Kraken:

Steamed is right, what a moron!! Citrus in my experience is very good at resprouting. They should rapidly regrow. Potting wouldn't help except to move them out of harms way. I say keep the root system intact where they are and put in stakes or something else to keep the mower at bay.

Thanks, Fruitnut. This is just..uhg.
Are there any extra steps I should take to encourage new growth from them like shading them, fertilizer, more watering, trimming the ragged cut and make it clean?

I will be putting stakes around them today to ensure this doesn't happen again.

I'd trim up the cut ends. Those must be pretty ragged. They shouldn't need shade or any extra care. Extra water and fertilizer will help if needed but only after they start regrowing.

Alright, I'll get them trimmed clean, they look awful.
Thank you!

Thankfully two of the three have a lot of foliage from suckers, so I am glad I never trimmed those off like I had considered! I will guess those two will have a better shot at coming back than the third (which was also the largest) as it had no sucker growth before the Great Mow Down.

I have had many things accidentally mowed or whacked over the years. What I do now is every new plant gets some big stakes around it that will make it nearly impossible to mow over or weed whack. I would put some stakes like that around your citrus. Its a good idea for reasons beyond lawn mowing because it will keep kids, deer, dogs, etc from stepping on them.

Scott

Citrus are excellent are "reviving" themselves, especially citrus grown from seedlings. Be patient. Clear ALL the grass away from the trees. Give them a nice large ring/well. Make it obvious to this gardener you have trees in this area. Fertilize and water regularly. Since they're not grafted, you should see new growth shortly that will be whatever the seedling is turning out to be. And, with citrus, it could be a hybrid, or it could be a nuclear seedling and a clone of the parent.

Patty S.

Krakenqueen...First...Listen to Patty!! Second...Go check out the Citrus forum!

:-)

You can buy those cheap tomato cages at most dollar stores. They aren't much good for tomatoes, but we keep them handy to place around small tree saplings to flag us to keep clear with equipment. They can be left in place for a few years and the nice part is the wire is open enough, you can actually reach in to weed, or work on the tree.