Fruitnut, I have 2 methods and I'm sharing my trade secrets here (what the hell- I'm 6 months from 60 and hope to retire in 25 years anyway). I start some plants straight in the ground, planting them way too close in a fenced off area. Planting them close makes maintenance per plant much less expensive given that it's all done by hand (don't ask). For apples in my climate it takes about 3 years to size them up to about 1.5" diameter- at least when planted this close. I carefully dig up these BR and put them in short 20 gallon pots (wide and shallow) in a mix of 1 part peat, 1 composted wood chips or stable waste ( almost pure humus with some carbo lumps) and 1 sand, plus a little wood ash. They limp the first season but I sell them the next for around $180 per. At this point they are bearing, 12' tall and well branched and the foliage is back to mormal. Other trees I transfer to Carl Whitcomb grow bags in real soil and let them grow about another 3 years and sell them for $250 per, or less to contractors. The grow bags I use are his last edition because they allow more root out of the bag and I can grow them without any irrigation at all- even through drought. Irrigation would reduce production by about a year, I'm sure, but in my operation only my potted plants get any and they are set in the soil as well. I always take some trees in the grow bags, remove the bags and put them into 25 Gallon pots with the soil intact but surrounded by my potting mix which allows me to sell some larger trees during the growing season. Surprisingly the soil surrounded by potting mix works very well and you might want to try that method for your trees as the soil gives you much more bang per square inch and costs less. Repotting would require only replacing the artificial soil on the edge of the soil ball. It makes things real heavy though, and my soil is not too fine so I don't know how it would work with a more clay soil but I bet it would work just fine. I'm sure my prices seem outrageous by your regional standards but I'm less than an hour from NYC and here it's more than competitive- it's the best deal around- because I have scores of varieties and they're actually properly shaped for fruit production. They also plug in better than the competitions BB'd trees, especially the ones I have in pots.

Hi Sandra, Yeah they are showing a Sucker at http://www.fourwindsgrowers.com/solver/suckering.html. The water shoots above the graft line will look similar to that sucker, but it won't have the triple petals. -- You probably already know this. Some will argue to keep water shoots, as they will provide great growth and can help you reshape the tree. One site suggested they will eventually become normal branches later, which you can then control. This may be so for others, but I could not control it with various pruning and training methods. To help identify a water shoot (to remove) on young and maturing trees, is when it: 1) branches directly off the trunk (or between two existing branches off the trunk). 2) is from the lower portion of the trunk (although above graft) 3) is growing vertical and remains that way 4) has the juvenile "look" for a long time: very light green at first, then dark green, even after it starts to harden up, it keeps that "big vein" look. 4) and most importantly, is growing at a MUCH faster pace then the rest of the tree (esp vs. other newer branches). It will suck up a larger portion of the nutrients and thicken, lengthen, and leaf out faster (even larger leaves) and thorns. Any new branches off the trunk will share many of those characteristics, but to a lesser degree. Also, for many healthy full grown citrus, when you prune a very large branch it will sprout new growth that behaves very much like water shoots (and by definition may be). The thickness of the branch is providing a lot of nutrients and pruning is stimulating regrowth at and behind the prune point. But above I was describing shoots to remove on a young to maturing tree. If you let it grow for a while, you'll know. It'll remind you of a young branch on steroids. Just don't let it go too long ;-) YMMV and someone may chime in with a control method I was not aware of.

Kristimama, Citrus are nearly carefree in the Bay Area, so there is no reason not to grow as many as you like. Fill up your whole yard with them! The only real problem that most people run into is infestations of sucking insects (particularly scales), vectored by the omnipresent Argentine ants. Other than that, you basically just plant them and let them go. Give them some acidifying fertilizer in the winter, and keep your soil healthy through mulching. That's about all you need to do. Calamondins are small, sour citrus fruits. They are generally used for their juice, much like you would use lemons, etc. (You wouldn't eat them out-of-hand, unless you *really* enjoy tart flavors!) Calamondins are essentially everbearing, meaning that they should carry ripe fruit just about all year long. This is a very nice characteristic. It is very handy to be able to pluck a few fruits for squeezing into water, over a piece of fish, etc., at any time! I haven't been following this forum that closely, so I'm not sure why folks here prefer to put citrus in smaller pots. However, I would say that most participants on this board probably don't live in areas where there may be absolutely zero rain for months and months on end. Keeping potted plants going when it is extremely hot and dry can be burdensome, and using large containers like half-barrels will at least minimize this problem.

You shouldn't have to prune any of the citrus trees, but if you get a large tree such as a grapefruit or pummelo, then it might be difficult to get the fruit off the top of the tree. I personally would choose dwarf varieties for your situation. Here are the 5 I would choose, trying to keep a variety of both taste and harvest time: 1.) The Fruit Salad tree, just because you said it's one you definitely want...this one may need pruning to keep the tree growing evenly from the different grafts 2.) Moro Blood Orange - my favorite tasting orange, plus interesting fruit color. I ate mine on Christmas in Texas 3.) Mexican Lime - small size, blooms and fruit year-round 4.) Golden Nugget Mandarin - seedless and very late to ripen (like March), so that complements the Honey Mandarin on the salad tree. 5.) Minneola Tangelo - unique flavor to everything else planted I would also strongly recommend tasting these fruits before putting in a tree. Have you tried a Tangelo, and do you like them? Do you use a lot of lemons/limes in cooking and seasoning? Etc. Obviously, don't plant a tree if you don't particularly like the fruit!