HAS ANY1 TRIED GROWING tropical fruit TREES IN NY?

i bought a semi dwarf washington orange tree and a semi dwarf mandarin tree- im totally expecting the trees to die when i bring them indoors for the winter as have previous tropical fruit trees i have tried to grow in ny.
has anyone successfuly grown tropical fruit in zone 5 or lower without a greenhouse?

I grow mine in a GH, but I have a neighbor who brings her orange tree indoors for the winter and has done so for several years. I do not know whether she has ripened any fruit. SB

gg, I am growing (quite successfully) a lime and three varieties of lemon. A "Ponderosa", a "Meyer" and ( get this) a Varigated leaf pink lemon, (which I've never heard of before). The Pondarosa, I've had a few years (inherited from my Dad, who lived in The Bronx), The Meyer, I bought last year and the pink this year. The Meyer has fruit on it but kind of small. In fact I'm going to "hold" the success of this tree, because the fruit is already turning yellow and I don't think it's supposed to do that. I've heard the fruit gets quite large and starts turning yellow only when it gets large. But I don't know, the tree is only about 1-1/2 feet tall so I guess I shouldn't be expecting anything the size of the Ponderosa. This past winter I put them all in a GH and with the exception of lost heat on a very cold night, they have survived pretty well.
I used to keep the Ponderosa in the house and it did pretty well. I've never tried growing oranges though. I think they may be a little more temperamental than the lemons. I've had the lime tree (which I guess would be closer in temperament to the orange) for three years now and last year gave some nice size fruit. I'll post some pics soon.

Sal

The trick with oranges will be providing enough heat for long enough to get them to ripen sweet. Lemons and limes might be easier.

SB

I have grown Meyer lemons in New York for many years. I currently have two, four foot trees in large pots, and some seeds that have sprouted. I take them outside in the summer and bring them into a room in my house for the winter. The room stays between 50 and 68 degrees. I have a curved window that gets a lot of light. It is quite a battle, but since keeping a humidifier going all winter, I have had some success.

Even with the humidifier the plant still gets mealy bugs. I don't like to use chemical sprays so I remove the bugs with alcohol on a Q-tip. I also use a Q-tip to pollinate the blossoms that appear in the winter. On warm days near spring I take the tree outside and spray it with a soap mixture similar to Safer Soap. The tree generally looks quite tired by the end of winter, but when it is warm enough to go outside, I gradually acclimate it to the outdoors and then put it in full sun for the summer. It puts out new leaves and plenty of blossoms and looks great by the end of the summer.

It is a lot of work, but the lemons are large and so sweet that they can be used in lemonade with little or no sugar. I have propagated new plants from the seeds.

Sal,
I have heard that the variagated pink lemon is very tempermental in the winter. I would be interested in how it makes it through the winter and blossoms next spring. If it does well, which I hope it does, I'd like to get one too!
Thanks, Suzi :)

I was trolling through old posts looking for information when I found your post. My parents used to grow peach trees in Brooklyn. They produced alot of peaches, but, unfortunately, the squirrels ate most of them. Our next door neighor had an apple tree, and one several doors down had a pear tree. This was in Flatbush about fifteen years ago.

mygardens- why do indoor plants need a dehumidifier-
also if my orange tree is self-polinating- do i still need to manually pollinate when the tree is indoor for the winters?

gg-mygardens said humidifier, not dehumidifier. Adds moisture.

I've been looking for a key lime tree to grow in SC (inside in winter, of course) and at one mail/internet ordering site, they state that there trees are "2-3 years old, grown from seed". Do key limes come true from seed? I had several seedlings from my trees in Florida, but never got fruit from them, so don't know. The ones I had bought seemed to be grafted, but maybe not. Just curious, I could probably get a seedling or two if they would work.
Thanks,
Margo

NJCitrusno1 left a review for Four Winds Growers on Garden Watchdog. They've been growing limes in Hillsborough, NJ. Although there's not a chapter out there, I'm sure there are individual California Rare Fruit Grower members out there who could share experiences. http://crfg.org/