Page mandarin

Kumquat

Other Kumquat

Eureka Lemon

If Las Vegas is in zone 9b like me, can't you put your trees in ground? Just curious. You have some nice trees, I could never get my Eureka lemon to grow, although I see a lot of them in my neighborhood that are huge. Yours is very nice and it looks like your Kishu has a Lot of buds on it too and should give you some fruit.
Evan

Well, not in Las Vegas, but some other choices you might want to try In ground would be a satsuma mandarin, and definitely a Gold Nugget mandarin. I would also see if you can find a Bloomsweet grapefruit. All these cultivars can handle colder low temps, especially Gold Nugget, which also happens to be an exceptionally good tasting mandarin. Planting your citrus against a cinder block wall is a great idea, as they will benefit from the radiant heat and also protection from winds. Cold, dry winds are almost worse than freezing temps for citrus, especially young citrus. I would also paint your exposed trunks with 1/2 strength flat latex house paint to protect the young exposed trunks from your intense summer sun.

Patty S.

Thanks Evan and Patty for the compliments and suggestions. I'll definately paint the trunks white to avoid sunburn. Satsuma and Goldnugget are on my wishlist, and I'll likely get them in the Spring from Costco who supplies the Willits and Newcomb (my Page and Kishu came from them). I had my 1st Gold Nugget fruit at a farmers market in Santa Barbara last year .... amazing!

I actually intially planted my eureka and kumquats in the ground, but I couldn't seem to get the soil conditions/drainage right and they kept loosing leaves and looked sickly. Both the kumquat and eureka are semi-dwarf so I figured they would be ok for now in pots. After transplanting, these plants stablized quickly as so I left them in the potted soil. If you guys have any tips on how to prepare the ground soil, please let me know as I'd love to have a few citrus in the ground. I might just replant the potted ones, unless you all would recommend against it.

The cinder block wall has generally served the plants well, but the dang wind still gets to them :(. I'm still trying to figure out ways to get around these wind issues.

Well thanks again!

Zach