Citrus are so ubiquitous in Southern California that you might think they’re native, and they’re so easy to grow here that I’ve gone for planting multiple varieties in my yard with the aim of getting fresh fruit off the trees almost every month of the year. While I do have some other types of citrus, the chart above shows the varieties of oranges and mandarins that I grow, along with the months in which their fruit taste best in my yard (twenty miles from the ocean in San Diego County).
The eating year basically runs like this: little mandarins starting in the fall, then peeling oranges in the winter, then bigger mandarins in the spring, and finally, slicing oranges in the spring through summer.
While I’m no citrus expert, nor have I tasted every cultivar of sweet orange or mandarin, I did grow up in a Southern California town that had been established as citrus groves (Glendora), and in fact I attended Citrus College, so throughout my youth I ran through orchards and tasted most all of the common kinds, including the old school, seedy types like Dancy tangerine, a tree of which my grandparents had in their yard.
Also, I’ve been lucky enough to tour the Citrus Variety Collection at the University of California, Riverside where one can taste about a thousand different kinds of citrus fresh off the trees — no exaggeration, they have about a thousand citrus varieties growing there! During my tour (part of which was videoed and posted on YouTube), I tasted most of the newer kinds of oranges and mandarins that can be purchased as plants at nurseries in Southern California these days.
When I moved to a new house in 2013, I based my decisions on what to grow in my new yard on those experiences: my citrus-eating youth and my tasting of new varieties at U.C.R.
Here are a few notes on why I chose the varieties that I chose:
The Kishu, also called Seedless Kishu or Kishu Mini, is the best fruit tree for kids. I wrote about why it’s God’s gift to children here, but in summary, the mandarins are not much bigger than a golf ball, the rind comes off so easily that you can peel it one handed, and, “It’s a burst of tangy sugar!” I wrote in my notebook during the tour at U.C.R.
I wanted a peeling orange, but instead of the standard Washington navel, which I grew up eating off of my grandparents’ trees, I decided to go with a slight twist and plant a Cara Cara navel orange tree. It is simply a Washington navel gone pink; a Washington navel tree growing in Venezuela was found with one branch producing fruit that was pink inside. The taste of Washington and Cara Cara are essentially the same — that is, mostly sweet with little bite — and both have large juice vesicles.
Gold Nugget mandarins are seedless and sweet, and Pixie mandarins are seedless and sweet, too. They’re both ripe from spring into summer. Why not just plant a Pixie or a Gold Nugget? For the same reason that I planted both a Kishu and a Satsuma for the fall into winter period: mandarins can have on and off years, but we don’t want to ever be lacking fresh mandarin fruit. It’s insurance. And to my taste buds, the Pixie and Gold Nugget mandarins have a certain richness and uniqueness to their sweetness that I enjoy. They’re also easy to peel, which isn’t unimportant. Speaking of peels, Gold Nuggets have the bumpiest, and some would say ugliest, peel of any mandarin I’ve seen, which is fun because it belies the fine flavor of the flesh inside.
You’ll notice three common threads: great taste, easy to peel, and seedless. All of my choices have those qualities. The reasoning is simple. Why grow a tree whose fruit is hard to peel and seedy when you can grow a tree whose fruit tastes just as good but is easy to peel and seedless?
Anyway, this monster of a Valencia orange tree takes us through summer. We not only eat its fruit through the hot months, but we use its canopy to sit under, we’ve hung a swing off of one branch, there are coffee plants and raspberry canes planted under its eastern drip line for afternoon shade. It really does take us through summer.
But come September and October we’re pretty much without fresh oranges and mandarins. Wah, wah. Two empty months. Rough life.
If you’re making decisions about what citrus to grow in your yard, you ought to read this publication from the University of California titled “Tried and True or Something New? Selected Citrus Varieties for the Home Gardener.” It includes descriptions of most of the varieties that I’m growing plus many other good ones. (By the way, I’d originally intended to plant USDA 88-2 instead of a Satsuma, but I had trouble finding a USDA 88-2 tree to buy at a nursery. USDA 88-2 is very tasty.)
Update, October 2018: The USDA 88-2 mandarin is now being sold by Four Winds Growers in Northern California. They ship to Southern California. The variety is listed by another name, “Lee x Nova,” because it is a cross of those two older varieties. Some people have also called this variety “Supernova.”
You might also like to read my posts:
Satsuma vs. Kishu: comparing two early mandarins
When and how to prune citrus trees
I have a wonderful mandarin tree – don’t know the variety. Is there a way I can find out what kind it is? Also it is leaning more to 1 side and I am worried it may fall over. Do I need to somehow stake it – it is about 12 years old. We planted it along our property line and next to our neighbor’s hedge property line. It is about 5 feet away from the hedge but am wondering if it is leaning just because it needs to be topped off. I just don’t want it to fall over! We do not overwater it.
You could peruse the mandarin page at UC Riverside’s Citrus Variety Collection website: http://www.citrusvariety.ucr.edu/citrus/mandarins.html
You could also give me a description of the fruit and I’d make my best guess.
Staking the tree might be necessary, but first I’d make sure the foliage is as balanced as possible so its weight doesn’t continue to pull it to one side. You can prune citrus anytime, but beware of exposing large branches to sunlight that had been shaded because they will burn. See my post “When and how to prune citrus.”
Hi Greg!
Just found your blog and I am hooked! I live in Orange County, have 4 hardworking backyard chickens and grow avocados, 3 types of citrus and lots of veggies.
Where do you buy your citrus trees? I would like to add a ruby red grapefruit and another mandarin to our yard and my husband thinks it would be ok to buy a tree from Home Depot. I would like to ensure a healthy young tree, and feel like often the trees at HD often look stressed. Looking forward to your recommendation for a nursery or grower with great trees! Thank you!
Hi Sharie,
So glad you found the blog!
I kind of agree with both you and your husband, actually. This question about where to buy citrus trees (and fruit trees in general) is a topic that has been on my mind a lot over the last few weeks.
Instead of giving a short answer here, I’m going to write a whole post about it for this week. I’ll call it, “Where should you buy fruit trees in Southern California?”
Thanks for the prompt, and see you on Friday morning with, hopefully, some helpful information.
Wow!! Thank you for the post on where to buy fruit trees! Great post with so much great information. Thank you!! Hope you enjoyed all the rain! I read the posts on your rain barrels / cisterns and now I’m trying to inspire my husband to install one! I saw the so cal metropolitan water district is even offering rebates on large rain cisterns. So that seems like a good incentive. Thank you for this website, it’s such an amazing resource!!
Do you have any experience growing blood oranges? My wife and I are motivated to plant a Blood Orange and Cara Cara Navel tree because of their distinct health benefits (Anthocyanin and Lycopene) but I don’t know which blood variety to pick. Of the 3 main options (Sanguinello, Moro, Tarocco) do you have any suggestions?
Thanks for all the great posts. My wife and I are excited about growing our own food, especially healthy foods and your website is a wealth of knowledge.
Thank you, Eric. Providing solid info for you and your wife is exactly my goal.
I’ve never tasted a Sanguinelli, but between the Tarocco and Moro I slightly prefer Tarocco. I like my oranges on the sweet side, and Tarocco gets sweeter and fuller of flavor than Moro — to my taste, anyway. My wife actually really likes Moro though, and she likes tart citrus. For example, she prefers to eat mandarins and oranges earlier in their seasons than I do.
But in terms of bloodiness, Moro definitely wins. It gets so bloody that I’ve seen the entire interior turn almost uniformly purple. Tarocco, by comparison, tends to be more streaked.
Both Moro and Tarocco are totally worth growing, but I’d grow whichever one fits your preferred taste, tarter (Moro) or sweeter (Tarocco).
Awesome thanks, I think we might just plant them both…another question (or two). I stopped by Home Depot yesterday and they have a Red Valencia which looked interesting, do you have any experience with that one? When I looked it up online it’s called Smith Red Valencia, apparently it’s an orange and not a blood orange with a slightly longer harvest time versus regular valencia.
Also, I happened to finally find a Kishu the other day at my local nursery. It was grown by Durling. The tag attached to a branch said Semi-Dwarf but the black 5 gallon container had a hand written “dwarf” label on it, with no semi in front of it. I was under the impression that there are 3 sizes of fruit trees (standard, semi-dwarf and dwarf) but when I asked the guy he said there’s really only 2, standard and semi-dwarfing. He mentioned something about growers not using true dwarf rootstock for many years. Can you clear up some of this confusion? I cannot fit standard trees on my property, or I could but I’d rather plant more smaller ones. Thanks again for all the info…
Hi Eric,
Good questions. I’ve never tasted the Smith Red, but I think that if I didn’t already have a Valencia I might try it. UCR’s description is enticing: http://www.citrusvariety.ucr.edu/citrus/smithred.html
The citrus rootstock issue is so confusing. The guy at your nursery was mostly right: there are only two citrus sizes commonly sold, which might be called “standard” and “semi-dwarf.”
But these terms are not standardized let alone regulated, and there are different rootstocks used for different citrus scion varieties that have varying degrees of dwarfing effects on each.
As for a Durling-grown tree specifically, I happened to look into this some years back when I bought my first Kishu tree grown by them. Durling said they use Rubidoux trifoliate rootstock for trees that they write “dwarf” on the container, which are then labelled “semi-dwarf” on the tag — a confusing practice!
Anyway, the bottom line is that you shouldn’t think of that Kishu as a true dwarf.
Most people agree that the only true dwarf rootstock for citrus is one called Flying Dragon. If Durling ever uses it, they said they write “ultra-dwarf” on the container.
I’m sure we’re not the first to wonder about this issue, and it would probably be useful to write a full post on it. I should do it soon while people are in the citrus-planting mood, huh?
Ahh ok…that makes sense, I’d rather have a semi dwarf size tree anyway. As always, thanks for the info…
We just bought a new house and noticed there is some sort of citrus tree in our yard but we don’t know what kind. From afar they looked like limes but as we got closer they looked a lot like our manadarins we have at the old house (except that one is a dwarf tree and the new house’s tree is at least 10ft tall). They’re all green and the size of a golf ball, are large oranges ever that small? I cut one open to make sure it wasn’t a lime but it was yellowish inside and smelled orange-y. I’m wondering how we can tell what the big tree is and also how to find out what our little dwarf mandarin tree is
Hi Amy,
Yes, when large oranges are young they look like green golf balls. My Valencia oranges look like that right now, but my navel oranges are a little bigger than golf balls already here in mid-August. You’ll see them turn orange after Thanksgiving if the fruit are oranges (or mandarins). By that time they’ll also be about mature size.
It will be easiest to determine what variety of citrus the big tree is (as well as the dwarf mandarin) this winter or spring when the fruit is mature. Just remember that the fruit might not be mature yet even after the peel has turned orange; that is, it might still taste a bit sour for another month or two. Read more about that in my post, “When to pick oranges and tangerines (mandarins)”
I tried to email you and it responded with an error :/
Just wanted to say how much I love your whole site, it has truly shortened my learning curve tremendously, for my grove and my garden beds. I’m in Fallbrook so our climate is probably pretty similar, so based on your posts, I just bought an Algerian, Tango, Satsuma, Kishu and Gold Nugget which will all get planted this weekend. I got all these from Maddock Nursery in Fallbrook but they get their stock from Durling. I also went to Four Winds website and landed a USDA 88-2 Mandarin (plus two Olive trees) and I can’t wait to try it when it starts giving me fruit. Based on your other post about which Avocados to plant, I scored a Hass, a Reed and a Fuerte. Can’t wait to plant them and get some of my own fruit from them. I’ve set up all my watering just like you show in your posts. Great stuff, thanks again.
/Dave in Fallbrook
Hi Dave,
Thank you so much for writing. And sorry about the delayed reply: I was actually up your way the last couple days visiting some avocado groves in Fallbrook/De Luz/Temecula.
I’m so glad you mentioned getting the USDA 88-2 from Four Winds because I hadn’t known they were selling it and I’d been planning to finally get my own budwood from UC Riverside and make a tree this coming spring. No need for that now. I just bought one from Four Winds too.
I’m confident you are going to love the mandarins and avocados coming off those trees in the next few years. Keep me updated on how they’re doing, and especially how the USDA 88-2 is doing. You and I will be the only ones I know who are growing them in a backyard situation.
Hi Greg,
Just wondering how your USDA 88-2 (Lee x Nova) is doing? Mine is growing slow but healthy and has avoided the rash of citrus miners that have uglied up all my other new mandarins. I juts scored a Shasta Gold from Fourwinds and it went in the ground today. Can’t wait to taste it.
I was wondering if you had any interest in a Shiranui tree? I have been dying for one since I ate my first Sumo oranges this past spring and now I have been craving them like mad – they really are the best oranges there are – big/huige, juicy, sweet as can be, easy to peel, no seeds, firm flesh, simply awesome, but man they are expensive in stores.
I haven’t found anyone who will these trees in California – lots of Florida growers offer them but non can ship to CA. So I’ve been looking at budwood from CCCP and making my own trees, but I am clueless about this. I could do the research and learn it but wanted to see if you were interested in a joint project? CCCP should have Shiranui in November so the timing is right. I think I mentioned before I am in Fallbrook. Would love to have you come visit my grove and check out my 23 citrus trees, 3 Avo’s, 10 Olive trees and a bunch of others. Planning to add 2 or 3 more Avo’s soon as well.
Let me know if you want to do a Shiranui graft project. 🙂
/Dave
Wow, Dave. You have 23 citrus trees? That is a lot!
My USDA 88-2 is growing weakly, but I planted it in a bad spot. I plan to transplant it soon.
I like Shiranui/Sumo too even though I’ve only eaten some from stores. I imagine they taste even better from a backyard tree. I’ll get in touch with you about a graft project.
Thanks Greg, look forward to a joint Shiranui venture with you.
Things change fast around here, its now up to 28 citrus trees. I bought this place 2 years ago and it had the following:
4 Navel, 2 Valencia, 1 Oro Blanco GF, 1 Bears Lime, 1 Meyer and 1 Improved lemon. Since then I have added 2 Midknight Valencia, 1 Cara Cara, 1 Mexican Lime, 1 Star Ruby GF, 1 each of the following: Algerian, Gold Nugget, Kishu, Satsuma, Tango, 88-2, Pixie, Shasta Gold. Just today I went back to Maddock Ranch and got 2 Minneola Tangelos, 2 more Kishu and 1 more Gold Nugget. All from 15 gallon so they’re small still, but all fruiting nicely so far. I have room for probably 3 more Mandarins so I’m hoping to fill those with Shiranui . (I don’t call them Sumo, they may zap me for trademark infringement LOL)
Also just added a 24 inch Lamb Hass and I’ll add a Pinkerton next month and if I have space I’ll add a Gem or a Gwen. I’ve been making my purchase decisions based largely on your posts about what Avocado’s to grow… so once again, thank you for this whole site 🙂
/Dave
USDA 88-2 Update: Finally got a full crop of fruit from my USDA 88-2 (Lee x Nova from FourWinds). Its growing slow but healthy and finally set a real crop this past spring. It gave me about 25 good sized fruit. Tried a few today, and they are quite tasty. Not a super easy peel like Kishu or Satsuma, more like a regular navel or Valencia orange to peel, but it has its own rich sweet flavor.
Glad I planted it, at your recommendation 🙂
Did you ever get that Shirani grafted? Any luck?
/Dave
Hi Dave,
Thanks for the update. I’ve yet to get any fruit from my USDA 88-2, partly because a tractor ran it over last year! It’s still alive but barely.
Good to know about the peeling quality. Wonder if that improves much as the fruit is left on the tree longer.
I think about you whenever I look at my Shiranui fruit. The grafts I made have done very well, so well that I had to remove most of the fruit they set because Shiranui mandarins get very big and heavy. I left a half dozen on. I feel like I owe you some. I plan to pick a first sometime around late February.
We love the mandarins you buy at Costco or in the store that are labeled, Clementines or Little Cuties. What type of mandarin are they?
Hi Michael,
There’s actually no single answer to that question. Clementines are a group of mandarins (see descriptions of some here), and “Cuties” is just a marketing name; a number of mandarin cultivars are grown and sold as “Cuties.”
One cultivar that I have been told is grown and sold as “Cuties” is the Algerian clementine. Here are photos and descriptions of Algerian clementines on U.C. Riverside’s Citrus Variety Collection website.
A curious thing that you’ll notice on that webpage is that Algerian clementines have seeds. What? But Cuties don’t have seeds. Farmers exclude bees from their groves in order to grow Algerian clementines without seeds. (Read more about that here.)
You probably don’t want to try to do that in your yard so a great alternative would be a mandarin variety called Tango. It is a seedless version of another mandarin that is similar to the clementines called W. Murcott Afourer. Here is the webpage for Tango. Tangos taste great and Tango trees are widely available at nurseries.
Hi Greg, thoroughly enjoying your posts as we decide which 6 trees to plant in our long beach yard. One I really want is our neighbor’s tangerine tree… But they are not sure what variety it is. I read in one of your replies to a comment that if the poster could provide a picture you might be able to identify the variety. Hoping you will give that a shot with my picture! He states that they got some earlier, and now has more at the stage in the photo. It seems I can’t paste a picture but here is a link to it on Google photos https://photos.app.goo.gl/doMCFi8kaviAYQQXA.
Would love to know what you think it is!!
I just noticed that the 88-2 was named and released in 2019 as US Superna. Kind of a weird name, maybe short for supernatural? Anyway, I grafted 3 88-2 trees back in 2017. One tree is growing great and gave excellent fruit – I finished them off around Dec 2020. My Satsuma’s can be eaten Nov/Dec and my favorites (Tahoe Gold, Shiranui, Gold Nugget, Pixie) are not ready until late Feb and March, so the 88-2 gives me an earlier great tangerine in Dec.
Years ago someone up in Northern California was grafting and selling 88-2 trees and then stopped. After reading about the 88-2 and not finding any trees to buy, I ordered the bud wood from CCPP and made my own. I’m happy I did.
Hi Rick,
Thanks, I hadn’t noticed this. Weird name. The variety now has so many names: USDA 88-2, Lee x Nova, Supernova, and now US Superna. My own tree has only been in the ground a few years and has yet to fruit, but I bought it from Four Winds and I see that they are still selling the variety: https://www.fourwindsgrowers.com/collections/citrus-trees/products/nova-mandarin-one-year-old-tree?variant=3755766480909
You’ve given me the idea to take some budwood from my own tree and graft it onto a larger mandarin so that I get more fruit sooner.
I’ll link here to some information on the variety and its naming:
https://citrusvariety.ucr.edu/citrus/88-2.html
https://citrusvariety.ucr.edu/citrus/documents/USSupernaUSDA88-2ReleaseNotice.pdf
https://ucanr.edu/sites/ucceventura/files/313405.pdf
Hi Greg. I just asked about an avocado variety recommendation for year round fruit production, and I’d like your feedback on citrus that covers most of the season. I am north SD county and have the following citrus trees. Moro blood orange, Valencia orange, Washington navel, ruby red grapefruit, Satsuma, Golden Nugget, as well as some lemon & limes. I have one more spot and wanted your thoughts. Sounds like Kishu is a great option for kids and adults too. any other thoughts based on my existing trees.
Thank you.
Hi Rob,
Unless you want to try a different type of citrus, such as kumquats or finger limes or pommelos, then Kishu is wonderful as long as you don’t mind the fruit being small. Which kinds of citrus do you eat most of? — that’s what I would focus on.