old orange tree repot

[wireme]

This is an orange tree I have had since I planted a seed from a grocery store orange when I was 3yrs old, nearly 40 years ago now.

The reason for the repot- for years now I mostly water the tree when the leaves start to droop, it has not been outdoors for about 4 years. We moved this spring, the tree didn't have a spot indoors yet with Reno's etc going on. From past experience I knew the leaves would burn from the first exposure to direct sunlight so I placed it in the shadiest location I had outdoors. It was still too much sun, the leaves are now sunburnt and droopy so I no longer had a way of guaging water requirements. Also I couldn't recall the soil makeup of the last repot about 15 years ago so I was really unsure of how often and how deep to water.

It has been in a typical deep terracotta houseplant pot which I had to break to remove the plant I had a similar slightly larger container on hand for the repot. It turns out the previous soil mix was similar to a good bonsai medium and was layered with fines at the surface. This combined with years of minimal watering resulted in numerous fine roots in near the surface and less course roots down deep. Really not far from a sweet bonsai rootpad.

So after loosening the root ball the new pot was way too large and luckily I happened to have on hand a large rectangle from a recent nursery sale.

The first shot shows the tree testing for size without any root reduction and the second shot shows the final planting depth after lots of soil removal and loosening and a small amount of root pruning. I could and maybe should have gotten the base really flat and level with the pot but I don't have any knowledge of how citrus respond to root reduction. This tree has been with me a long time and I don't want to kill it.

 

[wireme]

Mostly backfilled, this is the sun damaged side. This is prior to the final layer of finer material, I tried to graduate the particle size from large at the bottom to small at the surface.

 

[wireme]

The end result and the tree sitting in the shade beside what I expected to be repotting into!

Not bonsai I know, I have never tried to make it so, a bit of pruning for form is all. The new house has way more direct sun indoors in winter time, the tree should become healthier and stronger. Maybe I can do more pruning in the future, work on bring the foliage in, ramification etc.. I may have a bonsaiish large orange in the future, in zone 3 no less.

 

[wireme]

No ill effects from the repot it seems. The tree is back indoors of course and popping new healthy growth all over.

Any experienced citrus growers around here? I wouldn't mind consulting on a couple things.

 

[Cadillactaste]

Nice...for some reason you were putting it into a deep round pot. Nice...nothing wrong with being a bit untraditional once in awhile. For your own pleasure.

 

[JudyB]

That seems like a good bit of green-thumbing, 40 years from seed, all indoors in your zone 3! Congratulations. I think that since you are not planning on doing actual bonsai with this, you could do a much less standard pot. Maybe an urn type shape with some bold (red?) color. Or a taller cascade pot perhaps. I wish I could help, but I only know fruit, not citrus.
Thanks for sharing it.

 

[Jester217300]

I am by no means an expert but I picked up a lemon and lime tree this year. They're now inside with all of my other trees for my first winter growing indoors. They both seem to be doing well and are putting out lots of new growth, flowers, and fruit. Fun trees.

 

[wireme]

Nice...for some reason you were putting it into a deep round pot. Nice...nothing wrong with being a bit untraditional once in awhile. For your own pleasure.

Thanks, you mean the big deep thing I had planned to plant it into? I simply didn't think a shallow container would be possible really. Its always been in a deep round pot typical of most houseplants. Now I can easily pick it up and walk around with it, much better. And it looks nicer too.

 

[wireme]

That seems like a good bit of green-thumbing, 40 years from seed, all indoors in your zone 3! Congratulations. I think that since you are not planning on doing actual bonsai with this, you could do a much less standard pot. Maybe an urn type shape with some bold (red?) color. Or a taller cascade pot perhaps. I wish I could help, but I only know fruit, not citrus.
Thanks for sharing it.

Thanks Judy!

With the new circumstances, new location, new and familiar growing medium I think I can provide quite a bit better growing conditions now. I would like to direct it more towards bonsaidom than I have yet. Not going as far as complicated indoor lighting systems or anything. But some reduction, ramification attempts, forming of structure... I think its pretty nice in this container but a pain to water so further root reduction to bring it level maybe, or deeper pot.
Anyways I'd like to learn more about citrus techiques, how much pruning they'll tolerate etc..
Not looking to do anything crazy, just improve what's there a bit.

 

[wireme]

That seems like a good bit of green-thumbing, 40 years from seed, all indoors in your zone 3! Congratulations. I think that since you are not planning on doing actual bonsai with this, you could do a much less standard pot. Maybe an urn type shape with some bold (red?) color. Or a taller cascade pot perhaps. I wish I could help, but I only know fruit, not citrus.
Thanks for sharing it.

As far as the green thumbing, its amazing sometimes how far benign neglect and ignorance will take a person!

 

[edprocoat]

Wireme, you say its hard to water now? You also said it was not getting much water before so maybe nothing has really changed. I would not repot it for at least another year if I were you. If you can not get the water into the pot, running off the mounded surface, perhaps try cutting a piece of heavy vinyl like the clear vinyl carpet runner about 3 inch wide and long enough to make a wall around the whole outer perimeter of the pot, sticking it down about an inch into your potting medium between the pot wall and your soil leaving 2 inches sticking up to contain the water until it settles into the soil. This worked well for me in the past.

ed

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Citrus. can and do make pretty good bonsai, especially once you have a decade or two of age on them. You have the age, you have a trunk and you have a fairly flat root system that fits in a nice bonsai pot - go for it. It is very "bonsai-able".

Next step, a good hard cut back. But wait until it has re-covered from repotting. Leaves will reduce as you develop levels of branching - ramification. They won't become tiny leaves, but you can get much smaller leaves than what you have.

Citrus isn't often mentioned, but it is used, look at exhibition pictures from Japan, they frequently do appear. Read up on how Kumquat are used as bonsai - the horticulture aspects will be similar for your tree, especially timing for pruning, repotting and other aspects.

I only have a couple citrus seedlings, nothing with any age or size, they seem easy to grow. Can't give you a lot of specifics, as I have nothing big enough to pay much attention to.

 

[wireme]

Wireme, you say its hard to water now? You also said it was not getting much water before so maybe nothing has really changed. I would not repot it for at least another year if I were you. If you can not get the water into the pot, running off the mounded surface, perhaps try cutting a piece of heavy vinyl like the clear vinyl carpet runner about 3 inch wide and long enough to make a wall around the whole outer perimeter of the pot, sticking it down about an inch into your potting medium between the pot wall and your soil leaving 2 inches sticking up to contain the water until it settles into the soil. This worked well for me in the past.

ed

Sounds like a good idea. Now I mist the surface 10mins or so before slowly pouring water on, it works but if I get sick of the misting maybe I'll try that. In summer outdoors I water almost everything with a fogging nozzle on a hose so it will be fine then.

 

[wireme]

Citrus. can and do make pretty good bonsai, especially once you have a decade or two of age on them. You have the age, you have a trunk and you have a fairly flat root system that fits in a nice bonsai pot - go for it. It is very "bonsai-able".

Next step, a good hard cut back. But wait until it has re-covered from repotting. Leaves will reduce as you develop levels of branching - ramification. They won't become tiny leaves, but you can get much smaller leaves than what you have.

Citrus isn't often mentioned, but it is used, look at exhibition pictures from Japan, they frequently do appear. Read up on how Kumquat are used as bonsai - the horticulture aspects will be similar for your tree, especially timing for pruning, repotting and other aspects.

I only have a couple citrus seedlings, nothing with any age or size, they seem easy to grow. Can't give you a lot of specifics, as I have nothing big enough to pay much attention to.

Cool, thanks.
I'd like to cut back all the branches to within about 6" of the trunk and go from there. Maybe shortly before it goes outside for next summer depending on how that coincides with growth activity. I'll do some research.

 

[sorce]

I was searching bout chopping citrus and found this....

Still alive?

Will these grow back from a trunk chop?

Sorce

 

[wireme]

I was searching bout chopping citrus and found this....

Still alive?

Will these grow back from a trunk chop?

Sorce

Oh yeah, still alive and kicking. Since the repot it is still not exactly full of vigour so I haven't pruned it back yet.

I haven't trunk chopped a citrus but based on the responses I've seen to pruning on this tree over the years I would say that a healthy citrus is likely to respond quite well to a chop.

 

[wireme]

A side note about the tree, I mentioned earlier about how watering was tricky with the mounded soil and water runoff when dry. I got myself a fertilizer containing yucca extract for the surfactant qualities and it made a big difference, surprisingly long lasting too.
I know other things will also work, soap powder even but I'm pleased with the yucca.
https://www.ghorganics.com/page29.html

 

[Anthony]

Wireme,

citrus on our side likes a freely draining soil and lots of sun. That's about all we do to keep them going.

Any Fruit ?

Should have started bearing since 10 to 20 years,
Mind you for us from seed, gives Portugals [ a peel able fruit, from seed not often sweet ] or a sour lemon or a Seville orange, not necessarily the fruit it came from.

Nice living memory.
More sun and leaves will get smaller.
AND no we have no citrus bonsai - too difficult.
Good Day
Anthony

* They originally started off in China or so and have some resistance to cold, you may wish to look up the zones/

NOT TROPICAL !!!

 

[JoeR]

I have a few 3+ year old lemon and tangerine trees grown from seed. I also have a calamondin orange tree grown from a fully mature cutting.


In my experience with the tangerine and lemon seedlings, they can take a root reduction and cut back of about half the foliage at the same time. But mind you these are young, vigorous seedlings, not old trees. Probably would not recommend this drastic of treatment for your tree.


I did this in september before I brought them in and they now all have shoots over four inches long.


The calamondin has not grown yet since late summer. I had an accident with some bad fert that killed all my pines and nearly killed the calamondin too. It defoliated most of its leaves at that time so I flushed the soil which stopped it. Sucks because it had just begun to throw tons of flowers.


Its currently yellowing and dropping leaves, not sure why but it might not be getting enough light. Too many trees!


Before the incident, I managed to reduce all of the leaves to <1" and at the same time it grew very dense and twiggy.


Lemons dont reduce as well.


Tangerine dont reduce much at all but the leaves are somewhat small naturally anyway.


Dont know if any of this helps.

 

[JoeR]

I too have been wanting to try a kumquat, as I have seen some cool examples of them.

And "flying dragon", which is cold hardy and grows contorted. neat.


Kumquat bonsai, picture and tree not mine: