What I had read was that kumquats are the second most hardy citrus-like fruit. Only mock orange beats them but nobody eats them. I tried one time and am still spitting several years later. Nasty, waxy stuff.

Mock orange makes a good root stock for grafting onto. My kumquat is that way. Every year mock orange shoot comes up from below the graft and I have to cut it back.

Kumquat fruit supposed to survive down to about 28 but I had some make it to 27 without discernible damage. I figured they were already damaged and didn’t bother to wrap them to protect what I figured was already gone until it was too late–got colder than that. Even at that I ate a few Saturday and see a few behind the plastic. Don’t know how they survived, fairly dry so maybe they didn’t, still tasty.

The tree itself is supposed to be hardy down to around 20 F and we’ve seen that a few times already, at least I wrapped the bottom half and put in weak lights to warm it up above the 20 degree killer. (too cheap and lazy to get enough plastic to wrap over the top.

I gave a few to my mother-in-law a few times but she either let some freeze or put too much heat on them and cooked them. It happens. Now I just tend to bring her some fruit when available.

May try grafting myself some trees again and if successful, try again to give them to her. May not, got lots of plans of things which never get done.

David with a hundred years of plans

I believe I had an orange and a tangerine if I remember correctly and my belief is that I didn’t have them mounded high enough so the cold got ‘em.I’m basically a city boy transplanted to Mc David and I am still leaning about growing things. My attitude in the past was to just paint my property green.

and by more than ten feet tall, consider three kumquat trees across Longleaf Drive from West Florida and Pine Forest High schools. They look to be 40 feet tall or so, usually covered with fruit. Beautiful trees.

David the admiring and jealous
while my own is trimmed by the cold

The fruit survived down to 27 degrees Fahrenheit this year, not so well below that. (And I didn’t wrap it up even though I knew better.) They say the tree can handle temperatures down to 20 F but now that I actually have the bottom half wrapped and a single string of incandescent Christmas tree lights providing gentle warming, I’m leaving them on since it keeps getting close to the kill temp.

Still got plenty of Chinese chestnut seedlings around the place, just set out a couple of crabapple seedlings from the Arbor Day giveaway yesterday.

David for fruits and nuts