Weekend Gardener: Protecting citrus plants during the winter
COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) – Citrus plants have become popular across the Brazos Valley, according to Justin Scheiner with Texas A&M AgriLife.
“A lot of people are interested in growing citrus,” said Scheiner. “It became very evident after 2021 when we had the big freeze and everybody’s rushing out to find citrus to replace everything they lost.”
He shared some ways to be successful in growing those plants.
“The first thing is to think about what type of citrus we can grow here. I mean, you can grow anything so long as you’re willing to protect it from winter cold,” he said.
Scheiner said the cold weather is the most common problem these plants face.
“If you can provide protection or you can bring it in, you can grow just about anything. But if you don’t have that ability, I would suggest growing things that are a little more cold hearty,” he said. “What we have here are some satsumas and we also have some kumquats. These are some of our more cold hearty citrus that you can actually pick directly from the tree and eat.”
He said a lot of people are also interested in planting lemon and limes.
“For those folks that are interested in something like that, I would say you probably need the Pinpoint weather app cause any time it gets around freezing, you gotta start protecting them from it. You can grow them in pots and just bring them inside,” said Sheiner.
