Specialty Gardening: Cottage Gardening: So what makes a Cottage Garden. Part II, 1 by McGlory

McGlory wrote:
happy, are you ready for a laugh? Everyone laughs at me for this, so my feelings won't be hurt. :-) I don't know what kind of lemon it is. It started as kind of a joke when I put in a bunch of apple trees in the backyard in the spring of 2005. DH's friends started calling me Orchard Annie and asked if I was going to plant lemons and oranges next. So I ordered these from Michigan Bulb. (Yes, I know!)

http://michiganbulb.com/product.asp_Q_pn_E_03343_A_Citrus, M...

When the four citrus "trees" arrived the spring of 2005, they would fit in my hand roots and all! They really took off out on the porch, and I brought them inside for the winter. I killed the orange almost immediately after bringing it indoors, but I blame that on using a different potting mix for it.

Here is a picture of the lemon in the guest room. You can see that neither the lemon nor the room is huge. The lemon, however, flowers every couple of months, and even if it only gets a couple of blossoms (it had 14 once when it was only 2" tall) it produces a lovely scent.

Except for the orange, they have done well. The lime has a citrusy scent if you get close to it, and I haven't noticed any scent at all from the tangerine, but it hasn't bloomed either. I got a banana at that same time, and it's had to be re-potted to accommodate what is now a 2" diameter trunk.

So my point is this: Don't let the colder zone stop you. No, it's not like having lemons and grapefruit in the backyard providing shade and fragrance, but it is a way to enjoy something that's unusual in this part of the country. I'm thinking maybe next summer I'll take them off the porch and set them in one of my flower beds. :-) Enjoy!