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leekle2mane

Transplanting Citrus

I have two citrus trees, a tangerine (mandarin?) and a meyer lemon, that I am thinking of transplanting to new locations.

One of the reasons is because I believe I accidentally put them into the land of the lot next to me (I live in a trailer park). The lot is empty and there are no plans that I know of that anyone is moving in (and if they do plan on it, they will have to contend with the fact that Gopher Tortoise has made its home on this lot). But I would rather move them more into my yard to avoid any possible future conflicts as it is looking like I will be stuck in this park for about 6-10 yrs.

The other reason is more for the Meyer Lemon than the tangerine. It is in a spot that it won't be getting much sunlight during the winter months. Not a huge factor in terms of growth since I believe it will be going dormant here shortly, but in the interest of increasing its chances of surviving a winter, I would like to move it to a spot that will allow it to warm up a bit more during the days.

Now, I have looked up transplanting citrus trees and it should not be an overly big deal. However, there seems to be some conflicting information. Some articles say to wait until March after the last freeze and others say to do it... pretty much right now before the freezes start. One article says that for my area, Central Florida, I pretty much get to choose which I want to contend with. If I transplant now I will have to pay extra attention to frost guarding the plants until spring. If I wait until March I will have to take care not to let them get over-heated by the warm Florida sun.

Any opinions on which would be easier to deal with and less likely to result in a dead or stunted tree?

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