Inherited Grapefruit Tree

[Chewieg]

My father has grown this tree from seed 30 or more years ago. Now he has given it to me. I would love to refine it more but have no experience with citrus trees. Any design or care suggestions would help.

It definitely needs repotted. The soil is not well draining and just dirt from his yard. I'm in zone 6b. I think it will be fine waiting until early spring but is there a different time for citrus repotting?

Thank you!

 

[Eckhoffw]

Wow! That’s really cool.
Good Grapefruit juice is mesmerizing.
I look Forward to seeing where you go with this.

 

[Santa Rosa Tree Guy]

My father has grown this tree from seed 30 or more years ago. Now he has given it to me. I would love to refine it more but have no experience with citrus trees. Any design or care suggestions would help.

It definitely needs repotted. The soil is not well draining and just dirt from his yard. I'm in zone 6b. I think it will be fine waiting until early spring but is there a different time for citrus repotting?

Thank you!

Probably late Feb or early March is best for transplanting citrus. Much of the roots will be fibrous. I have a Tangerine, Flying Dragon and three Types of Kumquats in my collection. Citrus tend to be Dome topped. So shortening and thinning are your biggest priorities.
Good luck.

 

[TN_Jim]

I inherited a key lime from a good friend several years ago and have been kinda pruning it towards a bonsai over the years. Here’s my practice and findings with citrus.

After last frost put it in full sun, the sunniest location the better, they devour light and this will give it strength to get through any indoor winter.

Like ficus, it will (can) drop every single leaf bringing in or outside. This stresses the plant. The solution I found for this that has worked every time is when I first put it outside, I put it right against the house for five or so days. Then, place a bit farther (the edge of my deck.. ~12’) for another several days. Then, put in sunniest place available -no more leaf drop. Do the dance in reverse in winter and put in bright location. Of course you don’t have to do this tho it is easy enough for me if I can remember…winter sneaks up on ya.

I bring it in and put it out when the lows are consistently above 40. It can handle much lower than this, even light frost if healthy; but, why poke the bear..?

I’ve found the best time to repot is summer; although, late spring once you’re getting high temperatures and growth is good. If you can really keep watering in check and wait till then, this would be my approach.

They prefer to dry out some rather than stay wet. If I have to ask myself if I should water it, I don’t. When I do, I drench it.

I know they can grow great in a basic nursery soil if watered correctly. I can bare root mine in summer when it’s growing well and it never misses a beat. I put into good potting soil ( not miraculous grow) and add course perlite (~1/3 parts.


Once healthy and growing vigorously, I’ve cut mine VERY hard in summer and it don’t miss a beat.

Thorn tips can be cut back to blunt -I used to have little ones doing back flips around the house, don’t mess with anymore.

Here’s my adopted tree. It’s about 2” at the base and about 18” tall, I chopped 4’ off of it the first summer I had it..

 

[Chewieg]

Thank you everyone for your advice.
@TN_Jim thank you very much for the in depth overview. Especially the leave dropping trick!

Can't wait to start training it. Was so excited to get his tree.

 

[Carol 83]

I inherited a key lime from a good friend several years ago and have been kinda pruning it towards a bonsai over the years. Here’s my practice and findings with citrus.

After last frost put it in full sun, the sunniest location the better, they devour light and this will give it strength to get through any indoor winter.

Like ficus, it will (can) drop every single leaf bringing in or outside. This stresses the plant. The solution I found for this that has worked every time is when I first put it outside, I put it right against the house for five or so days. Then, place a bit farther (the edge of my deck.. ~12’) for another several days. Then, put in sunniest place available -no more leaf drop. Do the dance in reverse in winter and put in bright location. Of course you don’t have to do this tho it is easy enough for me if I can remember…winter sneaks up on ya.

I bring it in and put it out when the lows are consistently above 40. It can handle much lower than this, even light frost if healthy; but, why poke the bear..?

I’ve found the best time to repot is summer; although, late spring once you’re getting high temperatures and growth is good. If you can really keep watering in check and wait till then, this would be my approach.

They prefer to dry out some rather than stay wet. If I have to ask myself if I should water it, I don’t. When I do, I drench it.

I know they can grow great in a basic nursery soil if watered correctly. I can bare root mine in summer when it’s growing well and it never misses a beat. I put into good potting soil ( not miraculous grow) and add course perlite (~1/3 parts.
View attachment 415883

Once healthy and growing vigorously, I’ve cut mine VERY hard in summer and it don’t miss a beat.

Thorn tips can be cut back to blunt -I used to have little ones doing back flips around the house, don’t mess with anymore.

Here’s my adopted tree. It’s about 2” at the base and about 18” tall, I chopped 4’ off of it the first summer I had it..
View attachment 415885View attachment 415888

I have a Calamondin orange I grow mostly as a patio plant because of the flowers. It's doing fine inside under the lights and I have a few oranges growing. Seeing yours, I think I may cut it way back this summer and see if I can't make something more bonsai out of it. How hard do cut back the roots?

 

[TN_Jim]

I have a Calamondin orange I grow mostly as a patio plant because of the flowers. It's doing fine inside under the lights and I have a few oranges growing. Seeing yours, I think I may cut it way back this summer and see if I can't make something more bonsai out of it. How hard do cut back the roots?

I’ve only repotted in summer or late spring when very healthy and vigorous. I’ve cut large roots back hard the same way I would a collected deciduous tree if approached very conservatively -always leaving plenty of feeder roots. Feel could remove much more and be fine given the health of the tree and minded aftercare.

I’ve approached this very slowly and similar to how you describe, I never planned on this being a bonsai though I’ve had to cut it back to make room for it every year. Pruning back and hard cuts has been pretty much nothing to it, wish I was doing this much more focused starting ~7 years back. This tree I believe was my friend’s mother’s so it has been important to keep it doing well; although, a few years ago when I asked, he gave me his blessing to approach it more as a bonsai. That was maybe four years ago, but have never truly treated it as such. Since, it seems like the more I lean into a bit more, or even neglect some, it always responds very well. I feel like I could bare root it this summer, trim roots into tight disc and put into a bonsai pot no problem. I probably could have done this years ago. I did go at it pretty hard with a saw that first repot just fine. Again though, it is very healthy and has been treated with white gloves a bit…I don’t have lights for it either, just an east facing window. One winter it had to stay above a very chilly garage in a shaded window for a few months. It suffered some, dropped some leaves, but sprang back like nothing happened and no branch lost.

Possibly worth mentioning, I have put about 4-5 fat handfuls of granular organic fertilizers into that big pot pretty much every year in spring. Maybe should build a box or find big proper pot for.. Will still keep same soil mix if so.

Working at a nursery, the Calamondin and Meyer lemon too always flowered great and were tough plants compared amongst other citrus.

 

[Carol 83]

I’ve only repotted in summer or late spring when very healthy and vigorous. I’ve cut large roots back hard the same way I would a collected deciduous tree if approached very conservatively -always leaving plenty of feeder roots. Feel could remove much more and be fine given the health of the tree and minded aftercare.

I’ve approached this very slowly and similar to how you describe, I never planned on this being a bonsai though I’ve had to cut it back to make room for it every year. Pruning back and hard cuts has been pretty much nothing to it, wish I was doing this much more focused starting ~7 years back. This tree I believe was my friend’s mother’s so it has been important to keep it doing well; although, a few years ago when I asked, he gave me his blessing to approach it more as a bonsai. That was maybe four years ago, but have never truly treated it as such. Since, it seems like the more I lean into a bit more, or even neglect some, it always responds very well. I feel like I could bare root it this summer, trim roots into tight disc and put into a bonsai pot no problem. I probably could have done this years ago. I did go at it pretty hard with a saw that first repot just fine. Again though, it is very healthy and has been treated with white gloves a bit…I don’t have lights for it either, just an east facing window. One winter it had to stay above a very chilly garage in a shaded window for a few months. It suffered some, dropped some leaves, but sprang back like nothing happened and no branch lost.

Possibly worth mentioning, I have put about 4-5 fat handfuls of granular organic fertilizers into that big pot pretty much every year in spring. Maybe should build a box or find big proper pot for.. Will still keep same soil mix if so.

Working at a nursery, the Calamondin and Meyer lemon too always flowered great and were tough plants compared amongst other citrus.

Thanks for going into such detail. I think I'll see what I can do with it this spring, the size is a problem over the winter. If I kill it, they always sell them in the spring at HD.

 

[TN_Jim]

Thanks for going into such detail. I think I'll see what I can do with it this spring, the size is a problem over the winter. If I kill it, they always sell them in the spring at HD.

Big thorny monster, chop it high and low! Yeesh.. Thank you. I like your moxie, is inspiring

 

[Crazy Diamond]

It produces fruit? they must be HUGHE!!

 

[Potawatomi13]

Good Grapefruit juice is mesmerizing.

! Only with 3 cups sugar. Disgusting.

 

[Bonsai Nut]

Citrus are treated a little differently depending on if you want them to fruit. They are true tropicals and love heat, humidity and full sun, without which they will often not flower (and therefore not fruit). Depending on your variety, it may flower a little earlier or later, but grapefruit normally flower in early summer (April/May in SoCal) and fruit will mature in late summer. My mature grapefruit were everbearing - ie they won't drop their fruit - so you had to physically remove them (similar to Eureka lemon). This made me tend to leave the fruit on longer than I should, and the tree would set next year's flower buds before I got around to pruning... at which point I would prune away many of next year's flowers. That was ok with me, since I always ended up with more grapefruit than I knew what to do with.

Another important consideration is that you have to baby your tree between flowering and fruit set. Only a fraction of the flowers will set fruit (depending on factors including your pollinators, weather, etc). If you fertilize your tree while it is flowering, it will often drop all of its flowers and set no fruit that year. Generally, citrus nurseries fertilize in the spring, and don't touch the trees again until after the fruit has set (small fruit about the size of a quarter). Even then, be careful you don't shock your tree with fertilizer or drought... which will cause more fruit drop.

They like slightly acidic, free-draining soil. Even though they can take heavy rain, you can't let the roots sit in water or they will get rot and the tree will die. Not an issue with a containerized tree, so much. If the soil is alkaline, or the water is alkaline, they will start to show chlorotic, yellowing leaves - usually a sign of iron or manganese deficiency even though there might be plenty of both in the soil. Rain water (which is naturally acidic) will usually address the issue, but if not, you will want to use an acid fertilizer for citrus, or for azaleas/camellias/gardenias.

Finally, because your tree is from seed, all bets are off in terms of what the fruit will look like, or even if the tree will fruit at all. All commercial citrus cultivars are clones, and they are typically grafted on root stock that further influences their size, strength, and resistance to pests and diseases... and as I am finding there are even cold resistant root stocks out there now that allow you to keep citrus in North Carolina (to 7a) even with snow and freezing temps. Once you grow citrus from seed there is no guarantee it will flower at all, and if so whether it will bear fruit and what the fruit will look like.

Sounds unusual, but in SoCal there is so much extra citrus fruit each season (in peoples' yards) that they actually set up a food donation service so you could call someone and they would come pick your fruit and donate it to a local food bank / shelter. I used to pull three 5 gallon buckets of Satsuma oranges off a single tree... and I had 16 adult citrus in our yard. You can only use so many cocktail limes before you start to hand buckets out to your friends

Last comment - because commercial citrus trees often use the same rootstock (chosen for best conditions for your location) it is possible to have multiple grafts on a single rootstock. It was not unusual to see "cocktail" citrus trees at nurseries, with a selection of lime, lemon, and orange on a single tree. Each cultivar on the tree would be tagged, and the rootstock would be tagged as well.