Hi Mag123, Flying Dragon is the best rootstock for dwarf citrus trees. It will produce a tree that is about 1/2 regular size with normal sized fruit. This is for a tree planted in the ground. If you are going to grow citrus in containers you may not need to purchase trees grafted onto Flying Dragon because your trees will have limited root volume and will naturally remain small. For container soil use a mixture of 1/3 manufactured soil. For our climate I like Super Soil potting mix. Combine that with 1/3 peat moss and 1/3 pumice. If you can't find pumice use vermiculite. Don't worry about the pH. Trees planted in the ground are happy with a pH above 8. In a container yours will be much lower. If you want to reduce the pH of the water you use just add 1 tablespoon of vinegar in each gallon of water. Good luck. Here is a link that might be useful: Low Desert Citrus Varieties

Thanks for the response. I didn't dig too deep. Maybe down 2 inches max. I used chicken manure because that is what was available at Home Depot. I would like to find a local organic source but I don't know where to look. I hand pulled all the weeds etc⦠on this specific tree. On the other side of my property where most of my trees reside I put down landscape fabric and covered it with bark as a mulch. I keep the mulch a couple of feet from the trunks of the trees. I periodically inspect my trees and hand pull the weeds inside the boundary of the fabric and mulch. It gets very hot in my growing area and the addition of the mulch has really improved the health and appearance of my trees. Keeping the soil cool during the dead of summer seems to be a big plus. It also helps me conserve the precious and expensive water I use.

My dwarf orange tree is coming back. In 2 months, all leaves have curled, turned yellow/brown, and fallen off. At what I thought was the end, green curled leaves fell off, smaller branches have all turned brown and died. Thought the small dwarf orange was a goner. First, my mistake was I left the soil that was from the original pot around the roots. For some reason, the stuff they used clumped hard, and would just soak all the water in, so in a week it still felt moist. I didn't check till all the leaves have fallen off, and I thought it was too late. I later made my new soil with plenty of rocks at the bottom and used potting soil with the little Styrofoam looking beads mixed well in and moved the tree to a larger pot. I used about 10 drops of miracle grow plant food, and just let the tree sit there for a week, 2nd week I just very lightly watered, barely sprinkled it. 3rd week, small buds and leaves are forming all around again, small flowers seem to be jutting out of branches that I thought were almost dead. So now, i'm limiting my watering down to 1 to 2 times a week and this is just a basic light sprinkle till it re-establishes itself. Then I will start watering it once a week fully as before when the roots start growing more. But so far so good. My lesson? Even in the heat here in LA, these small dwarf trees do not need extra water, if you see leaf curling or browning tips and leaves falling off. Cut back on the watering. this picture is from my cell phone, so not the greatest, but I hope hope you can see the little buds of leaves and flowers starting to jut out. This post was edited by Marky350z on Fri, Aug 16, 13 at 17:24

mrshal07, first, if you can let us know where you live? Zone 8 is marginal for citrus in the ground, but I don't see any mention of putting anything in the ground - just containers - so I am assuming you would be able to bring your citrus inside at least to a garage temporarily, if you have a cold snap? Just need a little clarification regarding your zone and location. That might give us a better idea regarding cultivar recommendations if things are staying outside. If you can bring your container citrus inside during cold snaps, then cultivar selection based on weather restrictions isn't so important. Okay, as far as potting mix, no, I would not suggest a mix of citrus soil and potting soil. Much too water retentive. Putting "something in the bottom" does not improve drainage, this is a misconception. We have a great recipe for either "511" or "Gritty" mix on our forum, so search for that and copy down how to mix your own very well draining and long lasting potting mix. Hopefully MeyerMike will add his perspective on container citrus, as he is one of our most successful forum members with container citrus in a less than ideal USDA zone (Massachusetts). His trees are gorgeous. Fertilizing is usually done with each watering, 1/2 strength during non-growing season (late fall through early spring), then full strength. Most container citrus folks prefer to use DynaGro's Foliage Pro. I also use it, along with a time-release product with an NPK close to 5-1-3 ratio, along with micronutrients, even with my full-time-outside container citrus with very excellent results. As far as cultivars - if you can bring your citrus inside during cold snaps, then I would pick cultivars you like to eat, or provide juice that you would drink or cook with. So, all are good choices. I would make a suggestion for your grapefruit, though, as grapefruits need some significant heat units in order to sweeten up. So, consider a grapefruit hybrid, such as Oroblanco, Melogold, or Cocktail (which isn't really even a grapefruit, but actually a pummelo/mandarin hybrid, but absolutely delicious, and does not need heat to sweeten.) I would consider a Bearrs lime, as it isn't quite as cold-sensitive as the Mexican (Key) lime. And a Meyer lemon would also be a better choice over a regular lemon as it is more cold tolerant that, say, a Eureka or Lisbon lemon. Satsuma mandarins are lovely, but slower to mature, so perhaps consider another mandarin cultivar, there are many excellent choices, such as Seedless Kishu, Gold Nugget, Page or Tango mandarins (or mandarin hybrids). Rootstock are the "roots" that the cultivar scion gets grafted to, which can provide the cultivar with some significant benefits - size control, more resistance to disease, precociousness, sweeter fruit, more tolerance to cold temps, soil issues, etc. So, you'll find most citrus are grafted. For container citrus, you're better off finding citrus grafted to dwarf or semi-dwarfing rootstock. Four Winds Growers grafts most of the their citrus to a very semi-dwarfing rootstock called Cuban Shaddock, which makes them very suitable to container culture. And, they have every cultivar you've listed. They're a great company, grow beautiful citrus, and many of us on the forum have their trees. There are other good growers out there as well, but not many that you can find who graft to true dwarfing rootstock (which would be poncirus trifoliate 'Fly Dragon'), or certainly no one else I am aware of that uses Cuban Shaddock, probably the next most dwarfing rootstock out there. So, I would definitely look for citrus on at least semi-dwarfing rootstock, if you're shopping locally. If your area can support in-ground citrus, I would suggest going to one of your better garden centers, or even better, a citrus grower if you have one, and talk to them about the cultivars that do the best in your area, especially if you plan on leaving them outside. Just remember, if you have temps in the winter that drop below 40 degrees, you need to consider bringing your container citrus inside or at least, into the garage (with sunlight) for short periods, as container citrus don't have the root protects from cold temps as in-ground citrus have. Patty S. Here is a link that might be useful: Four Winds Growers