Do you have a garage or basement? Even here in the chilly mid-west 'they' say to put trees like that in an unheated garage. It seems the trees all need (even tropicals) some kind of mildly chilly season to produce in following year. I once had a fig tree which is not meant for MO. climate but was sold here advertising it would survive the winter 'with winter protection'. It came with instructions to bundle it up with a thick layer of straw and cover it with a tarp which is what I did. I think it got cold and the straw just held the cold in and froze the tree anyway. It died.....
I know this isn't a gardening group officially ... but I hear so much about ya'll's green thumbs that I thought you'd be the ones to ask!
We have a Key Lime tree and it's gettin' cold here. We didn't plant it outside - hubby wouldn't let us as he wants to bring it in during the winter (since it does get colder than it does in it's natural climate). He babies that thing like most of us baby our SMs (really, I think he loves that tree more than he loves me!!). It's given us three limes in the past few months, so I reckon he's doing it right.
My problem (not his, of course): in bringing it in from this month to when it gets warm enough for it to do well (about March), it's going to get bigger. It's already 4 feet tall and *heavy*. The leaves are already falling off, so he's really worried about it and really pressuring me to bring it in (today is what he's shooting for). But it's big enough that with where it would need to be in the house, it'll cramp our spaces up. To boot, I'll have to pretty much sacrifice several of my houseplants and potted herbs to make room (which I don't want to do - I can't grow fruit or veggies for the life of me, but I've got herbs down pat! and I use them all the time!!).
So, is there any way that we can plant the tree outside and keep it warm?? Or would that just be a fool's errand and kill the tree (and thus upset hubby to no end)?
I've looked for the answer to this online and haven't found any good info ... even though they had oodles of KL trees at our local nurseries, no one seems to really grow them this far up North (they're native to the Florida Keys which only gets lows of about 50-60 - whereas we get lows of 20s) and thus, have no answers.
Thank you so much in advance!! You have NO idea what a big deal this is to my hubby!!
I'll ask my friend at work. They have a KL tree that they get quite a few limes from every year and I believe theirs is in a container. I know they don't have hordes or room to bring it in so maybe their solution will work for you too. Leslie may be right about the cold period, though. Navel oranges don't really ripen and aren't truly sweet until it's gotten chilly, but not freezing.
Ugh ... yes, we do have a garage - a converted garage that I use as my studio.
I hate to sound like a total jerk, but the last thing I want is to share my studio with The Tree. Hubby will be in and out nearly every moment he's home, pampering it and fussing with it and I will NEVER get anything done. He has a way of being VERY distracting and loud. : /
But OTOH, he will KILL me if I don't do what I need to (even if it means sacrificing my studio) for The Tree!!!
Thank you, Leslie ... it wasn't what I was hoping to hear, but if hubby wants to do it, it'll hurt less knowing that you recommended it!!
Hugs!! Connie (wishing that when hubby had asked to get the tree, she had said NO!!)
I would REALLY appreciate that!! Sharing my studio with The Tree is not what I'd like to do ... you have no idea how looney hubby is about that tree (it gets watered four times a day - a tiny bit at a time so it doesn't get "over-watered" - he's THAT fanatical about it!!) and what a ruckus he'd make if I ran my SM too loud or touched the *$&# thing on accident!! We had medium winds a while back (about ten miles per hour) and he left a meeting to call me to make sure that I moved the tree enough that it wouldn't have any leaves get knocked off.
I wish the limes *would* get sweet ... but they're supposed to be bitter (yuck). Hubby loves them that way. To me, it's like developing a taste for urine. Ain't gonna happen. You make Key Lime pies out of'em, and they taste good that way, but it's the lemon and sugar you add that makes them taste good!!
When we bought it, we had the choice between a KL tree and a Blood Orange Tree ... I really, really, really, wish we had chosen the BO tree!! But maybe, just maybe, I'm just jealous of that *&^%$ tree!
I have 2 lemons that aren't as big as yours. But in big pots! I put them on those little wheeled plant thingies, so they are easy to move if necessary. They will have to yield their window spot when the Christmas tree goes up! They both do several lemons and keep blooming most of the winter. I'm just happy when my plants don't immediately die -bad case of black thumb. Roberta in D
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You'll kill the tree if you plant it outside. The lime tree shouldn't grow much indoors because it will have a lot less light than it would outdoors, so don't worry about that.
If you are trying to make room for it and a Christmas tree--shake things up a bit and use the lime tree as your Christmas tree. Debra in VA See my quilts at
Your climate definitely seems too cold for key lime (they don't thrive here, and it's a rare winter night when we get down to 30). Sounds like you need to make the sacrifice for the sake of your marriage. :)
Maybe you can ask him to buy you an iPod, so you can listen to music while you quilt and you won't hear him come in to fuss over the tree...
I would suffer with it indoors this year, and make him build a mini green house for it next year. Attach the greenhouse to the main house and that will save on heating it. He could plant the tree in the ground then, and just heat the little greenhouse to the minimum temperature necessary to keep it healthy. My MIL had an attached greenhouse, though hers was bigger than you need, and it didn't really cost a great deal to keep it. Among other things she had a 15 foot rubber tree planted in the floor in there. Next year this time your DH's key lime will probably be to big to be moving around. Just point out to him that full size trees will only thrive in tubs for so long, eventually they get to a point where you just can't repot them anymore, at least not sanely.
Aw, now Connie, bring that sweet man's lime tree inside and welcome it. Good grief. How big a burden could a little lime tree be? It could be his mother or his truck. Polly
Yup....still glowing! :-) But not enough to hang ornaments on me and skip the Christmas tree set up. It was cool to have written instructions from the doctor to not touch any food someone else will consume for 7 whole days! Woo Hoo! Though I'm though with my cautions by Tuesday. (Flushing the toilet twice when done....staying 6 feet away from children). Back to the grind. Then I'll have to have blood tests to see if my thyroid has gone from hyper to hypo....gee, I look forward to that...NOT! Thanks for asking about my dad. He is still in the hospital. He spent several days in restraints as he was agitated and was trying to pull out his tubes etc. He's calmer now so he's no longer restrained. He has been having some pain and has been given meds that have made him sleep the past couple of days my mother has visited. So I don't really know how he's really doing to some extent. My mother sounds really good and I think some of it is the relief that she's not responsible for his care. She was quite worried about how she was going to take care of him when he came home the first time. Thanks for your concern but even more for you wonderfu sense of humor!
My former husband and my mom both went thru thyroid cancer and a thyroidectomy... I'm guessing that's what you have had? It was rough, but the hubby's oncologist said he was lucky- thyroid cancer was the easiest one to control/treat/cure. I guess that's a small blessing??? I will pray for you to get your levels leveled out quickly and not be too miserable while the doc plays with your dosages. Glad your dad is doing better and I will continue to pray for him as well. Thanks for the updates.
I see your point, Polly, but I *AM* dealing with his mother, *too* ... and I haven't mentioned that she's amazingly bipolar who refuses to take her medication. She's accused me (so far, the month's not over yet. *sigh*) of trying to poison her, hiring a hit man to kill her next door neighbor's dog (as a "sign" to her) and has repeatedly said that God has told her that hubby's sister is hiding my FIL's huge estate from my hubby (he worked for Publix, for goodness sake). God has also told her that I'm trying to kill her and "curse" her car (whatever that means???). I'm also completely responsible for all the horrible damage caused by Katrina - in fact, there was NO hurricane ... it was all me and my "evil powers."
Sorry for the rant ... but as a weird coincidence, hubby just got a call from my MIL (who lives about 5 miles away) 20 minutes ago saying that despite the fact that I was with him all day, she "saw me sitting on the roof of her car, cutting the brake cables on her car this afternoon." *sigh*
Again, sorry ... if we hadn't have just had her call, I wouldn't have said a stinking thing. Just really tired of all the drama that goes on. I'm sure that as soon as I hit the "send" button, I'll have regretted saying all this. But for now ...
I'm sorry for your woes Connie. But when reading the list, I did have to giggle a little bit. It's all so outrageous. I hope there are times when dealing with her that you can just step back and let out a laugh. It's better than crying and you can let off a little tension that way. It's obvious you have a lot to cope with. I just hope you learn to use your "powers" for good, not evil. :->
No, not cancer. They have found it to be Grave's disease. So they "zapped" it with the radioactive iodine. That could bring my hyper thyroid back into the normal range, but will probably make it hypo and I'll take meds. Should be fine once everything gets leveled out. Thanks for the prayers for my dad. I do appreciate it.
A LOT of things that she does are so outrageous that you HAVE to laugh ... but, then, unfortunately, you realize that there are some *serious* problems going on.
Last December, she called us telling us that she had just destroyed her new couch set ... completely ripped them apart with a knife and *ahem* hammer. Apparently, she was sitting, reading a book, when she saw (and I quote now) a critter, with 8 PAIRS of legs (I did ask for clarification on the number - thinking she had misspoke - nope, she *meant* 8 *pairs* of legs), part reptile, part mouse, scurry under her tv, and then across the room and under the very couch she sat on. Upset, she destroyed the new couch set hoping to scare it away. Did she call us at the time? Nope...though she'll call at 3 am to tell us that my DD's been kidnapped as a "drill" - or call us at midnight to tell us about some new tv show.
That's what's so scary about her ... she tells us these things AFTER the fact. Now, being on a fixed income, she has NO couch set. Yet ... She owes over $60K on credit cards, but the &*^%$ keep giving her more cards!!! She never pays the bills, prefering instead, to write "deceased" on the envelopes and send them back (mail fraud). So she is, yet again, given a credit card and has a $6,000 set being delivered next week.
We've actually considered trying to have her declared my hubby's "ward" so we can 1) keep the damn credit cards out of her hands and keep her from declaring herself "dead" - we don't know if the Postmaster General would
*really* put her in jail, but we're too afraid to take the chance. 2) make sure she doesn't hurt herself or hurt others - she's become more and more delusional as time goes by. It's not just being bipolar anymore ...
Another thing that hubby's suggested is having her committed (again) - at least long enough that they'll give her some medication. She was committed twice several years ago by her boss and co-workers (she was sure they were trying to poison her and started screaming and throwing office equipment at them). And just here recently, she talked an eye doctor into (ugh)
*scraping* her *eye*. She thought that her dentist splashed AIDS contaminated water into her during a check up. Of course, that's not what she told her eye doctor ... she told him that she splashed chemicals in her eye.
*sigh*
As I said, if it weren't so horribly twisted, it *would* be funny. And I haven't even told you about when she tried to have her *ahem* prostate gland removed. But that can wait for another time, I guess. : /
Again, sorry for the venting. We live in such a small town and have kept this a secret for SO long ... I think I've been ready to burst for years now ...
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