do this until they reach a programed hight and then branch out, I have learned that my meiwa kumquats from seed will always shoot up from near the base of the trees.

Steve

No reason your tree needs to be in total darkness. Most good frost cloths and plastic sheets are transluscent or at least let in a small amount of light. Winter sun on leaves when the ground is frozen is a killer for nearly any marginal broad-leaf evergreen. It can be hard on the green twigs too.

I doubt the snow on your plant caused the bark split -- it could have been winter sun, or temps that were just too low, or the plant may have tried to come out of dormancy too early, then froze. I think a good transclucent enclosure with a bit of ventilation on warm days, plus Christmas lights on a Thermocube would suffice for your plant. At least until it's better established -- maybe 3 or 4 years.