It's definitely possible! I remember just over 25 years ago traveling down to Atlanta in June for work and wondering what the heck the hot pink flowering shrubs and trees were prolifically planted all up and down the various "Peach-" named streets. lol :-P Later found out they were crape myrtles, something that was rare up here in SE PA except for up against a few old estate homesteads and planted as espaliers at a couple arboretums. Now with some hybridization and zone creep, they are almost as prolific around here as they were there, to the point of being full-sized residential trees. I haven't seen them used as hedgerows here though and fortunately I haven't seen any "crape murder" pruning done on them either. ;-)

Although still not ruling out the potential, the temps have not "officially" gone below 0F here since 1994.

Greenhouse in the Snow

Watch some of the Video,s and you,l see.

Bob, for me, one could only wish.

It seems that I am in the part of the country where below temperatures seems to be very common, the above normal depending on the Jet Stream. Mostly below normal with a few above normals. S Last winter we dipped to Artic levels with below 0 foR days, ACTUAL TEMPS, then spring like in February the Artic again come March. II lost hundreds of perennials.

Thing is that if we loose the dromancy period on most of our plants, that could spell trouble. Not sure if I am willing to trade that for being able to plant in ground citrus.

"Greenhouse in the snow" is the way to go for me.

Mike

I am certainly impressed by the growing number of northerners, guys and gals, who have a passion for growing citrus and other tropicals in a cold climate. I have also taken notice that we have a lot of us gals participating in these kinds of forums. Our underground gh is the only way for me to plant in ground citrus, and where I keep most of the container trees through the winter. . We do need supplemental heat and light in the winter during and on the coldest, darkest days since I am in zone 4, but we already had a wood furnace to heat the house so we opened a connecting wall from the wood room into the gh and added some duct work, vents etc to heat gh. Dave, 3 years ago that video "Greenhouse in the Snow" is what inspired me to take a leap with growing citrus in our northern climate. I came across the video on YouTube during a long, hard, cold dreary winter. I watched a number of videos on this. Over and over. I knew then that I wanted to turn our underground root cellar into a simple tropical paradise. Lol. With the husbands approval and help of course. July was the one year anniversary of when I planted the first citrus trees, Satsumas and a Valencia orange, down in the ground before the gh was finished. Lol. I was not sure at the time if they would survive the winter, it was and is a continuous trial of faith and hope, but they did and are flourishing. The Satsumas bloomed and set a ton of fruitlets which should be ripe around late fall, early winter. Hoping to make a few tweeks and improvements down the road, but so far it works for us being small and simple.

Diehard professionals with deep pockets only apply and a high knowledge of large greenhouse tech. Some of the guys on this forum are going in the right direction.

Don't forget age, i don't need to apply, i'll stay with my sh.....!

Jinny you "is " my hero to, you "guys", sorry " gals" are just amazing!!!!.

Jenny, Crape Myrtles grow like weeds down here LOL! Seems like every house has one but ours lol.

The biggest problem in this country, people here do not want to pay premium prices like they do in Japan. We are trained by Walmart and the likes.

You could start with a nitch market, I think I did not spell nitch right.

Most of the people with deep pockets have gray hair and the younger ones are not trained hard labor. They are good in the gift of gab section. it pays better.

LOL Kelley- that's like all the eucalyptus trees that I saw planted around San Francisco. Of course now there are major regrets about that!

Agree with the sentiment Bob although "orangeries" have been around for a long time - notably among the wealthy. Right outside of Philly is Longwood Gardens (the duPont estate) that grows all sorts of tropicals in what was an orangery -

https://longwoodgardens.org/blog/2013-12-23/gifts-gardens-fruit-tradition

Nowadays - https://longwoodgardens.org/gardens/orangery

Satsuma inside a cold frame

Olympia, WA

You can see a little blossom on the top. It's survived through one Winter.

The frame is enclosed in transparent vinyl sheeting, and opened up beginning in early April, because there are some days that can start really warming up and it will get very hot inside the frame on a sunny day due to the greenhouse effect, even though the majority of the time it is still pretty cold outside in April and May here. It doesn't really start growing in Spring, but I believe the warmth inside starts preparing it for rapid growth beginning in late May, when outside temperatures finally start consistently warming up.

Satsuma has more cold hardiness than most other common citrus varieties, so I'll probably be able to eventually remove the cold frame after a few years, when the Satsuma gets a little bigger and has a chance of surviving on its own. There are some water containers in there for passive heat release during the nights.

One of the secrets is keeping it consistently watered in the Summer, because it will need to put on all the growth it can during the short growing season to be able to recover from the cold and be ready for the next Winter, and the warm part of the year is pretty dry here.

As far North as the location is, the temperatures in the Winter don't drop too low (it's zone 8a) because of the prevailing winds blowing in from the ocean and all the condensation of rain during the Winter. I've also read the overcast skies reflect infrared heat energy back to the ground at night. Because of the cooler waters circulating from the North, the Pacific also doesn't have intense storms like the East coast that can pull in freezing cold air from the Arctic. It all ultimately comes down to the rotation of the Earth. If the Earth spun the other way the weather patterns would be reversed.

Someone in another thread (on another forum) mentioned they had a Mandarinquat growing outside unprotected in their backyard in Seattle.

7 year old Yuzu tree in Vancouver BC, about 8 feet tall and bears over 200 lemon-like fruits yearly

source: http://www.tropic.ca/citrus/

Yuzu can survive zone 8a well but is unlikely to survive in zone 7.

Citrus taxonomists and geneticists believe it originally descended from hybridization between C. ichangensis and sour mandarin. It's still quite popular in Japan for a number of culinary uses, even though it has a lot of seeds and not much juice.

Here are mandarins growing in Japan. You can see snow still remaining in certain places on the ground in this video, so obviously this area is subject to some light frost.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rLbAmlLui8

I don't know what type of mandarins these are but I might guess King mandarin or possibly Kunenbo (one of the parents and original predecessor of the Satsuma variety).

Many Japanese types (most of which you have probably never heard of) have more cold hardiness than conventional varieties because historically citrus came to Europe by way through India.

There are also cold hardy citrus species native to Taiwan, which has a warm subtropical climate most of the time, but every 40 years or so can have an intense storm that will bring in cold temperatures and freeze any citrus that isn't hardy to the ground, so these species had to be adapted to be able to survive.

For those in Georgia, a soon to be released variety is "Grand Frost lemon".

https://research.uga.edu/gateway/uga-citrus-cultivars-licensed-first-time/

It's similar to a lemon but not a true lemon. It's an irradiated seedless version of a variety from China called "Shangyuan" (there are several different spellings) and it's the same word for Chinese citron, but is completely unrelated to the common Chinese citron, which isn't cold hardy at all.

Genetic analysis has shown this cultivar (sometimes referred to as "Ichang lemon") to be a hybrid between C. maxima and C. ichangensis.

If you look in another thread there's a woman who claimed there's a tree "loaded with lemons" in zone 8a/7b Fayetteville, North Carolina.

[https://www.houzz.com/discussions/can-you-grow-citrus-in-north-carolina-dsvw-vd~1816729[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/can-you-grow-citrus-in-north-carolina-dsvw-vd~1816729)