It started with this Page mandarin, in 2009, now about 12 varieties later, year 2019. Total about 30 Tree’s.

Pruned this summer/ repot.

Bob, I fell in love with citrus when I went to visit my sister in law in California. Her neighbors had a beautiful orange tree in front of their house. When I went back home I decide to go hint for one. Unfortunately at that time, the only available var are calamondin and meyer lemon.

I've always loved to eat citrus fruit, and I love sweet and tart flavors in general.

But it was Mike, as in Meyer Mike, who told me that I could, and should, try growing citrus in containers!

Josh

Growing uncommon edibles in my area has been an interest of mine for many years. I didn't know anything about citrus, but one day I saw a little citrus tree for sale and decided to give it a try. I've always liked sour tasting things, so when I discovered calamondins it was a perfect match. The citrus bug bit me, and I started adding more citrus over the years. It's been a great learning experience, and places like this forum have been such a great resource. There's a great group of helpful and kind people here, and I appreciate everyone sharing their growing advice/experiences.

Forums are hard to maintain if the members don’t help each other’s. What also important is the help of old timers with a lot of knowledge. I consider myself a newbie here with only 3 years. Mike, Steve and a few others are way longer on this forum. Interesting stuff is good reading and make forums grow, just look what happens in the last couple of years, “ decent growth”, members starting to understand the importance of sticking together.

I bought some nagami fruit at the grocery store and thought I could grow in pots a tree that produced small fruits. A little research led me to grow the meiwa. I have now 1 Meiwa grafted on to kuharskie citrange. 4 seed grown meiwa trees from fruit from my grafted meiw, 1 seed grown Fukushu tree and a grafted fukushu on C35 from a bud off my seedling fukushu. 1 grafted New Zealand lemonade on C35. and 2 home grafted NZL on US897 and on Seville sour.. 1 valentine pomelo on US897.

Fukushu seedling & grafted Meiwa were gifts from Cory

NZL gift from pip

Valentine pomello gift from Tom.

All trees are sill alive and growing with the grafted Meiwa, seed grown Fukushu, Valentine Pomello, and the origional NZL are outside in ground under glass.

Steve, I always wondered where do you find US897 stock/seeds, and what kind of fruit would it produce on its own?

Pip gave Tom and myself the seeds for the US897. We all planted seeds. Tom and Pips seeds did not grow so I sent 6 seedlings to Tom and 12 seedlings to pip. A year later Tom sent me a Valentine pomelo on one of those a US897. Tom sent me C35 seeds about the time I got the US897 seeds. Fruit? I got one US897 tree I am growing for an outdoor Christmas tree. since It will handle 10F with no physical damage and I'll bring it in after.

I grew up in Florida with citrus all around, but I did not like oranges back then. I'm still not a huge fan of orange juice, but I love a good orange. I never thought it was possible to grow citrus up north, but about 8 years ago, a friend gave me some meyer lemons from a tree she had. It is a very mature tree and when I saw it, I was floored. It was loaded with lemons! I then set on a mission to get one. I went to a local nursery and all they had left was a pathetic lime tree that they had on sale for like 50% off. I bought it and the rest is history. That tree is now huge. Yes, it is a rooted cutting from RB Farms, but has so many limes (persian) this year they are falling off the tree. I don't know what to do with so many of them! After that, I ordered a meyer (Alexander). The rest is history. I now have a jungle! Alexander is currently in full bloom and has many ripe lemons too...in fact, all my lemon trees are loaded with lemons. The ST has a branch with so many lemons that it hits the floor. I need to get creative lol! I have bowls of lemons sitting on my counter, and that does not include the key limes, oranges, and mandarins. The grapefruits are not ready yet. When I walk in my house, I smell the citrus blossoms from the door. It brings me joy!

Love to hear all these stories!

Many decades ago, I spent a summer in Phoenix working an internship and also my aunt and uncle lived there. I began to notice all the citrus around. My aunt and uncle had trees and we had a great time picking grapefruit and squeezing them. What a treat! Nothing like fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice! Once I moved to where I am now and got a house with a garage, wintering over citrus became a bit easier (in the garage).

I started with my satsuma and loved the fruit so much I've 'branched out' to four more mandarin varieties, key lime, lemons, Oroblanco, and just for laughs some of the hardier citrus such as US852 citrandarin, citrumelo, Kiraji, and Clem-Yuzu hybrid. The Citrandarin lived for a number of years outdoors, but died over the vortex years. I'm trying it again in a more protected location. No big deal if it croaks, although I'm thinking it would make a decent rootstock (that's what it was originally bred for).

Here is a pic of Seth, the Persian lime.

Nice story Laura, even more interesting your being able to harvest such a big variety, another success story.

My ST

Bob, which is your favorite mandarin so far? Here are a few more pics of my kitchen and sunroom area.

Laura, will try the Gold Series maybe tomorrow, having to tried the Yosemite yet, they are big and rather flat in shape. Shasta, also big, Tahoe also big. Tried these,so far just so-so , tried a few weeks a go. They lack super taste.

Maybe I don’t know how to test these fruits. My Dreamnavel has been really good. Had to regraft a Cara Cara navel, nothing here.

It’s nice hearing your stories about what got you started. I suppose for me growing up we always had citrus trees in the backyard. I remember as a kid being able to pick fresh oranges off the tree and loving it. with my experience it was kind of weird to me when I meet people who have never picked fresh fruit off a tree.

As an adult I decided To keep that tradition going and put a couple trees in the backyard. My wife and I bought a place with a big navel orange and we put in a key lime, satsuma mandarin and a blood orange. (As well as many other fruit trees and bushes)

Laura, looking pretty good, your care really are paying of. More and more that‘s theeeee idea.

These kind of pictures from members getting better And more often. Curious what next fall the pictures looks like.

Laura, You have to tell your little one, that one of your tree’s is hers has her name on it and have “her” take care of the tree, sort of.

Josh, I forgot about that and boy I know you just love your trees)

I remember going shopping to a greenhouse with my mom when I was about 12 and smelling the fragrance from lots of trees they were selling near by. My mom remembered and bought me one in bloom. It was an orange tree. It grew near my bedside all winter long and I fell in love with it. I lost it before a years end because I had no idea on how trees worked in containers until I joined the forums years ago loosing many more trees before that. I never stopped having a passion for them especially after growing them successfully finally. Now my next obsession are orchids lol

Laura it seems like you have more lights than usual!! They are doing a great job. Beautiful!!! I like how they light up your leaves and they almost look translucent. Nice. Laura, in your post about the ST, is that the one with that cool looking trunk? It almost looks like it could be a cool looking Bonsai.

Mike

Yes, indeed, Mike! You're the one who started it all! hahaha

Incidentally, I just tried my first Moro of the season this afternoon. Still more tart and acidic than sweet, so I'll let them go longer. I think they'll get better color, too. This is a great year for citrus....about 20 fruit on each plant. My Meyer lemons still have a couple weeks to go, then it'll be lemonade and cocktails galore!

Nice orange Josh! Mine do not color up as much, but still taste good. Enjoy!

Mike, I just saw hour post...the lights are are about the same this year. I think. The ST is in the second pic but all that is visible is the branch with lemons that touches the floor. I’m overwhelmed with lemons and limes right now. I need to make lemonade!

Shopping at Walmart, pickup 2 bags of small mandarins $2.67. Eat a couple, they were sour still, left the bags in the garage for 2 weeks, now they were much better.

it’s my understanding that citrus taste much better when kept at 42 or below for a couple of weeks, seems to work.

Amy had a similar experience with her mandarins, left it on the counter for a few days and it change the texture for the better.

Laura, how about makin popsicles: Lemon/Mango, not just lemon. Or citremello or .........lemon cello liquor. Walmart/Sams sells Palini liquor to try it out . Google pull up tons of ways to make your own. Seems easy enough, don’t you grow some Italian lemons already.

I love citrus....always LOVED fresh squeezed oranges. I live in Southeast Texas so there are lots of citrus in the ground in my area. It's always a bummer to see the Satsuma trees (they seem to the the citrus of choice here) loaded with fruit this time of year and no one using them. I have asked and been given permission to use some and usually pick and juice them. It's great to have frozen orange juice on hand to mix into lemonade. The flavor is great, uses less sugar, and adds color. Citrus are great landscaping trees too since they are evergreen and they give back! Hats off to the calamondin in that respect. Prettiest tree in my yard.

Bob I too fell in love with Citrus visiting someone in California! I was visiting someone in Sacramento and they were making me cocktails with fresh citrus from the backyard which I thought was so cool

We just bought and planted in pots four more citrus trees (Meyer & Eureka Lemon, key lime and a mandarin). We are considering moving full time into our vacation home (2 hours up the coast in Cambria) when our son goes off to college in 7 years and realize we must have citrus there or we just can't move. We will let the trees grow in pots in our current home and then carefully replant them once we have a fenced area to protect them from the deer.

I'm originally from SoCal so when I went up to WA I wanted to grow citrus - only people don't grow citrus outside here. But I did some research, and apparently it was theoretically possible. People were growing special hardy varieties of citrus in zone 8 in the Southeast. But that was much further south in latitude than WA. I had read a few vague anecdotal reports of citrus sometimes surviving in WA's Sound area.

Well, two and a half years later I've proved that it's possible for certain rare hardier varieties to survive.

I'm also growing rare hardy gardenia hybrids outside, and apparently cork oak behaves as an evergreen through the winters here. I figure whatever can grow in the South, in say South Carolina, can also grow here. And there are a lot of gardeners in South Carolina pushing the boundaries are growing things that were commonly thought only possible to grow in Florida.

The location here is, believe it or not, just a tiny bit further north than Quebec City, Canada. You have to pull out a map to believe it. But the West Coast doesn't get the same temperature drops as the East Coast.

Last Winter was bad though, we got 16-18 inches of snow that fell in early February. But we can also have some very mild winters sometimes. The year before that (2017-2019) was so mild and warm there were big camellia bushes in bloom on New Years Eve! I don't think they can even grow camellias outside in places like Pennsylvania, on the East Coast.

Do any of you make marmalade out of some of your excess citrus, using slices of the rind as the pectin source?

I make marmalade with lemons, oranges, kumquats.

Josh

What got me started in citrus. It was a trip to south Florida and we drove by a grove. We stopped and smelled the flowers, crushed up a leaf. It was astonishing that a plant could smell so perfect. I’ve been hooked ever since.