Hello everyone! Have you ever tried to grow a citrus tree from a seed? I would love to have one..I was thinking about lemon or mandarine tree.. Which one is easier to grow? What conditions are suitable for them? Every advice is very precious for me!

Many years ago I easily grew three grapefruit trees from seed in garden soil from my garden. I still have two of them. That was before I knew about potting soil. They don't produce fruit because I keep them indoors all the time.

Growing them was easy.

Soak the fresh seed in water for a few days before planting. Citrus trees from seed is fun and easy. Grapefruit is probably the most likely to work. Try some of the exotics as well. Realize that you will only get a nice green plant by doing this. Fragrant leaves though. Trees in general, citrus trees take many years of growing before they will flower and produce fruit. Never let it go completely dry, that would kill it. Citrus does expect a lot of light. Spider mites do like citrus trees. Gene

Welcome: Gasrocks nailed it! The only thing I might add is that you can lightly nip the pointed end of the seed, to allow for quicker water intake. I have started almost every fruit from seed I could find, even Banana! It's fun! Good luck!

One book you must get: The After-Dinner Gardening Book, Richard W, Langer. Mine is paperback, fifth printing, 1974. Amazon sells used books. Gee, I can remember when Amazon only sold books, but I digress. Got me interested in growing things. Covers lots of different produce. Gene

I started a Calamondin Orange from seed. It's the only citrus that can take part-sun indoors and flower and fruit. though they say it takes 7-15 years for flowering :)..
I don't know if it's true for all citrus or just Calamondin, but the seed produces sev sprouts and you are supposed to select the strongest. So from sev seeds i selected 2 good seedlings.
And then learned how to prune them to keep them indoors for most of the time. If not for summering outdoors on the balcony they probably wouldn't be well.
i got rid of one tree last year and one still remains. not flowering :)..still waiting...It is supposed to flower sporadically several times a year even indoors and the smell is wonderfull.
Now that i know how to take care of it eventually i'll get the one already fruiting .

fwmosher said:Welcome: Gasrocks nailed it! The only thing I might add is that you can lightly nip the pointed end of the seed, to allow for quicker water intake. I have started almost every fruit from seed I could find, even Banana! It's fun! Good luck!

Okay, I've got to ask, how do you start a banana from seed? I assume the bananas have to be over ripe. Remove the seed from the mush. Start in a damp paper towel?

gasrocks is 100% correct, that is exactly how I did it and I will be a show off now, here's mine at 5 yrs old

I started Lime trees from seed. The trick to saving fruit seed is to not let it get dry. From the lime seeds I planted 5 of them in Styrofoam cups with a hole punched in the bottom and 4 are doing great and they are over 2 years old. We moved since I started those and it took me awhile to get them growing, but they are taking off now.

I currently have them planted in the very sandy soil across the front of our house, but they are going to be transplanted this winter to the bank. The roots may present a problem with the irrigation pipes and I don't want that, plus they can get pretty tall and bushy. I will put them where they can spread out and give us some privacy where it is needed.

I encourage you to experiment with growing fruit trees. Probably the best one for greenery to use in wreaths, etc. would be a Lemon Tree. I love the green glossy leaves of the Lemon.

My Mom grew a grapefruit tree from seed and in later years I had a pair of them which caterpillars loved to dine on.

My question is has anyone ever had their seed started Citrus plant produce an edible fruit?

Not yet.

Not yet for me either I haven't even had a flower But I her anyway ....

I tried to grow a different citrus tree from seeds. Seeds usually germinate quite good. And plants grow indoor. But don't expect any flowers or fruits from such trees. They need to mature for about 10 years and reach a certain size, which could be too large for the apartment. If you want fruits on your trees, you need to graft them with dwarf varieties. Than you can expect flowers in about 5-6 years.

For fruits I prefer buying plants from nursery instead of seeds for two reasons.

1. It takes longer time to grow and couple of years to produce fruits.
2. Requires lot of patience in growing fruit trees which I certainly lack.