The tropics, grown against the odds. Sub-tropicals bring bold leaves, vivid flowers, and a whiff of the jungle to gardens well north of the frost line, thriving through a hot Southern summer and, with a little shelter, holding on through the cold.
Woodlanders has been a leader in offering a wide range of Citrus and Citrus hybrids which are hardy outdoors beyond the normal Citrus growing areas. This hybrid between Trifoliate Orange and Satsuma Mandarin forms a tree with spreading growth habit and dark green trifoliate leaves. Fruit is variable in shape but is said to make good semi-sweet orange/tangerine juice if slightly diluted to remove the trifoliate aftertaste. Appears to be very hardy.
US-942 began life as a rootstock, bred by the USDA and released in 2010 after years of Florida field trials, a careful cross of the Sunki mandarin and the curious Flying Dragon form of trifoliate orange, Poncirus trifoliata. As a rootstock the record is stellar: compact, productive trees, strong resistance to Phytophthora and tristeza virus, and better tolerance of citrus greening than most, which is why growers across the citrus belt have come to trust the number.
Woodlanders has been a leader in offering a wide range of Citrus and Citrus hybrids which are hardy outdoors beyond the normal Citrus growing areas. This unifoliate tree produces small fruit that is tight-skinned, yellow and very acid. It is a tangerine-type fruit that should make good ade drinks. It is known as 'Djerook Leemo' in Java where it originated.
The sour orange is grown across the warm world as an ornamental and even a street tree, and stands somewhat naturalized in Florida. The fruit is famous for marmalade and useful little else, since the flesh is fiercely sour and bitter, not for eating out of hand. This particular unnamed selection has a Woodlanders story: we propagated the tree from a single specimen found growing on the edge of an abandoned sandy field in a remote corner of Appling County, Georgia, with no house anywhere near. What drew us was the crop, abundant, large, and very showy, loose-skinned and easy to peel.
Among the more intriguing fruits in the Woodlanders citrus collection, the Gou Tou sour orange stands apart, not only for rarity but for a rare combination of hardiness, heavy fruiting, and surprisingly pleasant flavor. Widely cultivated in Southeast Asia, Citrus aurantium 'Gou Tou' carries the form of a traditional bitter orange but with a taste that leans toward grapefruit, which makes this one of the most palatable sour oranges a gardener outside the subtropics can grow.
The Ichang papeda is a thorny evergreen small tree of twelve to fifteen feet, and the most cold-tolerant true citrus known to science, reported hardy to roughly five degrees Fahrenheit. The leaves are the tell: unusually large winged petioles, sometimes nearly as big as the blade itself, so each leaf looks like two leaves joined end to end. White flowers open in spring with the sweet heavy scent the whole genus is loved for. Fruit follows, rough-skinned and yellow, orange-sized, packed with large seeds and very little flesh. Sharply aromatic rather than sweet, and nobody would call this dessert fruit, though the zest is fragrant and useful and the juice finds work in marmalade, salt preserving, and drying.
Many popular citrus fruits are hybrids. This one is a real mix. The 'Minneola' Tangelo is a Mandarin Orange crossed with a Grapefruit. This is crossed with the cold-hardy but scarcely edible Ichang Papeda (Citrus ichangensis) and then this is crossed with a 'Temple' Orange (which is a Tangor or Mandarin Orange crossed with a Sweet Orange). We grew these from seed we got at the Citrus Expo. They should turn out to be reasonably cold hardy and should produce excellent fruit.
The Yuzuquat is a tri-generic hybrid, a curiosity even among unusual citrus. One parent is the yuzu, itself a cross of Citrus ichangensis and Citrus reticulata; the other is the 'Nagami' kumquat, Fortunella margarita. From that three-way pedigree comes an attractive evergreen citrus that bears sour, juicy, lemon-like fruits about the size of a chicken egg.
Citrus myrtifolia 'Chinotto' is the myrtle-leaf orange, a small, dense, thornless citrus grown as much for beauty as for fruit. The tidy branches carry little pointed leaves like a myrtle's, sweetly fragrant white flowers, and a long-held crop of small, round, bitter oranges. Compact and slow, the chinotto makes an exceptional container or patio plant, an evergreen jewel that flowers and fruits at an easy, manageable size.
Woodlanders has been a leader in offering a wide range of Citrus and Citrus hybrids which are hardy outdoors beyond the normal Citrus growing areas. 'Bloomsweet' Grapefruit is not a true grapefruit but certainly a good substitute which has proven hardy and productive in central Georgia. It may be a hybrid between a pummelo and a sour orange. The tree itself is an attractive evergreen with fragrant flowers and the fruit is very palatable and much like the true grapefruit. We thank Mark Crawford of Loch Laurel Nursery in Valdosta, Georgia for sharing propagation material of this citrus with us.
NuClem is a special clementine among the cold-hardy citrus, a nucellar selection of the familiar clementine mandarin. Our friend and citrus guru Tom McClendon, who shared this one with us, explains it best: "NuClem is a nucellar Clementine, meaning that it comes true from seed. Most Clementines are polyembryonic, meaning that seeds will almost always produce hybrids with other citrus nearby. NuClem also is distinctive in its cold-hardiness, having proven reliably hardy in Montezuma, GA, making it probably on par with Satsuma. Fruit is globular, about two inches in diameter, with a mildly adherent peel more like an orange than a mandarin. Fruit quality is excellent."
Small evergreen tree with foliage and flowers typical of other Mandarin Orange types (Citrus reticulata) and with tasty small fruits like the familiar "Tangerine". These are seedlings from a tree here in Aiken, SC which was acquired from Camellia Forest Nursery in North Carolina who had introduced it from China. The name "Citrus tangerina" is used but not widely accepted as a species. Culture as for other Citrus.
Evergreen Citrus with sweet, thin skinned Mandarin type fruit ripening in fall. Parentage is Clementine Mandarin x Orlando Tangelo; the latter being a hybrid between 'Dancy' Mandarin and 'Duncan' Grapefruit. Hardiness not tested but may be hardy in zone 8 in protected sites.
Woodlanders has been a leader in offering a wide range of Citrus and Citrus hybrids which are hardy outdoors beyond the normal Citrus growing areas. This is a medium sized evergreen citrus tree with typical fragrant white flowers and flavorful yellow, nippled grapefruit-like fruits. It should prove an excellent sweet flavored grapefruit type citrus for the coastal areas. It is probably in the citrus group known as "Sweet Lemon".
The Meyer lemon is the great container citrus, beloved for thin-skinned, deep yellow-orange fruit that is sweeter and less acidic than a true lemon, and for fragrant, purple-tinged white flowers that come more than once a year. A small evergreen tree, the Meyer is thought to be a natural hybrid of lemon and some other citrus, probably a sweet orange or mandarin, which accounts for the mellow, almost floral flavor that has made the fruit a favorite of cooks.
Clerodendrum indicum, the Turk's turban, is a bold, tropical-looking perennial that stages two very different shows in a single season. First come tall, nearly unbranched stems, ringed with long narrow leaves and topped in summer by great airy sprays of long-tubed white flowers, shooting outward like a burst of fireworks, which earns the plant its other names, tube flower and skyrocket. Then, as the blooms fade, the real surprise arrives.
Clytostoma callistegioides is one of those vines that feels as though the plant wandered out of an old botanical expedition: vigorous, evergreen, and brimming with the sort of charm collectors once crossed oceans to find. A close relative of our native crossvine (Bignonia capreolata), this South American cousin shares the same athletic climbing spirit but dresses in glossier, more refined foliage and carries larger flowers.
The Sago Palm is not a palm at all. Cycas revoluta belongs to the cycads, an ancient line of seed-bearing gymnosperms far closer to conifers than to any true palm, and the feathered crown is a case of convergent evolution rather than kinship. Cycads carried this same architecture through the age of the dinosaurs, which is part of what lends the Sago Palm such a primeval presence in a modern garden.
Hardiness
Zones 8–10
Light
Full Sun / Part Shade
Height
6–10 ft.
Spread
5–8 ft.
Plant type
Cycad
Traditional use
digestive health, respiratory support, topical applications, heart support
