Yes, those are lemon trees growing outside Greg Neal’s home in Lynn Valley.
Squint and you might think you’re on the Amalfi Coast or in Southern California but then sobered by the fresh mountain air you remember: it’s Lynn Valley.
Nostalgia inspired Neal to plant a lemon tree in the Great White North.
“It was memories of visiting relatives in Southern California,” says Neal. “The thought of going out and picking oranges and grapefruits and lemons was kind of a far-out concept to me, being born and raised in North Van.”
On a lark, in 2005, Neal acquired his first citrus tree.
It was a Meyer lemon tree, found at a local store around Chinese New Year. You see, Meyer lemons – a cross between an orange and a lemon – are native to China. And citrus trees are given as gifts in the Chinese culture.
Neal took four of them home. There he was towering above four tiny lemon trees – each only 18 inches tall – trying to figure out how to care for citrus fruit.
Neal brought one tree inside the house, and the other three he placed in his unheated garage.
Surprisingly, the lemon tree in the house died and the ones in the garage where it was cold were fine.
“That was my first lesson in what not to do,” says Neal, who works a day job for the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure.
Neal strategically planted two surviving lemon trees in his front yard, where there is unobstructed southeast sun exposure.
“Even in the wintertime the snow melts off my front lawn way before it melts off the guy’s lawn across the street from me,” explains Neal of why it was an ideal spot for a lemon tree.
Planting the lemon tree up against the house for warmth was also important when creating a hospitable environment for the exotic species, Neal learned. It’s also a little drier under the overhang.
Nurturing a lemon tree in this climate requires a little extra TLC.
To get the citrus off to a good start, Neal put a portable greenhouse overtop of the tree for the first few years.
More than a decade later the lemon tree, against all odds, has grown to a substantial size: two metres wide by three metres high.
Mid-fall is a special time of year around the Neal homestead: it’s when the lemons are ready for harvest.
This year Neal figures he will pick 70 Meyer lemons from the tree outside his front door in the crisp autumn air.
The taste is pretty comparable to the fruit you find in the grocery store, Neal reports of his lemons.
“Although the ones you find in the store are more uniform in size,” he says, adding less attractive lemons might go into making juice.
Now that life has given Neal lemons, he not’s exactly making lemonade.
“I make marmalade,” he says.
That’s because the preserve uses the entire lemon, thereby maximizing the fruits of his labour.
Every Christmas his friends and family, and maybe co-workers, can count on a jar of marmalade.
When the forecast calls for the first frost Neal cloaks his cherished lemon tree in a large fleece blanket, found on a clearance rack.
He then decks out the tree with old-style Christmas lights, the ones that give off heat, before wrapping the whole thing from top to bottom in a tarp.
That’s really the only protection the lemon trees need.
“The good thing is the squirrels, the raccoons and the bears don’t like them (the lemons),” says Neal with a laugh.
Today Neal has a small grove of citrus trees in his yard, including lime and tangerine trees that are getting up to three metres in size. There’s also a young persimmon tree well on its way.
His rare citrumelo tree, which produces a hardy citrus cross between a grapefruit and orange, was bought from a landscaping guy who brought palm trees to the Greater Vancouver area.
“I saw it and went, ‘Wow, I’ve only read about those trees before,’” recalls Neal of his citrumelo acquisition.
Neal can get 50 or so citrumelos out of that tree, but he’s never eaten one. It seems his citrumelos are more ornamental than edible.
Some of Neal’s citrus trees are imported from South Carolina, while others he finds closer to home. His lime tree was bought at Maple Leaf Garden Centre in Lynn Valley.
“I don’t think they expect somebody to plant them in their yard,” says Neal.
Which is why Neal is able to elicit a surprise reaction from his dinner guests.
“If I have somebody over at the house and we need a lemon to squeeze on some fish, I’ll kind of do what my relatives did with me way back when: give them a pair of clippers and say go pick one.”
So can the average urban gardener grow a lemon tree here?
“I think so,” says Neal. “If you have the right spot and you are prepared to do a little bit of work and be cautious during the cold weather – anyone in North Van should be able to do this.”
His only concern for the citrus trees crops up about 20 nights a year – that deep freeze around Christmas and early January. That’s when Neal is reminded he’s not living in a tropical locale.
“I’m missing the swimming pool,” Neal says with a laugh of trying to recreate the California dream.
