Growing Fruit from pips (Formerly all about Lemons)

[ina]

I had to leave my beloved lemontree in Germany when I moved to Scotland... It was about 1m high (including pot), lived on the balcony in summer (southside), and in the unheated bedroom in winter. Looked brilliant with its glossy leaves, but never flowered. That was grown from a pip, too, and was about 4 or 5 years old.

Currently I've been trying to get clementine pips to germinate, but no luck whatsoever! Maybe it was just an infertile batch of fruit.

[Muddypause]

Isn't a clementine a cross between, um, a something and a something else? Won't that affect whether you can grow anything from the seeds? If you can, it'll maybe just revert to one parent or the other.

[hedgewizard]

Clementines are the tiniest of the mandarins. Imported from Spain, Morocco, and other parts of North Africa, clementines are a cross between a sweet orange and a Chinese mandarin.

So there. They're selected to be almost seedless, and the seeds that are there are often poorly formed.

[Kfish]

Awesome link! It's not often you get a commercial site that tells you to do it yourself

My grandmother has a couple of lemon trees that have been fruiting for 15 years now, I'll have to go and get some seeds off her. It was funny, I had one from her that I'd left a while, when I opened it up some of the seeds had sprouted! I put them out in the garden but nothing happened.

[Millymollymandy]

Clementines are the tiniest of the mandarins. Imported from Spain, Morocco, and other parts of North Africa, clementines are a cross between a sweet orange and a Chinese mandarin.

So there. They're selected to be almost seedless, and the seeds that are there are often poorly formed.

They are the only thing we can get in France (no tangerines here), and they most definitely are NOT seedless!!! They all come from Corsica (of course, no foreign imports in this country), they are hard to peel and are pretty sour too.

[ina]

Mine had just a few seeds, but not a single one germinated. Must have been mandarins that I used before, because they germinated every single time! I'll try grapefruit next (just happen to have a few in my fruitbowl). I'd love to have one of those glossy citrus trees again.

[Wormella]

We've got some Manderins on the go as well - just to see how they do. The lemon three's looking pretty.

[Cheezy]

I have a much abused lemon tree.

As a kid I put some pips into a house plant pot, and forgot about them. Then one day(like over a year later) we noticed something was growing. We potted it up.

Over the years I tied copper wire around it's trunk (I was in a bonzai phase), these certainly have left interesting trunk grooves, but didn't bonzai it!.

My mother tried several times I'm sure to kill it, all to no avail. I keep it well cropped so it is still quite short (it's late and I will tomorrow take a photo of it)
It lives mostly outside, but in the depth of winter goes into the cold greenhouse. As a kid I used to bring it inside the house. It never liked that, and neither did my mother.

Wait for it.... I have had this tree for 26 years now.

Now here's the strange thing, I have seen a strange "pseudo" flower on it twice in the last 4 years

To be honest I think I should show someone who knows about these things, cos what it is really, is like a strange leaf that is curled up , and completely white, it comes during the hot summer, and dies. My wife has seen it so I'm not going mad. But I have other (Bought) citrus and I know a real flower when I see one.

I like to think that although my ol' mate can not flower, she gives it her best shot...for me.

If I get one this year I'll post a piccy.

Whatch out for scale insects, we've had quiet a few rounds with them boy's over the years, and the ants love to support the buggers cos they produce a sticky dew that they like.

[spot]

I grew my lemons just the same, at the office party. They came out of my G+T so maybe that helped. It was 29 years ago and they have been fruiting for 2 years. The first slice was a real occasion, the kids all watched me cut it up! I don't think they believed it would be proper inside as it was older than they were! At Christmas they had lights on becayse they were too big to go in the greenhouse and they had to come indoors. I have pruned them a bit now so that they fit but they don't seem to like it much- no flowers this year yet

[ina]

Hi Spot - maybe I should give the pips the gin treatment - at the moment nothing wants to germinate for me!

Don't think I said hello yet - I was away for a few days when you first joined - so hello, and welcome.

By the way, we have two dogs on the farm called Spot...

[spot]

Hi Ina
Thanks for the welcome!
I named my self after the spotty dog on the woodentops. I am afraid we don't have room for a farm, but I do my best with a 30 x 90 ft garden by the station and a stiff legged cat.

[hedgewizard]

27 years for my first lemon... that'd make me too old to be allowed the gin! Thanks for all the info chaps and gels, I'm a patient man but I *officially* don't have the patience for lemons!

[Monty]

Woah guys don't mean to butt in on all the fun but I have a question and can't really be bothered to start a new post.

Last summer a concealed blackberry grew and rotted. What remained was a little cluster of seeds. I then immersed these seeds in tepid water and planted them into john innes no. 1 (only the best).


That was months ago and it is taking up valuable propagator room. Could it germinate? Will it grow true to seed? How long will it take?

Love to you all.

[Wormella]

It might do - it might not (The jot of growing stuff from Pips)

There's not mention if it in the really fab little pip book we've got on hand.

The other thing - would you want to. Not sure I'd want my garden overgrown with brambles out of choice.

[hedgewizard]

I've not researched this but I have a feeling that blackberry seeds are coated to survive passage through the gut of birds and small mammals, in which case they might germinate in a year or two when the coating breaks down. Other seeds like this include tomato - they may germinate without the coating being removed, but they will germinate better once it's off. You can ferment tomato pulp to remove the coating. Anyway! Get yourself out into the country and get scratched to bits for a few mouldy berries like the rest of us!