I have a spot in my garden that is dying for an ornamental citrus. I am hoping for an ultimate height around 15', but am willing to prune. For this location I am not as concerned about fruit quality, although the fruit certainly adds to the attractiveness of any citrus tree. In your opinion, what is the most attractive tree that would be able to reach this height? Thanks.

-Brett

In my opinion the Citrus myrtifolia (Chinotto) is one of the best looking trees with the tightly clustered leaves. Variegated just adds to the appearance.

I love the burnished red look of the blood orange fruit hanging on trees (they get the color pretty late and close to picking time). But, given your climate, I would guess that only Moro would ripen or color up enough. If you do not mind the blood orange fruit not ripening properly in your climate, I would suggest a blood orange tree. Moros are extremely vigorous even on a dwarfing rootstock for me and they color up very nicely even if they do not sweeten up.
The other choice would be a Yosemite Gold or Gold Nugget mandarin - both have summer fruits and would look like a novelty after all the winter mandarins have been harvested.

Thanks for the suggestions. Although, the Chinotto is a great looking tree I am not sure it is vigorous enough to reach 10-15'H in a relatively short amount of time. I am currently favoring Moro blood orange, Seville sour orange or oroblanco grapefruit/pomelo. All of these are pretty vigorous trees that have fruit that will likely ripen even though they will not receive a full day of sun (probably half a day). Any other suggestions?

-Brett

Calamondin is the suggestion from the nursery we shop. Not good off the tree she said.

Randy

Definitely voting for the Oro Blanco or a Melogold. They are both really lovely specimen trees. All their blossoms are at the ends of their branches, so when they're in bloom, they look like they're covered with popcorn. And then the fruit will all set, and cause the branches to drop in a very lovely way. I will also add that I saw the absolutely most gorgeous sweet lemon tree at Clausen's Nursery in Vista, Calif. It was old, maybe 10 + years. It was so perfect it looked fake. It was at least 15' tall, perfectly symetrical and it was perfectly covered in clusters of the most gorgeous bright yellow round lemons with inverted little button point ends that the lemons also looked fake! It probably hasn't had a ton of attention, as the folks there are pretty busy growing a gazillion citrus, yet it was just the most perfect citrus tree I've ever seen. Next time I'm there, I'll snap some pics of it. I thought that if I had a spot in my front yard to grow one of these, I'd do it just for the ornamental qualities. I ate one of the lemons and wasn't impressed. I think the term "insipid" is probably the correct term. It was a lemon that wasn't at all acidic. Kind of reminded me of really watered down lemonade. But the tree, oh my gosh. It was breathtaking. Not sure what the actual variety name was, Ray just called it a "sweet lemon". I can find out, though, if you're interested.

Calamondin is the suggestion from the nursery we shop. Not good off the tree she said.

Whoever told you that was so wrong. Calamondins are one of the most versatile of all citrus. We use them for marmalade, in chicken dishes, as a flavoring in gin and tonics. The last two weekends we bought some nice stone crab claws in Cedar Key and made a wonderful butter and calmondin sauce. They were fantastic!

She meant and I meant eating off the tree. She did mention cooking and cocktails. She said they stood around the tree daring people to bit into one.

Pretty tree though.

Randy

I am very partial to the smaller leaves and compact size of my kishu mini mandarin. It's even more beautiful in full bloom. Check out some pictures online. You won't be disappointed.