Saturday, January 17, 2015

Citrus Label Society's Last Sunkist Headquarters Meeting & Fruit Tree Tour Maps & Links

Today I went to the Citrus Label Society's final meeting at Sunkist Growers headquarters in Sherman Oaks California. Sunkist has sold the headquarters and is moving to (quite appropriately) Valencia California. In honor of this last meeting at their traditional meeting place the society had a citrus tasting and label exhibit.


 Over 40 varieties ofcitrus were brought in for sampling at the meeting. Included were such exotic treats as the Australian finger lime and the Buddha's hand citron.  Also on display the hundreds of citrus labels. These labels, dating from the turn of the century up until the 1930's, represented the hundreds of independent growers who shipped citrus from California to the rest of the United States.  Many of them are quite beautiful and some can fetch high prices; for example a turn of the century label picturing an early, horse drawn float in the Rose Parade was valued at over $4,000.

Rare Rose Parade Citrus Label

Santa Anita Citrus Label Shows Location of Arboretum and Racetrack.


Fruit Tree Tour Links:

Fruit Tree Tour Map


Tour Stops
Navigable Google Map (Open in Your Smart Phone)
Purdue Crop Index (Lots of Information on Fruit Trees etc.)
UCR Citrus Varieties Pages
The History Of Grafting
More on the History of Grafting

History of Orchard Culture in California


Edible Acorns
Story on Canary Island Grape -the so called 'Mission Grape'
California Wine History
Citrus Industry in California -A History
Los Angeles Agriculture - Agriculture and Natural Resources Blogs
What Grape Was Grown By the Mission Padres?
THE CITRUS LABEL GALLERY -Hundreds of Labels Collected By Members of the Citrus Label Society ᅠ
Label Showing Santa Anita Racetrack and Sierra Madre

Fruit Growers Associations


California Rare Fruit Growers, Inc.
Fresh Fruit-Healthy Recipes: Sunkist Citrus Oranges, Lemons
California Avocados Commision
Almond Growers | Almond Board of California
California Walnut Growers
California Canning Peach Association
California Raisin Marketing Board
Western Growers
California, Arizona, & Texas Citrus
Citrus Research Board

Growers


L.E. Cooke Company -Their site is a treasure trove of information)
Dwarf Citrus Trees, Meyer Lemon, Kieffer Lime, Oranges – Order Online – Four Winds Growers (These are the growers that first developed dwarf citrus along with UCR)
Durling Nursery Inc (No Website, but follow this link for phone # and call; they'll e-mail you their availability)
La Verne Nursery


Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Is A Spectacular Magnolia Display Here On Its Way?

I went out to the Magnolia section today and took a look at all the flowering magnolias.  It's been a weird year, with extreme variances in temperature in the late part of the summer and early fall. We’ve had several dozen trees flowering in October. When an early bloom like this happens it can sometimes sap the food reserves the magnolias trunk and roots that it stores in fall for its bloom period in January. So I was very surprised to see great majority of the magnolias sporting a high density of flower buds.

Also, usually by this time of year most of our magnolias are blooming. Although there are a few Magnolias with some very small blooms, it seems like all of the magnolias are in bud and synced for what might be a spectacular bloom within the next several weeks.


I took picture of one of the magnolias, and as you can see it has a very high density a flower buds. Stay tuned - this should be a magnificent flowering season for the magnolias.

Flowering magnolia showing lots of buds. 

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