Yeah that's about the right price for the W&N citrus trees at Costco. This year, they stopped providing the semi-dwarf -- unless you actually saw some Ashley? I saw less than 5 semi-dwarf orange, the other 100+ were standard (Carrizo). Last year (2009) it was the other way around. However, the lemon did have about 3 different root stocks to choose from. If they keep the contract with Costco, they should be arriving again around March/Apr. If you are OK with keeping multiple trees, I would take Ashleys' advice and buy the additional one with the shape already set. However, I have planted a Robertson Navel tree that looked exactly like the one in the pic and I am finally training it as a central leader. I let the bottom develop it's natural "bushy" look until it was very well established -- it only was about 4 feet tall at 6 yrs old or so. I've seen MANY of these 4W dwarf Orange bushes STAY at that height. The stated 6'x6' on the label is the "full maturity". The dwarf Meyer bushes can stay moderately sized, but the Eureka's and many grapefruits can still get very big when planted in ground. The new trunk I "chose" is starting to really thicken up now and is now above 7 feet tall with just "enough" strong lateral branching. I'll top it there, but the high vigor will try to sprout more branches right at the top. I don't know how long I'll be pinching the new sprouts back for, maybe forever.

Mike, It probably will be fine. I looked at containerized fruit trees in stores near me before and after we had bitterly cold temperatures and wind chills and couldn't see any discerable damage--like frozen-back tips on branches, etc. I am not big on pruning, but I tried hard with the plum trees to prune them well in the early years so they would develop a nice wide bowl shape that lets lots of sunshine reach all the branches equally. That worked out well and they are pretty, but I haven't pruned them much in recent years. They are around 10' tall, so I have to use a ladder to harvest the uppermost fruit, but I love the fruit so much that I don't mind climbing that ladder. Once you get them the shape and size you want them, the pruning required is fairly minimal. I don't spray them for anything and I get a good harvest in any year in which the weather doesn't hit the 80s in February (like it did here a couple of days ago) and make them bloom too early. I have a friend on our street who grows pie apples and he doesn't do much maintenance on his tree either. His biggest challenge is keeping the deer from eating his apples, and to discourage them, he keeps a radio in the tree turned on at night. It is in a zip-lock bag that is zipped shut except where the cord comes out of the bag in order to protect the radio from rainfall and such. If his trees ever has had cedar apple rust, he's never mentioned it. My other apple-growing friend has never mentioned having CAR on his tree either, but he has lots of problems with coddling moths. I just know if I planted an apple tree, it would get CAR every year because we have neighbors on three sides who have let their property become completely and totally infested with cedar trees. I walk out the door at look at those trees and silently will them to die every day .....and it doesn't work. I wish the racoons who spend the whole summer eating my sweet corn would develop a taste for cedar trees. Dawn

if you are realy worried about transplanting in the heat but it Must be moved, you can pot the things up as tenderly and carefully and quickly as you can, then put them in a sort of holding area till the cooler weather comes, or till the plants recover from being moved. I would set them in dappled shade, or morning sun,. in saucers, or grouped in shallow tubs, I have those black plastic cement mixing trays on hand for this type of thing, or even a very shallow kiddy pool will work, or you can knock together a sort of tray by making a square of 2x4's lined with plastic, then you can give the stuff a good drink easily for a few days, Not setting in water, but easy to water all at once. this will buy you some time to think what to do next.

Stanlie, these people are power-crazy and do not want people (G-d forbid) to make a tree or shrub decision by themselves. Only the MANAGEMENT and BOARD know what trees and shrubs we should have. Judging from the extreme overuse of purple ornamental plum trees, trees planted by the curb way too close (resulting in stunting of the shorter species), etc., I have little confidence in the knowledge of the "landscape company" or their "landscape workers". No, they would not allow me to plant a large shrub or small tree. As a matter of face, I recall my neighbor Tom last year telling me quite indignantly that the "landscape workers" removed a Rose of Sharon his wife had planted 5 years earlier, because "it was too close to the building". They didn't even tell him or give him an opportunity to move it. They just snatched it out of the ground, and a rose bush, too.