Here's a contrary opinion about pruning from Four Winds Growers: "Citrus may be pruned to any desired shape. Pruning is fine any time of year, except in the winter for outdoor trees. Pinching back tips of new growth is the best way to round out the trees without impacting future fruit. Citrus will look fuller with occasional pruning to shape leggy branches. Some trees may develop erratic juvenile growth above the graft. If so, prune for shape and balance. Any growth above the graft can eventually bear fruit. Do not be afraid to cut off branches. It will stimulate growth and multiple branches from the site you pruned. Well-pruned trees have higher fruit yields and are less prone to branch breakage." Here is a link that might be useful: Growing Citrus in Containers

Hello! Sounds like she might be a little too wet - and they hate being inside as well! I bought a very poor thing recently which had been left outside all winter etc - but with some TLC I am sure it will be ok. Don't worry if all the foliage drops - it's a reaction to the move, change of scenery etc - citrus can be really prissy about that sort of thing! Pot into a terracotta pot if you can - they "breathe" so if you do over water, drying out is easier and quicker, and less damaging. use a citrus compost from the garden centre - they are neutral pH and really are worth the extra £. Then lay off feeding for 3/4 weeks to let her settle down. If warm enough during the day - ie above 5C you can stand her outside in a sheltered place, but I would bring in at night if it's going to be cold. then start to feed again - either with citrus feed, or chempack No2, high nitrogen. this will boost leaf production and green her up for you. do you have a greenhouse - she would be better off out there with some frost protection to be honest. Good luck, and let me know how you get on! Richard

I have some remarks. I grew a grapefruit from seed in circa the late 1980s. I'm not sure of the exact date but this tree definitely did already exist in 1991, although it was little more than a shoot at the time. I live in Switzerland and at the time was living with my parents who had a garden. The tree would spend the summers in the sunniest spot in the garden and come indoors in the winter. When I was at university my mother took care of this tree for me. However, circa 2000 the tree suffered a vey nasty attack by sticky mites and I had to prune the tree back quite heavily as washing or spraying didn't help. The tree recovered from this remarkably quickly, with new leaves sprouting out of the stubs within weeks after pruning. In 2003, the opportunity arose to move the tree to my parents' holiday home in the south of Spain. Basically this was a container with a lot of furniture and the tree didn't take kindly to being locked inside that dark and hot container for several days while being knocked about on the back of a truck and so lost most of its leaves. With days of being planted in the garden there it lost the rest of its leaves and I left it for dead. Returning the next year, however, it had sprouted fresh branches. Some years later, during my absence, my father had a gardener in who pruned the tree back heavily. The gardener also wanted to rip it out and replace it by a nice one from his garden centre and I had to do a lot of arguing to make him understand the significance of that tree and my dad wasn't exactly helpful. Then things went from bad to worse as in 2006 my mother passed away and she was the only person besides myself to really care about the tree (or in fact anything in the garden). The last time I saw the tree was in 2007 and that year the tree had about 4 blossoms (the first in its life), one of which had already swollen and there was the beginning of a grapefruit, already half an inch in diameter. The tree was no more than about 4 foot tall and to me it was a very happy sight. However, my dad picked up a strange girlfriend who hated anything that had anything to do with my dad's previous life including the fact that he had kids or that anything was important to us. The house was sold even though the guy who bought it put in a lower bid than I would have bid had I known it was up for sale. The new owner ripped out the garden for a swimming pool. A very sad story. But I decided not to give up and I have a three year old grapefruit grown from my seed on my balcony right now. I hope one day to see it flower and bear fruit. I also have a miniature orange tree which I bought from a local garden store. It is laden with fruit all year round. I guess it must be grafed but I cannot say where as I think I can recognise a graft when I see one but this tree doesn't seem to have such a place. My next project is to get a three-leaf orange. I understand this is the only citrus tree that can be planted outside in my type of climate (sustained sub-freezing temperatures in winter plus plenty of snow). Does anybody have any experience with these? Here is a link that might be useful:

Hello, My citrus tree did decently during the summer. I kept the tree outside for around two months, perhaps a bit longer. Some of the leaves did get a bit damaged from the wind due to the leaves scraping against the thorns. I tried to protect the tree the best I could but the winds are harsh. The night time temps started to drop below freezing in mid September and I was forced to bring the tree indoors again. For two weeks I moved the tree outside during the day and indoors at night. The problem is that I only get a few hours of sunlight to the tree indoors each day. I am going to see if I can get a heat lamp or something similar to help. I have a new small mandarin orange tree growing from seed which started out well. Unfortunately, there are two brown leaves now. I am thinking it may be due to potting medium which is holding too much moisture. I plan to change that out to something better for both trees. I am trying to locate the ingredients for the 5-1-1 and gritty mix which I plan to use for both my Citrus and Pine trees. You can see my small tree in a plastic cup in the larger container below. I tried a batch of meiwa kumquat seeds last summer but had no success with germination for any of them. I think the seed batch may have been bad or the temps were not warm enough. I have a heating pad now to help keep the medium warm and some new seeds. Sorry to hear about your kumquats. I am glad to hear at least some of your trees are doing well. You have a nice setup for your indoor trees. This post was edited by azhighcountry on Sun, Nov 3, 13 at 0:04