trees look great Josh!

I just re-potted mine into the gritty mix sunday, well its more like 2.2.1 bark, turface, granite. So mine are in recovery. They look great and are holding the fruit they had on them. The summers here can be brutally hot, just today is predicted to be 90+. Thats why I added more turface. Ill get some pics soon.

mike

Thanks, Mike, I'd like to see your plants.

I think I've finally gotten the spider mites under control.

I also have a mix prepared for the Lemon that is 5 parts bark, 2 parts turface....
although I might break down and throw in some perlite for good measure. The Lemon
has been growing so well, however, that I haven't wanted to disturb it.

We haven't gone above 85F yet. Averaging in the 60F's so far.

Josh

Great to see other growers "fruits". This is the first time I have posted all of mine. thanks...
Ponkan
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Persian Lime
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Old Satsuma
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Grapefruit
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Calamondin
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Tango
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Meyer 1
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Meyer 2
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Meyer 3
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Meyer 4
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Meyer 5
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Meyer 6
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Hey, Tim! Wow, what do you do with all the Meyer lemons?! ;-)

I really like that cool Calamondin!

Josh

Thanks Josh. I give many away and use the rest for Hot Lemon tonic (sore throat) and there's always a need for a wedge in my beer. My wife & kids brought me the Calmondin back from Florida 10+ years ago. It sat around for several years doing nothing. I repotted 2x and started tending to it (fertilizer etc)...Voila!!! It has responded well. The more I read this forum the more I am understanding, and remembering, about the relationship between different nutrients and ph levels.
This is a great bunch of plant enthusiasts.
htp

This is a great group!
I've only been growing citrus for a year now, but I've learned a lot and I'm still learning.

Josh

I'm still learning as well. This forum is a great place to gain an education. Keep it growing.
htp

Here are some of my citrus (back) and peppers (front)... things were great until yesterday when the cicadas started laying eggs. I have to find some netting quick. Not the greatest shot but it's hard to get good ones with the roses behind...
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Hey Red,
They look great!! How long have you had the citrus plants?

Yeah, that's a nice tidy collection! Well staged!
(I wish my peppers looked half as good as yours....)

Josh

Josh I'm sure your peppers will overtake mine very quickly. They are in little 5qt pots and will begin to suffer soon I think. I can't really plant them in the ground anywhere and can't afford to buy 30 new pots for them... looks like I will get like 1-3 bell peppers off of most of them :( There's a vague plan in mind to add a drip system for these pots and turn them into almost hydroponic style plants... but that will probably never come to fruition. Any ideas for me?

I've had some of the citrus for awhile timrod but a few of those I got from 4winds last year. The older and larger ones are elsewhere. I would take some more pics but everything is depressing now and covered in summerweight garden fabric to ward of cicadas... I'm pretty sure I've lost at least 2 of the trees in the above pic to egg laying damage.

Oh my, Josh! Look how nice yours look!

I don't think that I could keep mine as nice as yours with the kind of weather you have been experiencing lately. I hear you have been cold and rainy for days on end. What, maybe a day or two over 75 degrees?
Keeping citrus as beautiful as yours can be quite a challenge when consistently getting temps that drop below the 50's
My hats of to you friend. I knew you could do it.
Now we just need to get your weather to finally warm so you can get extreme growth and maybe flowers???Please, be ready to post pictures again as soon as they flower. I would love to see them.
Beautiful.
I took a few pictures after my rain and will take more of others at another time

Red: A VERY nice collection indeed. I love your plants and the way you have them set up. Everything looks so nice and neat and green. Great job!
That pool looks mighty nice too. We wait a long time for this beautiful weather.

Tim: Happy campers they are. Something tells me your yard must smell mighty good right about now! I happen to love Meyer Lemons for their heavenly scent while in flower. You certainly have a gift for growing such nice plants. Great job at taking pictures too. It was such a joy to walk around your yard. Thank you

Mike: Please, pics! I can't wait to see yours. I'll bet they are doing great now that the mites have vacated..
Good to see you:-)

Here is just a couple of mine I had time to take this am since the rain has just departed. I am hoping to take more later if the weather clears up.

Orange tree with fruits and reflowing again for a third time since last fall. This one has three generations of fruit. Constantly busy I'd say.

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This is Rosa, the Ponderosa tree I saved last fall. This too is also it's third time in flowering and is putting out different generations of fruit. Also a continual bloomer

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Mike:-)

my navels havent done anything since i transplanted them.

here's my meyer lemon.
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1st angel red pomegranate to set fruit.
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Mike, thanks for posting!
I'm always so impressed by the dark green color of your citrus leaves.
Very nice! One day I'll have blooms and fruit....

Houston, is your Meyer in good health?
It seems sparse of leaf, and the leaves are very upright and "canoe" shaped.
It was recently pointed out that this could be a sign of spider mite damage.

Josh

well here are a few that are getting some rest after being bare rooted and put into a modified gritty

satsuma, meyer, key
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The satsuma didnt like the repot much and has dropped a few leaves. Still holding on to the 20 or so fruit that set
The meyer hasnt dropped any leaves but did shed about a dozen marble sized fruit. So far it held onto about 4 a little bigger.
Key has shown no effects of the repot. Its having a hard time setting fruit this year.

Both the key and meyer have been in constant bloom since February so maybe they will set a few more soon.

and here is my new adventure, Musa Basjoo banana. I also have planted an ensete maurelii and a few palms.

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this one has 5 pups on it now and puts out a new leaf once a week.

greenman,

around Jan, when i had it inside the house there were some mites, i took it outside and sprayed it down. its been fine since. i just went outside with a flash light to check and no signs of mites. a few of the leaves had leafminers.

i think it might be the heat and all day sun. my two navels are a little worse, the leaves look like taco shells, lol

Mike, nice work on the re-potting!
What's your modified Gritty consist of?
I'm about to trial a mix of 5 parts bark, 2 parts turface....but haven't done so yet.

Houston, that's good to hear.
I've been dealing with mites this winter/spring. I sprayed with Neem again last night.
Good luck with your Navels! Keep us updated.

Josh

Thanks josh

Its 2 part bark 1/2" and less pieces, 2 parts turface, 1 part Manna pro chicken grit. I need a little bit more moisture retention. Daytime highs have been above 90 for the last 2 weeks and predicted the same for the next. Fortunately our spring was very wet so everything is staying green.

Beautiful plant pics from everyone!!
I agree with greenman...Mike's got the greenest leaves and healthiest plants I've seen.
It's getting hot here too so I'm checking moisture several times a week.

Thanks Tim and Josh!

Tim: I hope you are not anywhere near those dreadful fires. My goodness. I think that Josh is stealing all the rain from you folks out there.lol

Josh; Now that the temps in your area are finally starting to rise, I would give it a guess that your trees are going to toil in blooms soon. One can hope. Yet, I love teh healthy look of them even without the flowers. Beautiful again!

Hi Mike:-0) and Houston!

Congrats on the pomegranate! Very nice!

Mike

What a great post! I've enjoyed all the beautiful tree's!

Josh,
I hope now that your weather is warming up you get some blooms! The fragrance of the pink lemon blossom is amazing!

I can't get over the growth on your pink! Mine is still putting out a few buds here and there, but no new growth. And what is there is looking a little "tired"... wind blown and water spotted. :-( I do have about 5 lemons a little larger than walnuts now! ;-)

Mike~
Rosa looks very happy and beautiful! It's progress is amazing! The tree is lucky to have you! (I thought it should be named lucky. ;-) )

Tim~
I love the shape of your grapefruit! Did you train it that way, or is that just how the tree grew?

Mike~ Josh would love to share the rain, he just hasn't figured out the right "dance" yet to send it our way. ;-) lol...

Oh,
a little good news... The fire here in Arizona, is now 5% contained, which is a miracle at this point! Were excited to finally hear some sort of progress!

Great pictures everyone!
JoJo

Josh,
I'm getting ready to mix up the 5/bark 2/turface mix.. I can't remember if I put lime or gypsum... I can't find our emails. lol...
For now i'll be using MG. My very small meyer will go in this.

I have no idea what I will put my orange in... or my pink. I'm not sure I want to experiment with her. Just not that brave! LOL!

mksmth~ 90 is our spring.. our summer will be 110+ now that's hot. ;-)

JoJo

It's Fertilizer Friday.... ;-)

I'll be back once I'm done making the round.

Josh

Hey Josh! Such true commitment and dedication. No wonder your plants always look so prestine and better than nursery material!

I hope your weather is again much warmer for you than its been for you lately. Yahoo for you!!lol

Jojo: Yahoo for you if we could get you some rain you poor thing! Using that kind of mix sounds interesting. Please let me know if it works for your citrus.
I was just thinking of how happy I am that you finally caught the citrus fever!!!Yes. I love it.

Lucky is good too! Hummmm Rosa Lucky sound like a first and last name now. Thank you for your comments and support to help me get it this far. You have all been there to help and I appreciate it!

Happy fertilizer day and may the rain fall your way:-)

Jojo, come on, you can do it. You are one brave soul

Mike;-0)

Hello, Mike and JoJo!
Fertilization accomplished...! ;-)

JoJo, it is as Mike says - we have stolen your rain and stashed it away in the snow pack.
Our snow has two times as much moisture as last year, and last year was wet and cool, too.
I really am hoping that mother nature sends some relief your way to help with the wildfires!

As far as the variegated Lemon growth....I'm pretty surprised, as well.
It might be too much for me to handle, I was thinking earlier. I could always
give it to my brother as a house-warming gift.

For the mix, you got it: 5 bark, 2 turface. Add the Lime ;-)

Thank you, Mike!
The weather is warm again today, and the skies are blue.
Next week will be a bit cooler, but the nights are staying above 50F, so that will really help.

The mix that JoJo and I are going to try is the mix that JustaGuy was using.
I haven't re-potted my Lemon yet, but I'll report back when I do.

Josh

JoJo

Im always amazed how hot it gets in your state. We never see that high as actual. We will have heat indexes in the 110+ and relative humidity close to 100%. Somedays the humidity is so high sweat wont even evaporate.

Josh
I like fertilizer friday, that makes it easy to remember when to do it.

mike

nice to hear from you too! I hope all is well.

After the freeze of this winter, here is the orchard:

A recovering Moro blood orange. Of all the trees to survive, I was most surprised this one survived.
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A new, replacement, Rio Red Grapefruit. The second tree to completely die from the freeze. Not doing much except growing roots right now. Should take off next season. Death probably due to partial blow-off of the frost cloth.
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A recovering Mexican lime. It was only alive around the heat lamps at the base. It has tripled in size so far.
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A new, replacement Valencia orange tree. This was one of two trees that did not make it through the freeze, probably because one night the frost cloth blew off. Not doing much except growing roots right now. Should take off next season.
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A recovering variegated pink eureka lemon. As can be seen from my Feb pictures, this also was almost frozen to death and was only alive around the heat lamp at the base.
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A recovering Washington Navel. This was almost dead from the freeze. It is, unfortunately, a bit wind-whipped from the strange weather we have been having.
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New to the orchard this year -- couldn't resist .
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Of course, this summer is turning out to be as strange as the winter. Fortunately, the nearest fire here in Arizona is about 50 miles away. But, the winds have been horrible. So I installed 60% sun screen material around the orchard on the fence to partially block these winds. And the relative humidity has been between 0 and 5% which is also a record. Fortunately, I have drip on my trees....

Pgde: May I remind everyone of that day you posted those dreadful pictures of your hurt trees? That was unbelievable. I felt so bad for you and them.

Look at what you've done thus far. Bravo! I also see that you planted them very well. They all look so nice too.

I am very amazed at how strange this weather is too. If anyone tells me this is just a cycle or normal, I refuse to believe it.
Temps have been going from the mid 90's to the low 50's for daytime highs all this spring. It ridiculous.
We had tornados the other day that blew through here. Two tornados formed within two hours of each other in the SAME location, and the first one traveled a distance of 60 miles devestating everything in it's path. The longest recorded on ground distance.
The day before yesterday once again we had thunderstorms in which lightning took down two trees up the street, and temps then were 94 degrees and now today, only holding at 52 degrees! It is digusting and a whole lot of shock to my plants I tell you.
What other odds are our trees up against lately?
Hey I think I will start another thread just for the purpose of others letting off steam...

Wonderful job on your yard!

Mike

Here is a link that might be useful: Pgde's cold snap thread

just picked up a Moro Blood orange (has 3 fruit on it) this weekend for $20 at Houston Garden Centers. my dad got a Hamlin Sweet orange (has about 8 fruit on it). they have various citrus trees, most of the oranges are $20 and most of the others (limes, satsumas, etc) were $15. i will probably wait till the spring to plant it in ground.

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