Hardy Orange (Poncirus Trifoliata)

3 ordered/36 seeds. I got 34 plants 98% successful. Done well ???Used heat mat and grow light, Seedling soil,standard tray,dome 7"?????? Thank you

Mine flowered the 5th year from seed. Thick, tart, fragrant, flavorful juice of one fruit makes 1 cup lemonade. Bitterness is in other portions NOT juice. The Peel, rind, juice and seed each has a unique flavor. Beautifully fragrant bowl of fruit makes up for the lack of fragrance in the flowers. The rind will leave a sticky resin on your teeth similar to antibacterial pine resin. Its 1.5" thorns demand care, but resist deer. Mine do well in poor drained soil that would kill most fruit trees. Roots grow deeper relative to common fruit, more drought & cultivation tolerant. Beautiful contrasting fall fruit is fun to harvest by daily shaking the trunk by hand. Ripening occurs over several weeks. Many seeds sprout two separate trees. The trees will bush out or can be pruned up into clean trunk to safely mow around and under. I harvest by shaking the trunk by hand.

I've grown these for 40 years, they've been cold hardy to -20 deg. F. In Jan 1994 lows of -24 F. killed all growth above the snowdrifts, the trees resprouted below the snowline and haven't been harmed since. The largest tree yields 1/2 - 1 bushel of fragrant fruit per year. I have never detected much floral fragrance, however. This species and its hybrids with citrus are used as root stock for much of the worlds cultivated citrus plantings. The trees are tolerant of cold wet soil, they may not handle wet, warm soils as well due to low soil oxygen. Although they tolerate some shade, they grow better in full sun. Usability of the fruit will depend on ripeness , processing technique, having a tolerance for bitter tastes.The flavor is often described as intensely sour, when the real issue is bitterness. Avoiding getting the bitter rind oil into the juice is helpful. The bitterness is similar to the taste of concentrated grapefruit rind flavors. Due to the thorns it's not child friendly.

While you're only supposed to get 10 seeds, I received 13. After a month, only 9 of the seeds germinated. About 4 of these sprouted within a week and are 4 inches tall, while the others took much longer to germinate and are only 1/2 inch to 2 inches tall. Luckily I only needed a couple for rootstocks, but if you're looking for several of these plants, I recommend ordering some extra seeds. Otherwise they're easy to germinate and look very healthy.