Yuzu No. 3 – Citrus junos

Yuzu is a favourite ingredient of top chefs: its zest flavours pastries, ponzu sauce, dressings and cocktails. No. 3 is a seedling selection by the nurseryman Bernard Reira.

• Botanical name: Citrus junos
• Parentage: descended from the Ichang papeda, naturally crossed with a mandarin
• Origin: central China; grown in Japan for over a thousand years
• Hardiness: −15 to −18 °C in a sheltered position
• Fruit: 5 to 8 cm, yellow and bumpy, little juice, many seeds, highly fragrant zest
• Ripening: November; picked green from autumn for its zest
• Size: vigorous, 3 to 4 m in open ground

A Japanese tradition

At the winter solstice, the Japanese take a hot bath with whole yuzu fruits floating in it: the yuzu-yu, said to ward off colds all winter.

In the garden

Easy and vigorous, but very thorny. Full sun or light partial shade, well-drained soil, sheltered from cold winds.

The plant you receive

You receive a young grafted tree about 40 cm tall above the pot, low-grafted onto a Poncirus trifoliata rootstock from our own production. Planted young, it roots straight into your garden soil and establishes better than a tree kept in a pot for years.

Because it is grafted low, the variety itself forms the trunk: the tree stands on its own without a stake and can regrow from above the graft after a severe frost. All our citrus trees are grown at 1,000 m altitude in the Livradois, never in a heated greenhouse, with organic fertiliser only.

Grafted trees are shipped from June; the rest of the year, you can pre-order them.