Dear citroholics,

as some of you may know I try to push the citrus border as north as possible. For those poncirus and ichangensis hybrids which are not hardy enough to grow unprotected I ´ve got some special places near to my south an west orientated housewalls. The advantage after being established is remarkable in comparisson to potted cultivation as there is no limitation of rootgrow.

Below pls. find as an example my trellis with 5 Hybrids (from the left TRifolis, Rusk Citrange, Ichangensis, Hybrid US 852 and Morton Citrange).




Status May 2003




Status May 2005




actual view from November 2007

The Ichangensis I cuted due to it´s enormous grow with thorns up to 10 cm, it seems to be near to the original form. After this cutting I grafted 5 different Ichangensis hybrids onto it in order to test hardiness under identical conditions.

This is only an idea to those of you, who belived their Hardinesszone is to low for growing these semihardy Citrus.

Best regards

Wow! Very impressive!

Excellent model of Microclimate for citruses Andy!

Excellent Job!

Wow! I believe Hamburg is in our USDA Zone 7 (-13 to-12C or 0 to 10F)- I am impressed! Sehr Gut!

Thank you for the up date. Your trees are doing exceptional. I really appreciate you sharing this with us. Keep up the good work.

BTW my Swingle Citrumelo is also doing well. Unfortunately it did not keep a fruit this season. But I do hope it will be full of blossoms next year.

According to my experiences the hardiest poncirus Hybrid so far.

here you can see a photo taken last weekend...



and one from December 1999



second best ond only additional citrus which survived since 1999 is the Poncirus X c. reticulata Changsha (also Hybrid US-852)


see photo from last weekend



and from August 1999



All other (e.g. carizzo, yuzu, various ichangensis hybrids, sacaton, Rusk, Rustic, ect.) failed under same conditions.

Testing candidates for the near future are Hamlin X Flying Dragon and Poncirus X Satsuma. Both both came form the UC, Riverside and in between they are old enough to be planted. Especially the Poncirus X Satsuma did well the last 2 Years planted near to my south facing wall. Tough leaves and nearly no damage on the wood. May be a hardy citrus with a short growing periode and edible fruits.

Here also a picture from september 07 ...



So that should be enough by know. More next season...

Bye

I am glad you shared these photos-this is exciting to see the rewards of living in zone denial.Please keep us abreast on their performance- this can help encourage others who are supposedly too far north to grow any citrus to experiment.

Thanks Andy. Interesting post.

Ned

You are doing an excellent job on those citrus Andy! I really like the trellised look. I may have to try that myself with some navel oranges or somthing that is a little tender for my area. Thanks for the post!

Andy, good work! I am trying similar things though I do not get as cold as you.
Our average High and low temps for January 4 is High of 6C and a low of 0.
(44 / 32 F)

I visited our local Citrus Guru 2 days ago on Vancouver Island. He has around 40 varieties. He has them growing in a greenhouse attached to his house, a cold frame with maybe 16 to 20 trees in the ground and up to 2.5 metres in height. He also has numerous hardy varieties against a west facing wall with a glass overhang - including Meyer lemons. Some varieties of Lemons should do well for you if you can protect the fruit from freezing. I saw your Swingle fruit in your other post - congratulations!

Greg