Our precious 4 foot lemon and orange trees have made a miraculous recovery and are growing again!
We left them out (albeit in a sheltered spot and covered with fleece) during last winter and although they shed all their leaves they looked like they'd survived all the ice and snow. Sadly, however, in the following weeks/months they appeared to die, their stems turning brown and dry. I cut off most of the dead wood to burn and was intending to reuse the pots for something else but forgot all about them. Now I find about a foot of new growth on each tree coming from below the surface of the compost. Talk about a recovery! I've just been tending to them and the smell of their crushed leaves in the beautiful sunshine is just awesome - evocative of far more exotic places.
Anyway, they're supposed to be hardy down to - 4/5 degrees but, this winter, I'm going to be a lot more careful and will bring them into our garage when it get's colder along with a couple of date palms we have in pots.
Happy days.