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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
A compact citrus guide for the beginner,
By Jorma Koskinen (Finland) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Citrus: Complete Guide to Selecting & Growing More Than 100 Varieties for California, Arizona, Texas, the Gulf Coast and Florida (Paperback)
I found this to be an excellent guide for the beginner. Although published in 1996 few of the basic things about growing citrus have changed since. The book is very well laid out with a good directory and index so things are easy to find. It starts with a detailed map of the citrus growing areas of the US where the citrus region of California is divided into four separate areas followed by Arizona, Texas, the Gulf Coast and Florida with average July highs, average days below 32F and record lows. Each of these areas is then discussed in more detail and divided into sub areas where local conditions are explained and some of the best-suited varieties are mentioned. There is a very interesting chapter about understanding micro climates such as cold air movement, exposure to wind from different directions and having buildings, pavement and large bodies of water nearby. I have not found information on these topics in such detail in other books.
There are concise chapters on the history of citrus, birth of modern citrus varieties, citrus and climate, growing citrus in containers and in cold climate areas. There are more detailed chapters about planting, caring, watering, mulching, fertilizing, pruning, protecting trees from cold and caring for cold-damaged citrus. There are many useful step-by-step drawings. The book is well-illustrated with good quality large-size photos. This book is mainly about outdoor growing in the US citrus belt. If you are looking for information especially on container growing or growing citrus in colder climates there are more detailed instructions in other books. If you are looking for information about the suitability of the 100 most common citrus types to your specific US region, this book is for you. The descriptions are extensive with detailed entries on general, fruit and tree characteristics. Each variety has a box that indicates its suitability to each growing area and the expected harvest times. I found this to be very useful. All in all there is a great deal of practical hands-on information and if you are thinking about choosing and planting your first citrus tree this book will not only get you started but will keep you thinking about adding new varieties. The only criticism I have is that there are no photos attached to each described variety but nowadays it is easy to find pictures on the Internet. The thing that has changed in the past 15 years is the disease and pest situation. There are drawings of the most common insect pests and instructions on using pesticides and general prevention of disease. Again, information on the more recent diseases can easily be found on the Internet.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.0 out of 5 stars (7 customer reviews) 32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great citrus guide with wonderful pix/info,
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Citrus: Complete Guide to Selecting & Growing More Than 100 Varieties for California, Arizona, Texas, the Gulf Coast and Florida (Paperback)
I have read several other books on citrus cultivation, but this book is by far the best i've run across. It has excellent photographs of the hundreds of citrus fruits, both on the tree and of the inside of the fruit itself. It has some great citrus recipes, but it mainly focuses on the cultivation and care of each variety. This book tells the grower what he/she can exactly expect to see, and how to best care for your tree. If there is ANYTHING this book lacks, it is more info on out-of-zone citrus gardening. For example, i live in NC and i have phenomenal success with all my trees in containers (i winter them in a "cheap" plastic greenhouse). That is my only criticism of this book---otherwise, all cultivar info is detailed and well illustrated!!!!
32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great pictures, but could have been better,
By S. Chiang "S. Chiang" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Citrus: Complete Guide to Selecting & Growing More Than 100 Varieties for California, Arizona, Texas, the Gulf Coast and Florida (Paperback)
The book is attractive and does contain a lot of information about different citrus varieties. My main criticism is that the Planting and Care section could have been much more substantial. Specifically, since the descriptions of various citrus ailments (poor nutrition, inappropriate watering, infection with pests) are not accompanied by photos of the symptoms, it makes it harder for the reader to figure out what these problems might actually look like. The black-and-white pen-and-ink drawings of pests are somewhat informative, but they're very limited compared to what might be conveyed by a photo.Also, a few diagrams to help illustrate "good pruning" would have been great. I'm not suggesting that this book should have been a definitive technical treatise on citrus, but I think it would have been more useful if more attention had been paid to what goes wrong when you're trying to grow citrus. 2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting,
By Benjamin J. Tudor - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Citrus: Complete Guide to Selecting & Growing More Than 100 Varieties for California, Arizona, Texas, the Gulf Coast and Florida (Paperback)
This book is a nice overview of citrus: it has a well-rounded history section, which I found very interesting, a brief summary of about 80 types of citrus, a section on rootstocks with positive and negative characteristics, and many other chapters on various topics.
I do agree with an earlier reviewer that calamondin is NOT a sweet fruit: the SKIN is light, thin, and can be described as sweet, but the actual fruit is something like a lemon or lime, with a flavor that is puzzling and new (to me, anyway). The rest of the information on the calamondin is accurate. I wouldn't give the book one star, but it definitely was a disappointment for me in that I wanted more hard information on the particulars of growing citrus. I'll give the book three stars. This was my first citrus book, given to me as a present, so I want to say that I have no comparison to other authors. The author of this book does, however provide a broad overview of citrus, from a beginner's perspective: a good section on pest control (but the author doesn't suggest the ultimate method for getting rid of scale: bareroot the tree and submerge everything but the roots in a horticultural oil solution contained in a rainbarrel or bathtub), and a few funny anecdotal stories. I did like the book. |
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