Growing freeze hardy citrus

[EbS-P]

8 or 7 years ago on a whim I bought two lemons. It freezes here so they must be brought in. I have to admit I gave up on them and passed them to my father in a sorry state. But they are growing well. Bumper crop this year.

Anyway. Today my father brings home from the local plant garden store a freeze hardy orange.
The Flying Dragon orange. Sales pitch is that at least 1 tree it has been on the farm over 100 years.

Hardy Orange Tree 'Flying Dragon'

Unique, Cold Hardy Orange Grows Anywhere Why Hardy Orange Trees? The Hardy Orange Tree, also known as the Flying Dragon Trifoliate Orange Tree, is one of the most unique fruit varieties available. Its twisted stems are contorted in different directions with curved, claw-like thorns, giving the...

www.fast-growing-trees.com

Probably more of a novelty than an edible producer but the zest is amazing we were told.

 

[kborndale]

Flying dragon fruit is pretty much inedible. FD is usually used as rootstock. You graft edible citrus onto it and it increases the cold hardiness of it.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

I don’t know your zone, @EbS-P , but you might want to look into Satsuma Mandarin Oranges. We’ve got one in our backyard that survived totally unprotected down to the teens (before we had even identified what kind of tree it was. That was our first winter in Texas, and the plants in the backyard were something of a mystery at that point.). They’re much hardier than lemons and limes (both of which we have lost here).

During the major freeze of 2021, our huge tree did lose all its branches, but we managed to save the trunk with lots of frost cloth and incandescent light bulbs. Our temperatures were down to 6 degrees and didn’t get out of the twenties for days. Nevertheless it did survive with that protection, and it’s growing back.

We had two other much younger satsumas at the time (they tend to bear in alternate years, so we wanted to have more than one). We lost one completely when we couldn’t keep a lightbulb under its shelter. The other one survived very well, but had setbacks later including being entirely uprooted by a skunk and losing most of its roots. It’s slowly coming back to health in a pot on my back deck. We’re going to have to decide if we plan to return it to the ground this fall or if we’ll put any future citrus in big pots.

I think Satsumas are supposed to be the most cold hardy of the citrus family except possibly kumquats. I imagine they could do well in pots for your dad if he manages lemons.

I’m going to see if I can find where I posted some pictures of the tree on the garden thread, and I’ll try to edit in a link.

Posts 303 and 315 on the 2020 garden thread have pictures of just a section of the tree. It used to be 18 feet in diameter, which was why it was so hard to cover in 2021.

2020 Garden Thread

Some glass gem corn that I grew this year. I will save the seeds once they dry out. We used the stalks for decoration:

www.hearth.com

 

[EbS-P]

I will have to check it out. We are done 8a but 3 miles from the ocean. We get occasional nights down to the low teens. But not for a few years.

 

[kborndale]

If your looking for a cold hardy lemon, Harvey lemon trees can handle down to the upper teens. If planted on the south side of the house and with a little protection on the coldest nights it can handle down to the low teens.

 

[bigealta]

 

[bigealta]

Wow, I would love to try that here in NJ. 1 mile from Ocean and between 2 rivers so we are more temperate than most of our zone. Don't think we've been below 15F for years. Usually not much below low 20's in winter.