Citrus fruit trees from pips.

Does anyone have citrus fruit pips they would be able or willing to share? I am trying to set up a citrus row at the base of a curved hugelbed.  Also, has anyone got advice on whether to keep them in pots to move inside in winter or will they be ok in my region. The bed is south facing but at the base of a steep north facing slope which keeps a frost for several hours after a thaw.

ok, you're 9a and I'm 9b. I think I get a lot more precip, plus I'm at altitude, so what I say might not work. General stats for comparison: (avg hi/avg low/rain)
January  79°/64° 12 days
February 80°/64° 11 days
March 77°/62° 11 days
April 75°/59° 7 days
May 69°/54° 7 days
June 66°/50° 6 days
July 68°/50° 6 days   (maybe 2 dustings of snow, 3 frosts)
August 71°/51° 5 days
September 71°/54° 9 days
October 73°/58° 10 days
November 75°/59° 9 days
December 79°/62° 11 days

I have all kinds of citrus (blood oranges, tangerines, kumquats, lemons), some grafts and some grown from seed. The more finicky ones I have planted next to walls that capture some afternoon sun and retain heat, although I have a few out "in the weather" that grew from seed and they do just fine. They seem to be more affected by drought stress than cold.

Tereza Okava wrote:ok, you're 9a and I'm 9b. I think I get a lot more precip, plus I'm at altitude, so what I say might not work.

I have all kinds of citrus (blood oranges, tangerines, kumquats, lemons), some grafts and some grown from seed. The more finicky ones I have planted next to walls that capture some afternoon sun and retain heat, although I have a few out "in the weather" that grew from seed and they do just fine. They seem to be more affected by drought stress than cold.

Thank you Tereza. Maybe if I try two of each kind. 1 leave out, one take in? We are at 600m, not too high but a strange climate because of huge river canyons nearby that seem to pull all the storms into them so we only get wet or windy weather when its strong enough to get past them.

ooh, a controlled experiment! sounds fun. The citrus is very happy in pots. My lemons  and kumquats fruit, and I was assured that the lemon could stay in the same pot forever and not need to go into bigger and bigger pots. I did ask for help from the orchard guy on how to prune it so it would do best in the pot (basically, topped it so it would force out branches, going from a whip to a very sad Charlie Brown christmas tree).
The blood orange had a lot of issues from aphids/ants (possibly because of heat stress) so I just put it in the ground this year and it is doing visibly much better, but I have seen a lot of citrus doing just fine in the pots. Take pics please!!

(i hear you on the weird microclimate. My metro area is in an ancient volcanic caldera type thing that for lack of a better image is like a massive toilet bowl concentrating all the humidity that comes up from the surrounding mountains that border the ocean. Everyone else in the area gets great sun and warmth, we are busy fighting an endless battle against mold.)


Edited to add: just thinking about it, the only citrus that has done poorly has been in large plastic pots. The citrus in terra cotta is much happier. My fig, also in terra cotta, seems to be dying, but I'll leave that for another day.)

I have never attempted growing citrus from pips and was wondering, after reading the posts on this thread, how close to the original variety the ones grown from pips are likely to be? Are citrus more like heirlooms or are they hybrids? Really, I know absolutely nothing about them and am interested in what options I may have for starting a few plants?

the ones I grow from seed are essentially mandarins (loose skin variety), they are hardy and common enough to almost be considered 'wild' here.
Google tells me that the English name for my other 'wild' standby is Rangpur lime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rangpur_(fruit) . The other citrus I have is all grafted onto rangpur lime stock (it's very well adapted here).