"DavePoole Torquay" wrote in reply to..
Bob Hobden's comment:

So we in the south can all grow olive, lemon and orange trees in our
gardens...news to me, they won't survive in most of warmer London either,
only in specific garden microclimates (like Dave Poole's). You need to
drag
them back inside to avoid the frosty weather.

There are a few folks growing lemons, mandarins and even avocados
within the London conurbation Bob, but most of the oranges need more
heat. Outside of the 'heat-sink' area, the frequency and intensity of
winter frosts is too great. Of course gardening luvvies like these
don't worry about such trivia. They are only concerned with the
immediate effect and never stop to consider what happens over the
ensuing months and years.

Oranges will grow here and produce fruit, but the sweet flesh does not
develop at low temperatures so they are only useful for ornament or for
using the rind/zest in cooking.

Whilst Olive trees are quite common around London and seem to be OK outside
all year I don't think they would survive in the "whole of the South" and
citrus trees certainly only in microclimates like yours, even within London.
We have noticed that whilst our Lemon trees and Tahiti Lime produce
excellent fruit, indeed, superb flavour/smell, the oranges don't. They seem
rather dry and don't have a sweet taste, looks good though, probably the
best looking of them all. They all spend the late spring/summer/early autumn
against our S facing house front wall and the winter jammed in our tiny
greenhouse.

I've been experimenting with Limequats
recently. This is a hybrid between the Florida Key lime and Nagami
Kumquat. Limes need a lot of heat to grow well and are the least cold
resistant of the citrus family. However, the kumquat is remarkably
cool tolerant and the fruit develops quickly. These qualities are
passed down to the hybrid although the fruits are quite small. Mine
flowered in June this year and I picked several fruits this weekend.
The flavour was excellent. Pick them green if you want a lime, wait a
couple of months and pick them yellow if you want a semi-sweet lemon.

I won't let Sue see that or there will be another tree to cart around. :-)
Although, as I say, the Tahiti lime fruits well for us and tastes every bit
a lime.

Back to this programme, 'Digging Deep' quickly reached the expected
nadir of pseudo-horticulture and managed to keep me awake for less than
10 minutes. What I saw was pretentiously plebby and about as gripping
as a blancmange handshake. However, on the bright side, I got a good
couple of hours unexpected zzzz so for me it was therapeutic.

Gardening for the non-gardener again perhaps?

--
Regards
Bob H
17mls W. of London.UK