Here’s a source for seeds from people who have already done a lot of the first steps…
Oooh, NICE! I’ve got to check that source out.
I’ve got a Yuzu that has survived two winters unprotected here in Michigan 6b. The first winter it died back but regrew from the roots in the spring. Last winter it stayed green all winter and is now putting on new growth.
I was also pessimistic…the yuzu in zone 6, great!
Does it remain to know how cold the temperature has fallen at home?
I think seedling yuzu is a good option, because it reproduces faithfully, and if every 15 years it freezes and restarts the foot it is already good.
My Yuzu died back the first winter when it got down to about 0F but came back in the spring. Last winter was more mild but briefly dipped down to around 5F. It stayed green all winter even with all the freeze thaw cycles. It is still only about 2 feet tall now but it’s getting lots of sun and water this year. I bought it from a nursery in Oregon. https://onegreenworld.com/
0°F for a youg plant !
if at 5°F it stay green, it’s really awesome
Justin, I just want to let you know that it’s all your fault I have 100 citrandarin seeds on their way to my house right now.
Haha. Well I have 3 banana plants, banana seeds, and a broadfork all on the way thanks to you!
Exxxxxcellent! (Steeples fingers.)
We may be an expensive influence on each other.
Luckily I don’t live in the usa, otherwise I would bring seeds from this establishment too…
citrus seeds are quite fragile, if they dry it’s difficult to germinate them. So sow as soon as you receive.
Yeah. That’s what the seller says, too! He says he sends the seeds moist, never having been dried out, and recommends sowing immediately upon receiving them, which reassured me that he knows exactly what he’s doing.
Growing citrus outdoors in our zone 7-8 climate is high on my wish list. My strategy has been to collect known hardy cultivars and grow them in a heated greenhouse until I can (1) get fruit and (2) get scion wood to trial growing those cultivars outdoors grafted on Poncirus.
As others have mentioned, it makes a lot of sense for me to take as starting point some of the results of all the awesome work on Citrus that’s been done already. If I have some cultivars that can survive outdoors in a protected spot grafted on Poncirus, I’d like to eventually try and sow seedlings from open crosses between them.
The cultivars I’m working from at the moment:
Citrus cavaleriei
Citrange Rusk
Citrus fortunella ‘Rafael’
Eremorange (Citrus sinensis x glauca)
N1 Tri Voss (Poncirus x ichang)
Citrus cavaleriei x Poncirus x Satsuma (I believe this is synonymous to +Citroponcirus ‘Prague’)
Another citrus breeder to look out for is Bernhard Voß: Agrumi Voss - Frosthärte-Rangliste (site in German)
Cool we are 3 European here who working on citrus!
at this moment I pollinate everything by hand with crosses not necessarily noted.
but full of fruit form on yuzu, emerorange and sinensis x ichangensis…
Who’s the third one? We could help each other by sharing scion wood for a start, later possibly also seed from successful crosses (that part seems a few years down the line for me).
Do you have a user on fruitiers.org ? I’m planning on exchanging scions from more cold hardy cultivars next winter. (If you search for ‘malterod’ you should find my user there)
Arthur begin.
yes would be cool to exchange, I have a neighbor who has a lot of hardy citrus too.
your list is great… ! no I didn’t make a list on the fruit part… but I have hundreds of things…
I also have a neighbor who has an old french fruit nursery… so potentially we have a lot of things to 3 friends.
for rustic citrus I bought here. https://agrumilenzi.it/fr/shop-2/
varieties are good but not hardy rootstocks. It does not matter I keep out of frost and use it to take soon my grafts that I would like to put on poncirus that I sowed for 2 years but that do not grow fast…
My plan is to direct sow my citrandarin seeds into every favorable microclimate I can think of, water them through the summer, give them lots of mulch year-round, and otherwise ignore them. If nothing survives, I’ll know citrus outside probably isn’t going to work. I suspect I’ll get plenty of survivors, though.
Tough Citrus said X639 citrandarin is cold hardy to 0 degrees (presumably Fahrenheit), and my climate rarely goes below 7 – and even then, it’s only in the 7-10 degree range for a few hours on the coldest night (maybe two or three nights) of the year. So I expect a lot of them to be fine. Especially with a lot of mulch.
If you want to do like the guy in Pennsylvania who planted 20,000 seeds, it wouldn’t be so hard to do it. There are sources of citrus rootstock seeds where you can buy them by the pound. Most citrus rootstocks produce nucellar seeds, meaning they’re clones of the mother, but most produce some zygotic seeds. That number is usually between 5 and 10 percent (citrus rootstock literature will list a number for each variety). Plant 10,000 and 500 to 1000 will be zygotic, and hopefully of those some will have the gene combination of hardiness from Poncirus and the flavor profile of an orange or mandarin.
The limiting factor for you will not be cold. But young citrus seedlings need regular watering, and are especially loved by slugs. They are also very greedy is need a very rich soil.
I do all the time my seedlings in pot for this, otherwise everything is destroyed very quickly by slugs
Rich soil is probably not a problem, since I need to deep mulch everything to keep in water anyway. And apparently soil minerals tend to be high in arid climates, since they don’t get leached out by all that much rain.
Regular watering is, yup, definitely going to be a big deal here! Sounds like I should probably treat them like bananas: put them in a shady spot where the branches can grow up to reach full sun if they want it.
I’m starting to think a thick groundcover layer will be a really, really good idea for all my perennials. I originally wondered if that might compete for water, but all the indications I’ve seen so far are that living groundcovers keep in more water than they drink.
Black medic is catching my eye this year as a very promising native groundcover. It’s pleasant to walk on, doesn’t mind being walked on, edible, and spreads quickly. It’s also highly drought tolerant (which is why it thrives without irrigation here).
I’ve decided hoary cress doesn’t work as a groundcover in garden beds, because it’s way too good at spreading and way too allelopathic. But I wouldn’t mind having it in my lawn.
If you don’t already have black medic be careful. I have been fighting it in my yard and landscape for a few years now. It is very aggressive here. Reseeds everywhere.
Strangely it has stayed in the front yard and out of the back yard where I grow most of my crop plants.
I grow sunshine mimosa (Mimosa strigillosa) as a ground cover. It has been way more cold hardy than what most sources claim.
I also use frog fruit, horse herb, dollar weed, and dichondra. I like strawberry plants too.