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something for all newbies to read!!

15 years ago

Hi all, sorry for yet another post, i am just amazed by something.

i am a newbie myself, and have trawled through this entire forum and several others gaining what i hope to be a good basic knowledge for growing citrus in pots.

i just went to water my persian lime. it was in a 12 inch pot. i poured a litre of water in. nothing happened. another litre, nothing happened. another litre and finally a few drops of water started to leak out of the drainage holes in the bottom, and they took their time coming out!

it seemed a little wrong, so i took the pot outside and took the lime out. the small root ball was sitting on about 4inches of mostly compost with a little bit of perlite.

when i first got the plant a while back i hadnt thought too much to proper potting mix, so just chucked some perlite in and put the lime in the pot. what i mistake i made!!!

i gently hosed the rootball to remove some of the bad soil, and made a new potting mix. i found a bag of bark chippings in the garage (never seen them before, must have been used by my stepdad) i threw those into a container, with a couple of handfuls of perlite and some ericaceous potting compost. i downsized to a pot that was 8inches, and put the lime in with new potting mix.

now i know what free draining means!!!! i poured in a litre of water to establish the soil to the roots, and it drained twenty times faster than it previously had! i then added another litre with a half-strength citrus feed in it.

this is my message to anyone new to raising citrus - READ THIS FORUM AND LISTEN TO THE ADVICE!! it was only through reading posts of different subject that i realised the potting mix was all wrong. without reading them, i may very well have lost my lime to root rot before i knew what was happening. there is a wealth of knowledge here regarding almost every citrus subject imaginable. i just thank my stars i am obsessed enough now to read a load of posts ;)

further to this, a question for those more experienced - i have other citrus in the same original mix as the lime - should i go ahead and repot them now in the new mix? they are all showing a lot of new growth, except the lemon, and i dont know if it is safe to wait until spring!

thanks all, old and new posts alike are teaching me well :)

dan

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Comments (3)

gardenerme
15 years ago
If they are draining slowly, I would go for it now.
aesir22
Original Author
15 years ago
they are repotted. and happy - all of them. and downsized three of the pots. the difference is amazing. much better draining. happier plants - they all took to the transplant really well - except the meyer which is dropping leaves but its a fussy thing anyway so i'm not too worried :)
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brass_tacks
15 years ago
aesir,
Just remember that the pot you plant into shouldn't be way bigger than what the plant roots need. Plants need to be re-potted when their roots need more room and even though a plant doesn't need a larger pot because its roots are slow-growing, it still should be repotted into a fresh medium.

Also, it is ok to trim roots when you don't want to put something into a larger pot.

We're all learning.
Brass
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