Our citrus growing is just an
enjoyable fluke - we have key lime and kumquat flourishing in large pots that
park outside our garage doors on the concrete where they are warmed by the
house and accumulated warmth of sun on concrete during the day. If it's below
20 degrees we try to remember to drag the pots into the garage. We are not
always successful, but they carry on regardless. We haven't ever managed
to remember to get a recording thermometer out there but we suspect that the
little area runs a good ten degrees above the overall "yard". No
varietal info, they just came back with me from a trip home to Florida a few
years ago
Ralph Denton at Pungo Palms Nursery here in Virginia Beach is
really experimenting with hardy citrus and has some lovely full-sized trees in
his yard. They do have a website via one of those free servers - you'd
have to do a google search on "pungo palms" and then click through. I
never do, the pop-ups just drive me mad, but both of them are good plant folks
and do a lot of experimenting with how far they can push the local growing
parameters. Their specialty, of course, is hardy
palms.
Sybil ...expecting almost 1/4" snow in Virginia Beach...
(those of you in other climates may not immediately recognize that this
constitutes a local emergency situation complete with gripping weather reports
every fifteen minutes on the local news)