The ultra dwarf on flying dragon are described as slow growing perhaps getting to 10 ft if I recall correctly. Many times only up to 7-8 ft. I'm hear it can make the fruit 40% smaller not just the crop smaller. After much reading I just bought 3 in san diego at pacific tree farms. They have a 25% off going out of biz sale. They were $32 before discount. I wanted to choose trees that fruited at different times so I can have fruit all yr. I got the cara cara navel orange. dec-mar kishu dwarf mandarin oct-dec And one I may return. Its the honey tangerine. I was told it could hold fruit until july but no sorce on the internet agrees. It also has many seeds. It turns out the pixie is the one I probably want. It is seedless, holds fruit until around july and is supposed to taste great. That should just leave me fruitless from aug-sept. Any good suggestions to fill that gap :) ? I still need to find out what roosstck they use on mine. They are from durling nursery. So consider fruiting time in your decision. I didn't want just the best fruit but the best fruit at any one time of the year. 600 lbs of citrus all in jan probably wont do you alot of good. Damon

I have several 25+ year old citrus trees that haven't been effected by bad drainage/wet soil since becoming established, although I have had at least one die from it that wasn't established yet. Several years back, two of the oldest citrus trees actually got damaged by some one burning too close to the trees. It took several years for the trees to start even looking better after that, but even then, one wasn't fruiting at all, and the other didn't have many fruits in it. So, we decided to buy some of those citrus fertilizer stakes. After about one year, the trees went back to normal, and the largest one probably had 300-400 oranges on it this year. I'm not sure of the brand of these fertilizer sticks, but they had like 4-5 sticks per package and was like $2 per package. The sticks were very large as well. They had a plastic thing you put over the top of them that somewhat protects the sticks when you pound them in to the ground with a hammer or mallet. I understand that your trees weren't burned or traumatized too much, but my point is that just adding the right nutrients can be the difference between little or no fruit and a huge amount of fruit. If that doesn't work, and you get a lot of blooms but little or no fruit, then it could be a pollination problem. Add some trees, plants, and flowers that will attract bees. You can even order mason bee kits to help with pollination.

Just to add a bit, you may wish to wait a bit before cutting any questionable sections. In Danville, my lemons have re-sprouted leaves on branches that had a bit of brown. This week i will be cutting the moldy, light brown and very dead branches, but any questionable ones i will wait another month or two. On a different note, i just noticed my (previously 5 ft.) V.Pink Lemon in Napa push a nub 1/2" above the graft line. I think it felt me me wanting to dig it up and it responded. - ha! [now hoping my Bearss Lime will do the same] That December stretch of 10 18F-25F nights really surprised me as to what was killed and damaged... and which area of the yard too. I do plan to post pics of the recoveries. -George

Hi Christy, Yes, that MG citrus soil is toxic!! I have no idea why they sell that soil as citurs soil when it is so far from being citrus soil. Here is my experience with MG citrus soil. I used it last spring when I bought my dwarf keylime and my dwarf moro blood orange. A year later, and the dwarf moro blood orange is no more, and lucky for me dwarf key lime has thrived. I would urge you to repot the Meyer lemon ASAP. If the Meyer's roots stay moist for more than 2 days, you run the risk of having root rot and a whole slew of problems. I was turned on to Al's gritty mix. You might be able to make a version of the gritty mix but PLEASE don't use the vermiculite! That is also moisture renentive and therefore will keep your mix moist. From what I have learned from Mike, the point of the gritty mix is to have a mix that drains frelly and dries out completely in 1-2 days. I had a hard time deciding on using this or not. I was concerned about how well my citrus trees would do when I go on vacation since I really don't have anyone to water for me. However, I have seen a rapid big change in the 3 trees that I have this mix in. We should get together and write a complaint to Miracle Grow. They really need to change the name of the mix to just cactus soil!! Good luck with your tree. Once you change the soil to Al's gritty mix, your tree should improve greatly and yes it is extemely important that you remove every last bit of the soil mix before you repot it into the gritty mix. I would take the tree to the sink after you remove the majority of the crappy MG citrus soil. I would have the water at luke warm and rinse all the soil off those roots. I would not wait another minute to repot this tree. I don't remember who said it here, but someone had said that the average life expectancy of a potted citrus is two years because they normally die from root rot. The thing that is really bad is that us newbies don't think that we are doing anything wrong in using the MG soil since it is MG. I have been growing tropicals and other plants since for quite a while now and the biggest lesson that I have learned is that a prepackaged soil is not necessarily a good soil to use. For the past 4 years or so, I have been mixing up diffrent soils based on the needs of the plant. Citrus and mango were the last two fruit trees that I had problems with making a mix for. Andrew