Citrus > Citrus General Discussion
What to plant outside - 7B?
RVACitrus:
This is straight up copied from citrus.forumup.org, because I was trying to get some help and got a PM from Millet that things are shutting down. So, here it is again:
I've got a spot on the south side of my garage that gets decent sun. The garage is a 40x60 metal building. The well is also nearby, not sure if that matters. It's about a 30 foot gap between the garage and the treeline, so very sheltered.
Anyways, I'm SE of Richmond VA, zone 7B.
I'm looking to put a couple citrus in the ground, probably build some light frames so I can protect if needed.
Here's what I have at the moment:
Yuzu (seedling -15" tall)
Sudachi (seedling - 15" tall)
Nagami Kumquat (on PT or some trifoliate hybrid)
No-ID mandarin/Mandarinquat from HT (on some sort of PT/PT like)
Cara Cara on Carizzo
Washington Navel on C35
Washington Navel (Not sure rootstock -from Home Depot)
Meyer lemon on PT
Frost Owari Satsuma on Carizzo
Sanbokan (from cutting)
Panzarella Orange (from cutting)
Key Lime (from cutting)
What stuff has the best chance of surviving? I've got a 40' long wall, so could be a couple of trees.
I know a bunch of these have no chance outside (key lime, meyer, etc), but if any of them do have a chance of surviving by themselves, or with some protection (large cold frame?) I'd love to know what your opinions are.
Scott_6B:
If you are expecting winter lows of 5-10F, then I doubt even the most hardy varieties on your list will thrive without protecting them in winter. Having said that, you should be able to grow everything on your list... It is only dependent on how much effort you are willing spend protecting them. If you do not want to protect them you could think about trying some of the poncirus hybrids (eg Dunstan, Thomasville, etc...), but they probably won't taste as good. Also it sounds like you have plenty of space to put up a decent size high tunnel, so you could go that route.
Citradia:
I even lost my PT hybrids this year with lows over night two or three nights at zero. They were ) ft tall and packed in leaves and surrounded by buckets of water and covered by frost cloth and had plastic wind break frames built around them. The only things that survived here in my 7B/a local was the grapefruits and sats that were covered by plastic and had space heaters with fans blowing in them. The ones with plastic and heat lamps died completely. The plastic even with garbage can full of water in it holds heat for no time at all unless you pump electic heat in it when temps in twenties over night. I had to cover and uncover all protected trees daily and sometimes twice a day to prevent breaking dormancy during day. Hard to do all that when you work 36 miles away from home. I'd say have a few trees you want to work hard for. Don't over extend yourself. I used Thermo cube to turn on heaters automatically when temps got near freezing and they turn off when gets to 50 degrees. I got them at tractor supply. Good luck.
RVACitrus:
Ok, so what are my best shots here for minumum protection? The satsuma? The sudachi or yuzu?
brian:
--- Quote from: RVACitrus on April 24, 2014, 09:51:12 AM ---Ok, so what are my best shots here for minumum protection? The satsuma? The sudachi or yuzu?
--- End quote ---
Check out this page, it has a table of some of the more hardy citrus: http://citrustreesnola.com/about.html. I've seen other charts like this online if you search around.
FourWinds has one: https://www.fourwindsgrowers.com/our-citrus-trees/citrus-variety-info-chart.html
I keep all mine in containers in a heated greenhouse in the winter so I am not sure how difficult it is to maintain them in ground in a cold climate. I think the yuzu and kumquats are the best shot outside, but I expect you'll still have to protect them some nights. I use a wireless temperature sensor with an alarm in my greenhouse. I would look at it occasionally at night and after a while you get a very good idea of what temperature your growing area will be given a certain outside temperature.
The weather forecast is sometimes inaccurate by 5+ degrees on top of that. You can look up historical low temperatures in your area on weather.gov.
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