Hey folks trying to get some feedback on possible fruit trees for my yard. Have a nectarine tree I just planted, and a transplanted apple tree so far. I want a lemon tree to plant in the ground. What variety would work here at 2000' elevation??? Meyers, Eureka or other strains? Is it ok to plant here in the winter? Any other fruit trees that people really rave about? Thanks for the help. I would prefferably want self pollinating trees as I will only buy one plant of each variety.
Help with choosing fruit trees for my small BY garden (CA. Zone 7)
- Thread starter dinnertym
- Start date
digitS'
Garden Master
Whoa!
Can lemon trees survive 10F to 0F winters?
Dinnertym, are you talking about USDA hardiness zone 7 ? It seems that we have talked about this before. I grew up in the Rogue River Valley of southern Oregon - which has zone 7 winters. It was a major tree fruit area at that time. Pear and peach orchards were common. Lots of folks had apples, apricots, plums, and cherries but most of those varieties can grow in colder areas. We had a very nice little fig tree.
I don't remember any citrus trees, at all.
Steve
Can lemon trees survive 10F to 0F winters?
Dinnertym, are you talking about USDA hardiness zone 7 ? It seems that we have talked about this before. I grew up in the Rogue River Valley of southern Oregon - which has zone 7 winters. It was a major tree fruit area at that time. Pear and peach orchards were common. Lots of folks had apples, apricots, plums, and cherries but most of those varieties can grow in colder areas. We had a very nice little fig tree.
I don't remember any citrus trees, at all.
Steve
Kassaundra
Garden Addicted
I'm in zone 7 and have never seen a citrus tree here.
- Thread starter
- #4
Is California zone 7 USDA? Foothills where we get four seasons. We do ge into the low 20's during the coldest winters and so I have to protect some plants. It would sure be nice to get a lemo trwee to grow in the ground. Would be able to cover it during the coldest spells. As the tree matures, do you worry as much about the freezing nights?
digitS'
Garden Master
Maybe you don't live in zone 7.
How did you decide on that designation, Dinnertym?
10F to 0F is what you (and your plants) can expect in USDA zone 7 on the coldest night of the year.
Steve
edited to add: why don't you enter your zipcode here and click the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map and see what you come up with . . .
http://www.plantmaps.com/index.php
How did you decide on that designation, Dinnertym?
10F to 0F is what you (and your plants) can expect in USDA zone 7 on the coldest night of the year.
Steve
edited to add: why don't you enter your zipcode here and click the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map and see what you come up with . . .
http://www.plantmaps.com/index.php
thistlebloom
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As well as figuring your USDA zone, which can be pretty general for areas with a lot of microclimates, I suggest you see what your Sunset garden zone is. Sunset has California divided up into about 19 or so zones. You can look at the online site and figure out your Sunset zone, and if you can find it ( not too hard ) the Sunset Western Garden book is an excellent reference.
Just as an aside, kumquats are the most cold hardy of citrus, you could surely grow one in your location.
Here's the Sunset link: http://www.sunset.com/garden/climate-zones/sunset-climate-zones-california-nevada-00400000036331/
Just as an aside, kumquats are the most cold hardy of citrus, you could surely grow one in your location.
Here's the Sunset link: http://www.sunset.com/garden/climate-zones/sunset-climate-zones-california-nevada-00400000036331/
Kassaundra
Garden Addicted
I don't see a link.thistlebloom said:
If you get your sunset number, how do you know what you can grow, I've never seen it referenced in any seed / plant catalogue?
You mean I can grow kumquats outside in zone 7? I gotta check that out, I love kumquats.
thistlebloom
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Sorry Kassaundra, I had to go back and edit for a link. Dinnertyme will have to check on the USDA zone, but as we know there's zone 7 (or 4, or 5, etc ) and then there's zone 7.
USDA doesn't really allow for micro climates, and a lot of other variables.
As far as the Sunset zones not being referenced in seed catalogs it could be because Sunset set their zone system up for west of the Rockies in the 11 contiguous western states, and the book is a reference with the named varieties and what zones they grow in.
I know there is a national Sunset reference book that I've seen at nurseries, but I don't know how fine tuned it is for the rest of the states.
Am I making sense? I'm having trouble explaining things....I think I stayed up too late last night...
eta umm... I looked up what S. had to say about kumquats, and they state they can withstand temperatures in the high teens, but why couldn't you put it in a pot and move it indoors? I love kumquats too, and now you got me thinking!
USDA doesn't really allow for micro climates, and a lot of other variables.
As far as the Sunset zones not being referenced in seed catalogs it could be because Sunset set their zone system up for west of the Rockies in the 11 contiguous western states, and the book is a reference with the named varieties and what zones they grow in.
I know there is a national Sunset reference book that I've seen at nurseries, but I don't know how fine tuned it is for the rest of the states.
Am I making sense? I'm having trouble explaining things....I think I stayed up too late last night...
eta umm... I looked up what S. had to say about kumquats, and they state they can withstand temperatures in the high teens, but why couldn't you put it in a pot and move it indoors? I love kumquats too, and now you got me thinking!
Ridgerunner
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I'd be suspicious about that apple tree being self-pollinating. There may be some varieties that are, and maybe you know something about that specific tree, but self-pollinating apples are pretty rare. If there is another apple tree within the area, even a crabapple, you should be OK, but even a lot of self-pollinating trees do much better if there is a different variety near by.
One option you might consider is to get those trees where two or more varieties are grafted onto one tree. That way you solve the one tree per variety issue. You also get better production from cross-pollination, even if it is not absolutely required. I have one Asian pear tree that has two varieties grafted on one rootstock. That works well for me here, but I occasionally have nights below 0* F. You're probably not cold enough for Asian pear.
I'm having trouble coming up with trees that might do well in that climate if you only get in the low 20's occasionally. That sounds similar to the Gulf Coast and there are not a lot of fruit trees that do well there. I'm going by what you said was occasional low 20's instead of the zone since I'm confused about that. Many fruits require a certain number of cold days or cold hours to do well or even produce at all. Citrus may be your best option, but there are risks with that. You might talk to your county extension agent, in the phone book under county government, and see what they recommend for your area. Or try to get hold of a master gardener and ask them. You can also try talking to people at a tree nursery. I'm not talking about Home Depot or Lowe's, but an actual nursery run by people that know about your local climate, not somebody selling through a chain. You might get lucky, but those are not always as "local" as you might need.
I had a lime tree when I lived in the New Orleans area. We'd maybe barely have a freeze once or twice a year most years, but several years they would be so light I'd have tomatoes or peppers live though the winter without protecting them. A real mild climate. Even if I covered it when we had a freeze, the line tree would sometimes die back and regrow from the roots. A neighbor had a lemon tree that did the same thing. Since these were grafted trees, what grew back was from the rootstock, not the grafted part. That was OK by us, although we lost a few years of production while it grew back to production size. The fruit produced by the rootstock was not as pretty as the grafted variety, but it was big, thin-skinned, and really juicy. For my purposes, which was cooking, it did not have to be pretty. I was not trying to sell it.
But my point is, if you try something and it freezes out, what comes back from the rootstock will not be the same as the grafted variety. I'd be real careful of things that can't take the cold, like citrus. If you only occasionally get those temperatures, like once every several years, you might get some production from a citrus, but you might lose it when you get those cold winters and you don't know what will come back from the rootstock. Location matters too. You get more frost in low valleys than on hillsides or on top of a hill. Cold air will settle on a calm night.
One option you might consider is to get those trees where two or more varieties are grafted onto one tree. That way you solve the one tree per variety issue. You also get better production from cross-pollination, even if it is not absolutely required. I have one Asian pear tree that has two varieties grafted on one rootstock. That works well for me here, but I occasionally have nights below 0* F. You're probably not cold enough for Asian pear.
I'm having trouble coming up with trees that might do well in that climate if you only get in the low 20's occasionally. That sounds similar to the Gulf Coast and there are not a lot of fruit trees that do well there. I'm going by what you said was occasional low 20's instead of the zone since I'm confused about that. Many fruits require a certain number of cold days or cold hours to do well or even produce at all. Citrus may be your best option, but there are risks with that. You might talk to your county extension agent, in the phone book under county government, and see what they recommend for your area. Or try to get hold of a master gardener and ask them. You can also try talking to people at a tree nursery. I'm not talking about Home Depot or Lowe's, but an actual nursery run by people that know about your local climate, not somebody selling through a chain. You might get lucky, but those are not always as "local" as you might need.
I had a lime tree when I lived in the New Orleans area. We'd maybe barely have a freeze once or twice a year most years, but several years they would be so light I'd have tomatoes or peppers live though the winter without protecting them. A real mild climate. Even if I covered it when we had a freeze, the line tree would sometimes die back and regrow from the roots. A neighbor had a lemon tree that did the same thing. Since these were grafted trees, what grew back was from the rootstock, not the grafted part. That was OK by us, although we lost a few years of production while it grew back to production size. The fruit produced by the rootstock was not as pretty as the grafted variety, but it was big, thin-skinned, and really juicy. For my purposes, which was cooking, it did not have to be pretty. I was not trying to sell it.
But my point is, if you try something and it freezes out, what comes back from the rootstock will not be the same as the grafted variety. I'd be real careful of things that can't take the cold, like citrus. If you only occasionally get those temperatures, like once every several years, you might get some production from a citrus, but you might lose it when you get those cold winters and you don't know what will come back from the rootstock. Location matters too. You get more frost in low valleys than on hillsides or on top of a hill. Cold air will settle on a calm night.
digitS'
Garden Master
This is kind of a funny thread when you look at this one from last fall: California zone 7 what to put in my fall/winter garden
That one began just as this did with me trying to figure out where this "zone 7" is
. I should have not even mentioned the Rogue River Valley since it is both zone 7 USDA and zone 7 Sunset . . . That just confuses things :/.
On that thread as this one, Ridgerunner put in a lot of helpful detail about his USDA zone 7 gardening.
Dinnertym really should help us out here if the questions are about zone 7 since winter tomatoes and in-ground lemon trees are essentially impossible in both zone 7's that are commonly referred to.
Steve
That one began just as this did with me trying to figure out where this "zone 7" is
. I should have not even mentioned the Rogue River Valley since it is both zone 7 USDA and zone 7 Sunset . . . That just confuses things :/.On that thread as this one, Ridgerunner put in a lot of helpful detail about his USDA zone 7 gardening.
Dinnertym really should help us out here if the questions are about zone 7 since winter tomatoes and in-ground lemon trees are essentially impossible in both zone 7's that are commonly referred to.
Steve
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