Adding link to pictures

Here is a link that might be useful: Dropbox

Hi Liz,

Congratulations on your ability to grow citrus in your condo - they certainly seem to love your conditions, as is evident by their fruit yield, so by all means continue with your regimen!

I don't see your pics from the Dropbox link. If you try Photobucket, you can hover over the picture and just copy and paste the html link into the body of your GW message. When you 'Preview Message', you should see your photo (just as we will).

You ask a very interesting question about the appropriate time to uproot your citrus. One certainly should do so if you see actual decline in your tree's vigor, but you'll probably want to re-pot before you've reached this stage. And, as you are using a standard potting mix that's been amended with bark and perlite, I would argue that you're getting soil compaction with the resulting/dreaded perched water table (unless you've added a wick to the drain holes). So you're probably at just past prime time to re-pot - remember that for plants in a 511 mix, it's recommended to re-pot every couple or so years; therefore, your less free-draining mix will probably require more frequent changing (might now be a good time to consider re-potting into the gritty mix(?), as you'll be able to leave in the free-draining mix for 3-5 years or so).

In regards to when to re-pot, I would recommend doing this just before your citrus are in a growth spurt. I wouldn't worry too much about whether you have fruit/flowers while doing this; especially for the Meyer, you'll probably have fruit of varying degree on the tree year-round, so this is unavoidable.

Finally, I recall reading that you don't want to 'pot up' into too large a container, which could have the problem of retaining too much moisture. I suspect your tree isn't too large, so you should be able to get away with using an 18" diameter pot. And if you root prune every time you re-pot, you can get away with using the same sized container (this is how bonsai hobbyist can continue using the same small-sized pots indefinitely).

Best of luck!

Tim

I concur with Tim's advice, Liz. If you want/need to repot, I would suggest waiting until next winter, when citrus tend to kind of slow down. So, that would have been about a month or two ago. To tide your over, if they truly do need to be repotted, you can top with some compost to add some nutrients that will percolate down to the feeder roots. However, I suspect your trees are probably just fine. If you have enough organic material in your original potting mix, which it sounds like you probably do, you can actually stretch out the lifespan of the potting soil, as long as you don't let your roots get too wet, which you haven't. But, as Tim has mentioned, having a lot of organic materials in your potting soil can lead to compaction, so be careful to check to the bottom of the pot for water retention. You'd know, as citrus just really do not tolerate wet roots, and your trees will show signs of root rot. Do post your photos in your message by using Photobucket and copying in the HTML code into the body of your message, as Tim has suggested. I could not see your photos in Drop Box, either.

Patty S.

Hey, Liz, well I'm honored to have made your list ;-)

It seems that the best time to re-pot Citrus is during the Spring after the chance of frost has passed.
As Tim says, it's optimal if you can catch your plants between growth spurts (in the Spring). It's
tough to tell exactly when this will be...since it may be colder in your zone 7b than in other parts of
the country. I can tell you that I have re-potted at the end of April, and my tree didn't miss a beat....
eventhough there were several freezes and frosts afterwards. A bit of protection on those extra
cold nights might be in order.

A word of caution. Abandon sand as part of your potting mix. It is awful in a container,
and compaction is the primary issue. Bark, perlite, and turface (plus nutrients, of course)
will make for a much longer-lasting mix. As you get your ingredients together, do a little bit
at a time. When screening the turface, bark, and perlite, wear a mask to avoid the dust.

With a free-draining mix, you could virtually plant a seedling in a 20-gallon container.
Get that mix made right, and you can use any ol' pot you want. Tim's correct, though, in that
you can maintain a perfectly healthy tree in the same pot with judicious root-pruning, just as
bonsai are kept healthy in small soil volumes for centuries (literally).

Sounds like your trees are just fine at the moment, so you've got a couple months to wrangle
supplies and put together your plan of attack. There'll be lots of support when the time comes.

Josh

Josh, great point about refraining from using sand!

Liz, in re-reading the last paragraph of my post, since I don't know how big your citrus trees are, I shouldn't have mentioned ANY pot size. You should definitely consider your plants' size and the pots that are most in scale with your trees. For example (hoping that he doesn't mind too much), I've included a link to one of Josh's posts for his Moro blood orange that was eventually re-potted into (what I consider) is a very nice and appropriately sized terracotta pot. You'll see in this picture that not only does a pot not have to be too big, it doesn't have to be too deep either. This is what's great about the suggested (511 or gritty) mixes - you can pretty much go into any sized pot you feel works best for you. And keeping the pots small will certainly have the added benefit of easier transport!

Tim

Here is a link that might be useful: Josh's potted Moro blood orange tree.

Thanks! From looking at Josh's pics, mine are definitely in too large pots. I will plan to do a re-pot this spring. I need to do one for sure. The other two may be able to wait.