Pixie Mandarin | Naturehills.com

The Pixie Mandarin has a sweet mild flavor encased in deep orange fruit. The late ripening seedless fruit is round, slightly bumpy, and sometimes has a neck. The numerous groups of fruit are nestled among upright foliage of leathery dark green leaves.

Video Transcription:
When I’m sitting and relaxing in my back yard, what I want for a screen tree is a beautiful pixie mandarin. The pixie’s upright character really lends itself to be used as a screen to block out that unwanted view. But it grows so upright that it’s wonderful in tight areas and great in a container. It makes an ideal container plant because it’s easy to maintain its character inside a very, very limited space.

The pixie mandarin has a very, very strange history. It was actually a cross done in 1927, but it wasn’t really introduced until 1965. I don’t know what anyone was thinking! I think this is the finest piece of fruit you can eat. It’s absolutely a great plant for wherever citrus does well. As a matter of fact, this plant I think is an ideal choice for container growing as well. Ripening between December and who-knows-when, because the pixie actually picks well into the summertime in some cases. I’ve picked pixies as late as June.

Of course, one of the main things we always want to know about a mandarin or any fruit, is whether or not it’s seedless. Yes, in fact, the pixie mandarin is seedless as well. Mandarins can be what they call alternate bearing, which means they can bear a heavy crop one year and a light crop the next year. Pixie does that a lot less than most mandarins, and that’s one of the reasons I like it a lot. It comes in early, I’m eating it right around December and then eating it all the way through July. I mean, you just can’t ask for much more than that.

Did I mention easy to peel? Pixie mandarin peels tremendously easy. It’s probably one of the easiest mandarins to peel, as you can see. Here we go, the taste. What is the taste all about? Pixie mandarin is all about classic mandarin flavors. It’s got a very, very juicy, sweet very firm flesh, so it almost has a crunchy texture to it. I don’t think much stands up to the flavor of a pixie mandarin.

Well there you have it, the best all-around fruit tree you probably can get; a screen tree, container tree, just an all-around wonderful piece of fruit. The pixie mandarin.

[debbrunelle]

How do you know when they are ripe? We have a small tree (bush) planted 2 years ago. It is full of mandarins, but most are quite small, very orange, but very tart. If I leave them longer, will they sweeten up?