4 CITRUS TREES That Northern Gardeners Can Actually Grow!

In this video, I share 4 citrus trees that northern gardeners can actually grow! Most people think citrus trees are tropical and not cold hardy, but most citrus trees are actually from subtropical highlands. There are many varieties of cold hardy citrus! Here are 4 cold tolerant citrus trees that millions of northern gardeners are unaware they can grow!

There are many high quality citrus varieties that are cold tolerant to Zone 8. Roughly half the population of the United States live in Zone 8 or warmer, meaning countless millions of Americans have the ability to grow citrus trees in ground in their location and don’t know it!

Growing citrus trees in Zone 8 will require some protection on the coldest nights of the year, but protecting fruit trees is easy with my cold protection methods outlined here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1gY7BoYBGIG1w1u_K6CDIhfsqG8dMnPj&si=SVKW_dJZfrMBgTep

Find your hardiness zone in the new 2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone map here: https://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
0:00 Intro To Growing Citrus
3:31 Citrus Tree #1: Owari Satsuma
6:01 Bonus Early Satsuma Tree
6:52 Citrus Tree #2: Meyer Lemon
9:10 Citrus Tree #3: Red Lime
10:59 Citrus Tree #4: Kumquats
12:17 Protecting Citrus Trees From Cold
16:15 Taste Testing Citrus Varieties
21:32 Where To Buy Citrus Trees
23:19 Adventures With Dale

If you have any questions about how to grow citrus trees, want to know about the things I grow in my raised bed vegetable garden and edible landscaping food forest, are looking for more gardening tips and tricks and garden hacks, have questions about vegetable gardening and organic gardening in general, or want to share some DIY and “how to” garden tips and gardening hacks of your own, please ask in the Comments below!

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ABOUT MY GARDEN
Location: Southeastern NC, Brunswick County (Wilmington area)
34.1°N Latitude
Zone 8B

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#gardening #garden #gardeningtips #citrus #citrustree

What’s growing on gardeners it’s Sunday December 3rd here on the Southeastern coast of North Carolina have you ever dreamed of growing your own citrus trees in ground in your climate but you have always thought that where you live is just too cold to grow Citrus well I’m

Here to tell you that that probably is not correct in fact the majority of people that live in the United States alone can grow their own citrus trees in ground where they live I live in North Carolina and I’m growing seven varieties of citrus in ground and I bet you can

Grow your own fresh citrus trees too and I’m going to share with you four super cold hearty varieties that you can plant if you’re new to the Channel Please Subscribe and hit the Bell to receive new video notifications and check out our Amazon store and spreadshop links in

The video description for everything I use in my garden and awesome Custom Design to power and other gear your support is greatly appreciated over Generations Citrus has developed the reputation of being a very cold sensitive tropical fruit but that’s that’s really not the case Citrus are actually from the subtropical Highlands

Of Asia for the most part so for that reason most varieties of citrus are tolerant of frost particularly sweet Citrus now it is true that many of varieties of citrus don’t do well with prolonged hard freezes however there are the most cold hearty varieties that can tolerate deep freezes as long as the

Temperatures eventually do rebound within the next anywhere from 8 to 24 hours or so the most cold of the top quality commercial varieties of citrus are Hardy down to Zone 8 why is this a big deal well the USDA just updated their hardiness zone maps for 2023 and

Now roughly half the land mass of the continental United States is Zone 8 or warmer the territory of Zone 8 has been expanded pretty dramatically and now includes the entire South and it works its way up into the Southeastern Virginia area into the Chesapeake and even some areas of Southern Coastal New

Jersey jersey in the desert Southwest Zone 8 has been expanded dramatically all the way up into the Pacific Northwest to the Canadian border and this is a really big deal because while about 50% of the land mass is now Zone 8 or warmer this encompasses most of the

Population centers so the majority of the people living in the continental United States now live in a climate that is suitable for growing citrus in ground now it is important to understand what the hardiness Zone Map upgrades mean it does not mean that if something didn’t

Grow for you because it was too cold 10 years ago that it will grow for you now because your Zone was updated that is not the case if it didn’t grow in your location 10 years ago it’s not going to grow there now what it does mean is that

There’s probably tens of millions of people living in the United States that actually can grow Citrus and they’re simply not aware and also remember hardiness zones are simply an average half of your years are going to be at or colder than your hardiness zone so you

Will need to protect your sit trees on that off weather chance just like I do I have to protect my trees a few nights every single year but it is worth it and I want to educate you on this subject don’t worry at the end of the video I

Will show you exactly how I protect my trees when it gets unseasonably cold and look we’re not talking about novelty varieties of citrus like trifoliate orange or trifoliate hybrids like citr anderin something full of seeds and bitter that you don’t really want to eat we’re talking about top quality

Commercial citrus stuff that is better than anything you’ll ever buy in a grocery store the first variety of cold hearty Citrus that I must feature in this video is the crown jewel of my garden and that is the aari Satsuma this is the first tree that I ever planted in

My yard when I moved into my house a little over 5 years ago so this 5-year-old tree is just producing off the charts there are easily 200 oranges on this tree we’re talking an easy 50 to 100 lb of oranges and it produces like this season after season last year’s

Harvest was just as incredible I really started getting dramatic harvests as early as year three satsumas are Mandarin oranges this is legitimately a real orange tree and what is amazing about this variety is it is tolerant to cold all the way down to about 12° fahit once the tree is mature and established

It can briefly tolerate that temperature as long as once the sun comes up the temperatures go back above freezing now for those of you in marginal Zone 8 climates like mine one of the secrets to growing citrus is going to be planting your trees up against the South Wall of

Your house the South Wall is the warm wall of your house it absorbs sunlight all throughout the day and then radiates it back during the evening and for those of you in the southern hemisphere watching this it would be reversed you’d want to plant your cold sensitive trees

Up against the north wall of your house now in order to make this possible I have to get all of my citrus trees grafted onto trifoliate root stock which is the most cold hearty variety of citrus it is a natural dwarf and it is deciduous so any citrus tree that is

Grafted onto trifoliate root stock is going to be naturally dwarfing this tree is at its maximum height I prune it and I maintain it to this height so it’s never going to get any taller than 5 ft with regular annual pruning and the roots are more shrub likee not Tre likee

That is why I’m able to plant this 30 in from the foundation of my house and it’s very important important that you understand this you cannot get a random citrus tree where you don’t know what it’s grafted onto you can’t get one grafted onto standard root stock you

Cannot grow the tree from seed seed grown or standard citrus trees can grow to be 30 ft tall and that’s obviously not appropriate to be planted near a house like this so make sure you get your tree grafted onto trifoliate root stock that way if you’re in a marginal

Climate like Zone 8 like I am you can plant it very close to your house for that wind protection and for radiating heat aari is my favorite variety of citrus and it does very well here in North Carolina I get my harvests in early to mid December every single year

But that is one of the only downsides of oari in terms of satsumas it’s one of the latest to mature so if you live significantly north of me you may not want to grow aari because it is later season enter the brown select Satsuma the brown select is just as cold hearty

As aari but it ripens about 3 weeks earlier this tree is obviously a lot younger this is my backup tree that will give me Harvest about 3 weeks earlier than the oari it’s only 2 years old that’s why it’s so small so if you live in a significantly cooler climate than

Mine and you’re afraid that your fall days do not get warm enough to ripen the aari you may want to sub out the brown select that is an excellent earlier variety cold hearty Citrus number two is the Meer lemon that is what you see right here most lemon trees are not

Tolerant of Frost Frost and freeze however the Meer lemon is that is because it is a natural hybrid between a lemon and a Satsuma so it gets the taste of the lemon but it has some of the cold hardtin of the Satsuma imparted into it and don’t worry you don’t get fruit that

Tastes like oranges these taste like true lemons the only difference is they’re a little bit lower in acid and they are much larger with a thinner skin and have easily three to four times the amount of lemon juice that a traditional lemon does these are in my opinion so

Much more delicious than a true lemon of all the Citrus varieties that I’m going to list in this video the Myer lemon is the most sensitive to cold this tree can only tolerate very brief dips down to about 18 to 19° fah when it is well established so because of that it’s

Going to be a little bit more challenging however I do have a trick that has allowed me to grow this one in ground and that trick is this is an ungrafted tree now I know I just told you to get all of your trees Tre is grafted onto trifoliate root stock but

The Myer lemon is an exception that’s because it is a natural dwarf so this is actually a rooted cutting and it’s only on its third season so because this Myer lemon is growing on its own Roots I have this growing as a bush not a tree up

Against the South Wall of my house and the roots are going to be no threat to the foundation because this is just as dwarfing as a trifoliate and if I ever have a severe winter and the tree gets killed down even if it dies down to the

Roots it’s going to come back true to type I bought this from a place called bright leaf they sold me the cutting very inexpensively and again this is only on its third season look at the production on this it is absolutely absurd I mean look at this thing I have

Over a 100 lemons on this little 3-year-old tree and when these are in season at the grocery store they cost over 50 cents a piece that is how coveted they are and I have an unbelievable amount of them the only bit of advice I will give you is that a Myer

Lemon is somewhat thorned so you have to be a little bit careful when you’re going through and making your Harvest and watch for those Thorns while I’ve given you an orange and a lemon now I want to give you a lime the bad news is that no true limes are suitable for Zone

8 without a tremendous amount of protection more than I want to give any of my trees but you can grow this natural hybrid called the Excalibur red lime while the Origins are somewhat unknown this is thought to be a cross between a kumquat and A Rang Perl lime

Which is red and color now there’s not a lot of information about this variety of citrus right here except it’s supposed to be tolerant to the upper to Mid teens now here I’ve had this in a pot for over 5 years and believe it or not this is

Also trifoliate grafted this is as big as the tree has ever gotten in this container in the 5 years I’ve had it and look at the Absurd production this bloom a couple of times a year and it just produces these limelike beautiful delicious little orbs on an everbearing

Pattern it’s absolutely insane in fact I have decided that so successful this tree has been and so cold hearty it has proved to me that I’m going to put this in ground in the rear of my property next year now because seeing is believing I want you to see that this is

Actually a grafted tree you can see the graft on the bottom that is the trifoliate graft yet that is as large as the tree is it’s absolutely amazing and what’s really cool about these fruits are the taste and the makeup of the peel this is clearly a kumquat cross because

If you squeeze the juice out of these Lim like fruits they have a taste that’s across between sort of a lime and an orange so it’s a little sweet but the peels are completely edible the peel is delicious it’s like candy so you can eat

The peel just like a kumquat and at the end of this video I’m going to show you what all of these different types of citrus tastes like the fourth cold hearty Citrus that I want to share with you is the kumquat there are effectively two very popular kumquat varieties out

There the maywa and the nagami this tree right here is a maywa kumquat which has a sweet interior and sweet skin then there’s the nagami which has a sweet skin but a very sour interior I wanted the all sweet kumquat because the nagami to me is just a little bit too tart

There are other varieties of kumquats out there that are less tart but I don’t have any experience with them in terms of cold hardtin and I know that the nagami and the maywa can both grow pretty easily in zone 8 now this tree is also grafted onto trifoliate root stock

And it is a little bit over 2 years old and this is as large as the tree has gotten now kumquats are naturally dwarfing so you can get them either as a rooted cutting or as a trifoliate graft and safely plant them up against the foundation of your house however I ran

Out of room and I I have these planted in my rear property I will show you some cold protection methods later on but now that you see a kumquat you know that you can grow in ground in zone 8 a sweet orange a lemon a lime or at least a Lim

Like hybrid and a cumquat that basically covers your main bases of citrus now let’s get into cold protection there are basically three things I do to protect my citrus trees from cold the first thing as I plant them up against a North Windbreak or a South Wall of the house

If the South Wall your house is unavailable you can pick an East wall or a West Wall as long as they get at least 6 hours of uninterrupted Sun every single day having the warming radiating heat of a house will make things a lot easier the second thing I do is I cover

All of my trees in old style C9 incandescent bulbs they have to be outdoor rated incandescent C9 Christmas lights and the reason why they have to be incandescent is they give off hundreds of watts of heat one strand is 175 watts and all of that heat will keep

The trees warm you can’t use LEDs they do not give off sufficient heat if you use LEDs you will not see any benefit and then the third thing I use are these 60gal food grade pickle barrels this is what they use to ship pickles and olive

Oil overseas I can get these for about 25 bucks a piece locally you can get them on Craigslist I fill them full of water because they are black they heat up in the sun all day and that 60 gallons of water radiates heat back all

Night so what I do is I put two strands of incandescent lights on each tree and then they each get their own Pickle Barrel and then I cover them on cold nights with a plant jacket which is a breathable agricultural fabric that can stay on for months at a time because it

Lets light and air through as well as precipitation so if you live in a significantly colder climate than me and you don’t want to run outside and put a plant jacket on every single time it drops below 25 or 26° well no problem you can leave them on for months at a

Time and I have my incandescent lights plugged into a Wireless outlet and then I just turn them on like you see right there I can turn them on from anywhere in the world so if I’m vacationing in the winter and I know a cold front is

Coming all I do is I cover all of my trees with the plant jackets before it’s going to get really cold I watch the weather if I’m going to be away and I turn them off and I turn them on wirelessly from my phone anywhere in the

World and that’s all I do on those handful of cold nights a year where it’s going to get colder than 25° and again if you’re in a location where it does get below 25 de regularly no problem you can just set a timer so the lights come

On every single night and leave the plant jackets on for as long as necessary during the day and the good news is if it doesn’t get warm enough to break the freezing Mark during the day well the plant jackets are going to capture all of that warmth and it’s also

Noted that while all of these trees are cold hearty to temperatures below 25° the citrus fruit fruit is not so the citrus fruit will actually become damaged usually at around 26° or so it can split so it’s important that if the trees are loaded with fruit you be a

Little bit conservative and you protect them if it’s going to drop into the mid 20s because you don’t want to lose your Harvest as for the Citrus in my rear property I use no incandescent lights at all because we are just way too far from

The house so what I did was I planted them under this natural canopy of trees which tends to block a lot of the frost and they each have their own individual water barrels for protection now if you live in New Jersey or Maryland this may not be enough protection for you cuz it

Might be too cold but here in Southeastern Coastal North Carolina this is all I need for my trees to survive long term we got as cold as 14° a couple of years ago and just with the water barrels and plant jackets they were at over 24° and by a comparison while they were

Out at 24° F the stuff up against my house was only at about 30° fah they were way warmer with the lights and the water barrels in tandem but these varieties of citrus are all Hardy to the mid-20s easily no problem so 24° even on these young trees had pretty much no

Damage to them at all so now I’m going to harvest some fruit from all of my trees and it’s always important to use some clippers to do that because Citrus don’t like being pulled right off the tree it can actually tear the skin so always Harvest with a pair of shears of some

Sort I was able to harvest fruits for my Satsuma my lemon and my lime I could not Harvest any of the kumquats they weren’t ready yet they fruit on a more everbearing schedule so we’ll start with the oari Satsuma now normally the oari satsumas look like this but because it’s

Still so early in the year the larger ones are not ripe so I had to pick a smaller one to get something that is closer to ripe but all of them honestly could use a few more weeks then we have the Meer lemon and we have the red lime

You can see just how huge this lemon is the lemon’s as big as an orange so let’s start with the aari Satsuma what’s awesome about them is their zipper skin all you have to do is stick your oop stick your thumb in the bottom and the

Peel pops right off and then you get this wonderful segmented fruit and each of them break apart into wedges like you see right here it really is that easy we taste it it is so unbelievably good is so much fresher and more fragrant than anything you’ll get in a store and it’s funny

That it’s that good because it’s not even ripe yet now I want to quickly cut into this under rpe Satsuma right here because when you grow a Satsuma in isolation by itself they tend to be seedless but because I’m growing them near lemons and other Citrus they do get

A couple seeds in it it looks like this one has two seeds in them again they’re generally seedless when planted in isolation they may have one seed but if you grow them clustered with other Citrus that cross-pollinate you may get up to five seeds so now let’s break into

The Myer lemon now the Myer lemon is a natural hybrid so none of the seeds will ever grow true to type you can’t grow a Myer lemon from seed you can only get a grafted Myer lemon tree or a rooted cutting now because it’s a hybrid it

Tends to be fairly seedy but there is so much juice to a Myer lemon that it doesn’t really matter and that right there is the Myer lemon beautiful there are a couple of seeds in there I will compare it side by side to the Satsuma you will see that they are almost equal

Fruits that’s because there is Satsuma in the lineage of this lemon and what is interesting about this lemon is how not tart it is for a lemon it has a lower acid content it still will make you winse a little bit actually um unbelievably so this

Lemon is so good it’s so perfect you you could honestly eat this like an orange it has all of the flavor of a lemon but it doesn’t have that astringency so it doesn’t make you wince in pain fantastic it’s a little tart but in a good way and then last but not least

We have this red lime which again is a cross between a kumquat and again because it’s a hybrid it tends to be a little seedy this is the most seedy of the fruit but look how it is just dripping juice out of it you’re never going to get any kind of grocery store

Citrus that does that for you so what we can do here is we’ll pop out these seeds and the Flesh of the red lime like I said is a little bit tart it tastes like a cross between a true lime and some kind of orange but what really makes this interesting is

The candy like outer skin that is completely edible now what is amazing about that is if you were to eat just the Flesh on it own it would be too sour but because the skin is so sweet just like a kumquat it makes it all bearable now I know this

Video was chalk full of so much information it could be overwhelming the gears in your head may be spinning and you don’t know where to start but I’m here to tell you that citus isn’t just for the Deep South and California I’m talking to you Maryland and Virginia and

Southern Oklahoma and you guys in Portland and Seattle and the surrounding areas and southern New Mexico maybe even you guys in Kate County New Jersey or Atlantic City you may be able to grow these things in your backyard I’m not in the tropics here I’m in North Carolina

We’ve already had multiple nights in the 20s this year and everything is thriving because I protected everything now don’t worry I’m going to make this very easy for you down in the video description I am going to link to all of the exact items that I use to protect my citrus

Trees when it gets otherwise too cold or we have those off cold nights here and there and remember you can leave this stuff on for month months at a time if you live in a far more Northern climate where it stays cold for a prolonged period of time you’ll be able to

Basically make your own sustainable Greenhouse for the trees that breathes and you don’t have to worry about venting them so down in the video description as well as the items I use to build these things I’m also going to link to my cold protection playlist if

This is something you want to do I recommend that you go through the videos slowly over time throughout the winter in your leisure and absorb all of the information I have done all of these things I have everything that you need to know to be successful growing trees

Like this in your yard and last but not least if you want to know what I think is the best source to buy citrus I buy every single one of my grafted citrus trees from Stan McKenzie at McKenzie farms in Scranton South Carolina he doesn’t have a website that you can

Order over but if you go to Google Maps and you Google McKenzie Farm Scranton South Carolina and give his phone number a call he will ship the trees to you just tell him I sent you and that you want these trees graft on to trifoliate root stock if you want a rooted cutting

I really recommend the website bright leaf the rooted Meer lemon that I got from them is fantastic and that right there is how I successfully grow citrus trees in ground here in Southeastern North Carolina now look if you’re significantly north of me it is true that not all Zone 8s are created equal

It will be a lot harder in zone 8 Maryland or New Jersey than it is here in zone 8 North Carolina but that being said I urge you to take the risk and try anyway it’s about $40 for a grafted citrus tree give or take and it will

Just be a fun experiment for you if you fail worst case you had a really fun time doing it and maybe the failure will be for a reason that you can deduce and you can replant and pick up the pieces and learn from that mistake and maybe

You’ll be successful the second time and if you are successful I’m telling you you will be thrilled to have these wonderful trees in the ground so everybody I sure hope you found this video helpful if you did please make sure to hit that like button subscribe to the channel and please ring that

Notification Bell so you’re notified when I release more videos like these again if you’re curious about all of the products that I used in this video to be successful growing citrus as well as everything I use in real life in my garden in general they are all linked

Down Below on my Amazon storefront Link in the video description while you’re there check out my spread shop for custom merch if you want to support the channel thank you all so much for watching and I hope to see all of you again on the next

Video all right Dale I have to go to the grocery store so that means you’re going to get your Kong do you want your Kong okay ooh look at that Frozen peanut butter Kong Dale come whoo whoo whoo now you take this gentle too excited good boy all right sweetheart I

Have to go to the store I have to go get your dinner we got to get Dale some meat and I’ll be right back home buddy