Need advise on 4....

[luak]

I have 4 seedlings tree's that i know nothing about and like to know if there are better ones to grow ( limited space!!)
Variegated Sour Orange, Miyagawa, Juanita and Chanshou. Help!!!

[Citradia]

From what I've read, the sour orange and Juanita tangerine will need cold protection in zone 7. I learned somewhere on this forum that the original Juanita in SC finally froze to death. Seedlings will need to grow tall before they fruit, so in cold climates will do better grafted on FD to keep them short and easier to cover.

[Laaz]

Juanita is actually a Ponkan. Zone 7 is pushing it for anything but trifoliata & it's hybrids.

[Tom]

I bought a Juanita potted plant from Stan over a year ago. He told me the original 'mother' tree died a winter or two ago, the same winter that Juanita died. Stan said the mother tree had grown too big to protect and it's location had temps below freezing for 3 continuous days . It's a seedy variety and I keep hearing that it grows very vertical. I nipped the top out of mine hoping to encourage it to bush out. Maybe it was Millet that encouraged me to nip it. I'm pretty sure that Millet had a Juanita a while back and he said it was an easy keeper. No doubt it will need protecting while still young.  I had about 5 fruit this year and they all tasted good to me. There are several guesses about what the original fruit was that contained the original seed. I've heard Ponkan and I think I heard Dancy. Mine is too young to be truly definitive but to me it was a good balance of sweet and acid that I think many people would like. I hope it will become sweeter as it grows older. I love the story of the Juanita tangerine. Tom

[mrtexas]

I bought a Juanita potted plant from Stan over a year ago. He told me the original 'mother' tree died a winter or two ago, the same winter that Juanita died. Stan said the mother tree had grown too big to protect and it's location had temps below freezing for 3 continuous days . It's a seedy variety and I keep hearing that it grows very vertical. I nipped the top out of mine hoping to encourage it to bush out. Maybe it was Millet that encouraged me to nip it. I'm pretty sure that Millet had a Juanita a while back and he said it was an easy keeper. No doubt it will need protecting while still young.  I had about 5 fruit this year and they all tasted good to me. There are several guesses about what the original fruit was that contained the original seed. I've heard Ponkan and I think I heard Dancy. Mine is too young to be truly definitive but to me it was a good balance of sweet and acid that I think many people would like. I hope it will become sweeter as it grows older. I love the story of the Juanita tangerine. Tom

I'd vote dancy. Dancy was a very popular grocery tangerine years ago. When is jaunita ready? Dancy isn't ready until Jan 1.

It  has been entertaining to me that the jaunita tangerine has been distributed around around so much as a super cold hardy edible legendary citrus variety by Stan. Especially as the original tree froze out eventually. Perhaps it is so but I doubt it. A neglected citrus tree that seldom if ever gets any fertilizer is much more cold hardy than one fertilized in September. And survived 15F freeze sounds great as well. But a 15F freeze of a few hours is much different than one lasting 24+ hours and preceded by a week of 80F. Might be micro climate as well. Planted next to a brick house would help survivability. So an unknown seedling tangerine not fertilized, neglected, near a warm house or warm micro climate that survived a freeze of a few hours might be a more cold hardy super variety but it also might have survived just by chance. Ponkan is supposed to be one of the less cold hardy mandarins.

Even a very large tree can be saved from freezing by banking dirt around the trunk or micro-sprinklers.

[Laaz]

Juanita is ready in Nov. The ones I had were identical to my Ponkan, even had a little neck.

[luak]

Laaz, the 4' little tree's are all from seeds that you send me. I am going to graft them this coming spring on to Flying Dragon.

[Millet]

I don't know if Juanita and Ponkan are the same tree or not.  The Juanita  tangerine tree I had grew pretty much straight up in a vertical manner.  i no longer have the Juanita tree.  I do  presently have a Ponkan tree (in-ground) and it's growth is also vertical and the fruit also have a neck.