So you plan to leave in the container but plant in the ground. Is that correct. You can do that no problem. One thing that I believe you should do is drill more holes in the container around the sides. That will allow the roots to spread into the surrounding ground.

Curious. What is your reasoning for doing this. Your weather is perfect for just putting in the ground. Are you planning to move it one day?

mike

maisie, are you saying you want to drop the container into a hole in the ground? Why on earth would you want to do that? I would simply plant the tree in the ground via the rootball. Keep the tree pruned using drop crotch pruning if you want it to stay smaller. Or, find a kumquat on a semi-dwarfing rootstock instead, to keep it smaller with less or no pruning. Kumquats are naturally compact trees. If you really want it to stay compact, consider ordering a 3 year old tree from Four Winds Growers, which puts more of their citrus on Cuban Shaddock rootstock, which is very dwarfing (email them first, to see if they graft their kumquats to Cuban Shaddock just to be sure).

Patty S.

My fig trees are in 3 foot tall 55 gallon drums planted in the ground by 6 inches and tower 30 inches above the ground. They have done very well. This was necessary to elivate the trunks up high enough for espalier training so I could fit kumquat trees under them and they would have space and light with the fig trees out of the way. It would have been better had i trained them to a single trunk and planted them in the ground. Think very carefully about pot in ground planting unless the pot will decompose

Steve