Citrus tree leaf problem

[Ben1030]

Thanks for your advice, I will wait for them to start growing (hopefully).

[Ben1030]

Taking all the advice in this thread i have managed to get my Citrus through another winter. They look great, lost the odd leaf but hardly changed from September. Had a little problem with mites on the Eureka, hopefully now sorted.

I do have a couple more questions....

My Citrus are currently on the north side of the house, its cool with no direct sunlight. When and how would you introduce them back to a south facing window?

I was in Aldi this week and couldn't resist a decent sized citrus at £15, I purchased a 3ft Chinotto orange. I wouldnt really want it to get much bigger in the next few years. Would it be happy in its current pot for a few years (trimming the roots and adding compost in summer)??

I also have 4ft Eureka lemon which is tall but not too bushy. I was hoping a re-pot in the summer, and with a prune encourage some growth?? I've only had it 10 months its not too old.

Thanks

Ben

[starloc]

I would wait until its reliably warm....ish as much as it gets in the UK before putting them in strong light, the best way is to look for a soil thermometer, i got 5 for about £7 on ebay in January , as long as the compost is 12C or more then strong light is ok (12C is the cut off point ), i never get them used to light I just dump them in it when the compost is warm enough and get no leaf loss, mine have been outside all week in the sun, before that they were in a dark...ish room with no heating, today they are in the dark in the ground floor of the house (no heating and almost dark) they dont mind changes that much....going from outside to inside in the autumn is thee tricky change due to lack of humidity in the house
The Aldi ones are usually fine for a few years without repotting, just be sure you water them fully and let them dry out as they are potted in soil based mix so it holds water longer than compost ( i havent seen there trees this year as im in Bulgaria earlier but tey have a very good supplier....much better than most ebay or garden center trees as they are almost straight from the grower so havent been kept for ages by people who dont look after them
With the Eureka, it will grow if you prune it, but you loose some fruiting as most lemons form on newest wood mainly, to make it grow rapidly, try pinch just the tips off every branch...about 5mm or so and it will branch below, trimming all branches and it will probably trigger more branches from the trunk as well. Have you been feeding it?

[Ben1030]

Thanks for the tip I will have a look at getting some thermometers.

The aldi trees all looked in good condition. Do you know if they are grafted onto a rootstock? I was wondering how successful future cuttings would be. My eureka lemon is grafted, do you know how un-grafted cuttings would fair indoor in the uk?

I feed the citrus with the baby bio citrus feed, i have been using a winter feed since oct but hardly used it due to low watering. It has just started to send shoots out, I would be willing to take the growth over fruit for this year. Am i correct in assuming that the plant will fill a larger pot with roots before it grows shoots or is that just for flowering?

Thanks

Ben

[starloc]

The aldi ones are grafted as are 90% of trees sold, they are grafted at the top of the stem just under the level of the main branches.
I often take cuttings from all citrus, lemons root very easily and are fine on there own roots in pots the main difference being that if you let them get too cold and the frost gets them you aare not left with a live rootstock to graft onto as the whole of the plant is cold sensitive, but if it gets that cold you would be doing something wrong
The best citrus feed I have used is the one by the citrus center and its the same all year round, to be honest I tend to mainly use summer feed all year round and add many other things here and there

If you pot a citrus in a larger pot it will grow roots into the pot, then it will grow shoots and get larger, it may still flower but once the roots start to get tight in the pot it will flower more, the problem is that most people dont want a lot of growth due to problems with storage in the winter.

Another problem is that if the pot is too big or if you add stones inside the bottom of a pot the roots do not grow into the compost fully leaving wet areas that will rot the roots and cool the rest of the compost meaning the tree becomes less active and then will use less water and the cycle of unhealthy roots and root rot starts so only go a little bit bigger at a time and only do it in warm weather

Citrus grow in cycles roughly equal growth and then root growth, flowering is initiated by cold weather or by drought stress the more chill hours of cold below 12C in the winter the more they flower they need about 400 hours of cold before they flower ( why keeping them in the warm house is bad! )

letting a plant dry out fully between waterings at the start of the summer will help to make it flower especialy if you let it start to wilt ( but can be taken too far and will kill a tree )

Drought stress at the right time forces the buds to become flower buds if there has not been enough cold hours

[Ben1030]

Do the citrus eventually suffer if confined in the same pot for too long? Id guess the main danger would be the plant drying out on hot (for uk) summer days?

I would like the eureka to grow sideways rather than any taller, not much, its just a little leggy at the moment. It arrived in June last year, i pruned it a little hoping for it to send shoots out but it never happened. Its got a couple of flowers on at the moment, will a couple of lemons have a negative effect on shoot growth?

[starloc]

They will suffer eventually in the same pot, but.... saying that many citrus in italy are in the same size pot they have been in 100 years ago, they dont mess with the rootball , they cut the outside and underneath of the rootball off by a small amount and repot round the sides and underneath with new good compost

Plants drying out fully on a hot day is not often a problem as long as you eventually water them, To keep mine flowering all summer I let them dry out to dust in the pots for a few days every watering and then water them,
Eureka trees are generally taller bigger plants than most other lemons as made for commercial use due to the rootstock they are on as most people wont produce a eureka lemon on trifoliata rootstock due to a possible incompatability between them so the rootstock used gives a more vigorous plant, if it is too tall it will droop over with weight of a lemon on it and that will force it to branch on the curve of the branch , the long trunk will turn into a wide branch over time and another branch will grow to balance it out forming a wide tree, some people have added slightly heavier weights every week to the tip of the trunk to make them bend to one side and they will stop extending the shoot and the buds along will grow instead
I would make sure you add enough fertiliser and some extra slow release and as the warm weather starts it should grow strongly and branch if you just pinch the top if it starts growing there, but chopping off the top will make it grow the more you chop off the stronger shoots it will grow but also remove any chance of fruit as they fruit mainly on new growth, so chopping a few inches off to a decent size of stem has more effect ( but i wouldnt chop that much off )

I would let it have another year to grow itself, fertilise and spray with fertiliser and just pinch the tip or weigh the tip down a bit so the growth hormones are concentrated on the buds lower down the stem if you want to try and force branches

I find a light sprinkle of ammonium sulphate from the garden centre makes very rapid strong growth, but not too much, just about a teaspoon for 8 to 10 inch pot, add it now and just keep looking after it as usual with citrus type fertiliser as well , when the spring gets here it will grow as the ammonium sulphate is a very high nitrogen feed

[Ben1030]

Hopefully i will have a thick bushy citrus come august

Thanks Starloc, is there anything you don't know about citrus?