I had the opportunity to visit a contact of GregN in Canada. We went to Victoria, BC, the beautiful city in Vancouver Island. On our way there, we stopped by to pick up the plants of GregN from Bob Duncan, who has been collecting plenty of citruses. Bob Duncan is in Sidney, and that would be the first exit on the right from Hiway 17 when you get off from the freeway that connects directly to the Swartz Bay BC ferries.

Bob Duncan has many fruit trees growing in his yard, many of his citruses has fruited for him, and he doesn't spend anything at all on gas heating. He basically uses cold frames and Christmas lights. Anyway, being surrounded by water in about 270 degrees, you are bufferred from the cold northern temperature, so temperature seldom ever goes below 26 deg F in Sidney, BC. Major problem though are the rains and often too much of it. So cold frames and greenhouses make sense, without the heating bills to keep out the rain and increase temperature to produce quality fruits.

Here's the lean-to glass greenhouse of Bob Duncan where he keeps his prized tasting citruses. Bob is really fond of Meyer lemons, he can't seem to have enough of it. I think Meyer Lemons is the most number of citruses planted in ground. Here's the details of his greenhouse:


By joereal at 2007-08-24


By joereal at 2007-08-24


By joereal at 2007-08-24

And here's the cold frame house that is only heated by Christmas lights when it gets really cold:


By joereal at 2007-08-24


By joereal at 2007-08-24

Bob has many unusual citruses that I know does not exist in the UCR germplasm, with names that I just heard the first time, but I could be wrong also, as those may just be synonyms of the same cultivar that UCR have. Too bad, I can't bring any budwood into California!

Other pics from his yard can be found in the other forum topics, in the non-citrus fruit section.

This article was published in The Globe and Mail newspaper (May 2007) and was written by Sid Tafler :

VICTORIA -- When Bob Duncan describes his navel oranges, you wonder if he’ll run out of adjectives: unbelievable, sweet, juicy, flavourful, refreshing.
As any backyard gardener knows, the best food comes from your own soil. But in Canada, that food tends to be lettuce and carrots, not oranges, mandarins and grapefruit.
Mr. Duncan and his wife Verna grow more than 50 varieties of citrus trees as well as 20 to 30 other sub-tropical fruits, such as dates, olives, pomegranates and guavas on their small farm near Sidney, B.C.
For some people, the Duncans’ annual harvest of 200 to 300 pounds of B.C.-grown citrus provides proof positive that climate change is happening sooner rather than later in Canada.
Climate change forecasts prepared by scientists at the Royal B.C. Museum indicate citrus fruits might be grown on a commercial scale in southwestern B.C. in 70 years.
But the Duncans planted their first citrus trees in 1991, just two years
after the last cold snap they experienced on the Saanich Peninsula.
Some of their trees are planted outside against south-facing walls, which act as heat traps. Others, particularly those that need extra warmth to become sweet as they ripen, are grown in unheated greenhouses.
Mr. Duncan, an entomologist at the federal Pacific Forestry Centre in Victoria, keeps careful tabs on the weather and on the tolerance for his sub-tropical fruit trees for cold temperatures.
“When you’re living on the edge, working with plant material that doesn’t have a history of being grown here, you have to pay attention.”
The last sustained cold front in the area lasted for 16 days in the late winter of 1989, with temperatures ranging between minus 5 and minus 12 every night. In previous decades, Mr. Duncan said, it was the kind of weather system Greater Victoria could expect every four or five years--but it hasn’t happened since.
That’s a good thing for the Duncans and their citrus crops. They don’t believe they could grow their exotic fruits if the deep freezes of the past were still recurring.
Since that cold spell of 18 years ago, temperatures have been consistently above average, with a “slight reversal” this past tough winter, when the thermometer dipped to minus 10.5 degrees one night in November, damaging some of the foliage on the citrus trees and freezing some fruits.
Although their oranges are meant for their own breakfast table rather than the supermarkets in Victoria, Mr. Duncan feels the peninsula could support a few citrus growers supplying local specialty markets.
Besides enjoying fresh-picked fruit that most Canadians only eat after they’re shipped for thousands of miles, growing your own lemons and grapefruits has another advantage: you don’t need a cold storage room to keep them, as they retain their quality and ripeness on the tree for up to a year.
And then there’s the reaction of visitors: “People who visit our orchard are amazed. It’s beyond what they can imagine.”