For nearly 300 years, the mild-winter West has had a love affair with citrus. Orchards carpet the land in parts of California, and oranges, lemons, limes, and other citrus are familiar trees in home gardens.

Until fairly recently, most of these trees were robust growers, reaching 20 to 30 feet tall and as wide — too big for small gardens and certainly too big for most pots. Even semidwarf trees, introduced in the mid-1900s, grow 10 to 15 feet tall.

Now dwarf citrus trees that grow slower than standards — reaching 5 to 7 feet tall in 13 years in the ground and staying even shorter in containers — are becoming more widely available. What makes them so compact are their roots. Sold as "dwarf" or "genetic dwarf," these citrus trees are grafted onto a rootstock called Flying Dragon — a naturally dwarf, contorted form of trifoliate orange (Poncirus trifoliata) — which reduces their height by 75 percent. But fruits are standard size, all within easy reach at harvest time.

Nurseries now offer an array of citrus trees on this dwarfing rootstock, from 'Washington' navel orange and 'Lisbon' lemon to 'Pixie' mandarin and 'Oroblanco' grapefruit-pummelo hybrid. In the mildest climates, shop for trees this month; in slightly colder climates, your best selection is in spring. In Sunset Western Garden Book climate zones 1–7, which are outside the citrus-growing range, you can buy a tree by mail and keep it indoors until after last frost. A good mail-order source is Clifton's Nursery (www.buyplantsonline.com or 888/209-4356; does not deliver to Arizona).