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Bridgette wrote:but I was told by a citrus farmer in Malmesbury once that it was impossible to grow oranges from seed - he said you could only grow them from grafts.

That farmer was right, in a way: if you want a certain type of oranges, and a commercially viable crop, you don't grow from seed. With seeds, you might be lucky (one of the most popular cooking apple varities in Britain, Bramley's Seedling, was just that - a seedling, but as far as I know that's the only apple that came from a seedling!). So yes, I grow all types of citrus from seed, but as they won't crop here anyway, and it's just a bit of fun for me with a nice houseplant at the end if I'm lucky, it doesn't matter. (Actually, one of my tiny citrus trees is developing a flower - I'm reall excited about that! Had a big lemon tree once, about 1m high, in a pot, and it never flowered...)

And I think it's more or less the same with all fruit types, bushes as well as trees. My special propagation book doesn't even mention the possibility of growing from seed. Some strawberries are commonly grown from seed (here it's the alpine strawberries), but generally they are propagated using suckers.

Millymollymandy wrote: My original posting in this thread said they were better in a dessert. I'm not going to nit pick any more!

You are perfectly right, MMM. Enjoy them the way you can. I'm just lucky that I actually like the things without sugar, as sugar doesn't seem to agree with me any more. So all these nice things like jam, Eton mess, fruit fools etc are out. Strawberries and cream aren't, though!

I grew the citrus trees, and the lychees just because i could - i had no better reason, it was just because i thought i'd give it a go.

The citrus trees are 6" tall at the most, but i'll keep them and they should be nice houseplants. I doubt they'll ever fruit over here, but you never know. The lychees are an ongoing experiment - apparently, they won't fruit fo 15 years anyway, so its a long term experiment!!

A lot of fruit has sterile seeds, apples do. These seeds won't grow at all though, not just not produce fruit. The fruit can never be guaranteed though. you could grow a fruit from the seeds of the most delicious fruit you've ever tasted and the fruit from your tree could be awful!! Commercial fruit trees are grafted and mated time and time again to produce the perfect fruit. Its a bit like a mixed breed dog - you could have a lot of one, or a lot of the other to make the perfect puppy. Fruit is the same, they might have mated a deep orange, but bitter orange with a sickly yellow, but sweet orange to create your deep orange, beautifully sweet orange. The trees from that could be perfect, yet they could also produce those sickly yellow ones, or the bitter ones.

I read the book by philip moss (Pip-growing i thing, something like that anyway) and he said that citrusses tend to not be true to fruit. If you have a seed that produces two plants, however, then the side shoot (i have no idea how you tell which is which either...) will more often than not be true to fruit.

Good luck with your seed planting, its great fun!!

ina wrote: (Actually, one of my tiny citrus trees is developing a flower - I'm reall excited about that! Had a big lemon tree once, about 1m high, in a pot, and it never flowered...)

Any chance of a pic Ina?
Then i can show it to mine, so they know what to do when they get big and strong

I was planning a lemon tree in my poly-tunnel, when I have it (a suggestion from John Seymour's book)

So, are you saying that it won't fruit? or is that just if you start it from seed?

If you get a rootstock for a particular variety, then you shouldn't have a problem with it fruiting and being edible.

If you grow it from seed, it will take years to fruit, and you can't be sure whether it will be true fruit (ie the same as the one that the seed came from ) or not. It could not fruit at all, or the fruit could be horrible and inedible! its a game of wait and see i'm afraid!

I don't know if you can get citrus seeds specifically for fruiting trees - i planted seeds from lemons that i used and oranges i ate.

Hmm, Iwas going to grow from seed but I had better buy a tree I suppose, thankyou for your helpful hints

the.fee.fairy wrote:
A lot of fruit has sterile seeds, apples do. These seeds won't grow at all though, not just not produce fruit.

I have to disagree with you, they may not the same as their parents, but the reason why there are so many apple trees beside teh railway lines and roads is because they have seeded from all the apple cores that people have thrown out.

About lemon trees, we have I think 3 - 1 which is mature and has lemons on all year round another that I planted to replace a dead one and one I think is a lemon tree but only about 18 inches high and hasn't had fruit on it yet ( I didn't plant it so can't be sure what it is until it fruits)

Yes we are in NZ an do get much sunnier and warmer summers, but we also get winters just as cold as the UK and we are 500m from the sea.

I would say as long as the plant is sheltered fromthe wind and has enough nutrients it would be worth growing even in the UK

Nutrients - wee on it and give it epsom salts

the.fee.fairy wrote: Any chance of a pic Ina?
Then i can show it to mine, so they know what to do when they get big and strong

Sorry, no can do - that was 10 years ago; had to leave it in Germany when I moved here. It looked very attractive with the glossy dark leaves.

possum wrote:

the.fee.fairy wrote:
A lot of fruit has sterile seeds, apples do. These seeds won't grow at all though, not just not produce fruit.

I have to disagree with you, they may not the same as their parents, but the reason why there are so many apple trees beside teh railway lines and roads is because they have seeded from all the apple cores that people have thrown out.

Sorry, i should have specified modern commercial fruit - things like the pink ladies and the fujis.

interesting thread
would elderberry come under this category?
I'm hoping to throw down a load of elderberries along our border to create both a quickish-growing hedgeline and an enormous source of free food. Since that is how they grow in the wild, I'm assuming that is all I need to do - am I corrrect?

well they do seem to turn up everywhere.. I thought birds distributed them somewhow..

also heard of taking cuttings of elder in Autumn.. sposed to take fairly well... though not actually tried it. we were thinking of putting in an elder hedge too.

I'm weeding the ruddy things out fom everywhere! In the nearly three years we've been here we've gone from a couple of little trees to them all over the place like weeds - growing inside the conifer hedges and all around my veg patch fence, and in the woodland. It's pretty obvious that where they have seeded is under where a bird has perched.

Bridgette wrote:how can you not grow something from seed?

A lot of shop bought fruit nowadays is sterile. Deliberately so that you can't grow new plants from the seeds. My grandmother did manage to grow an orange tree from a pip from a shop bought orange a few years ago and it did fruit eventually. The fruit was very bitter though.

Zoe