Citrus are heavy feeders,now if you grow them indoors than you have to be careful with the amount of fert's. First, your pots are small, if you can find wider pots it would help and then comes the soil or soilless soils, that is just for starters. Pushing your tree's with nitrogen will start more new shoots than you shortened your branches .

Good morning, Bob, thanks for stopping by. I'm sorry, I should have been more specific. The trees are only indoors for the winter. I am getting ready to ease then into starting outside on my deck, probably next week. They will spend the rest of the year there, until I have to take then back in, probably around October or early November.

The pots are as big as they are going to get, however, the trees are potted into Al's 5-1-1.

As far as fertilization goes, they have not been fertilized at all over the winter. Mike told me that it would encourage spindly growths, which in turn would encourage spider mites. And since I know better than to argue (much) with Mike after i saw how beautiful his trees were, I didn't fertilize at all this winter, no matter how crazy it made me, lol.

The only thing I did this winter other than water, is to spray them with Neem oil twice, once when I brought then in, and once a month or so ago.

A soon as the trees are back outside, I'll be able to start watering every day again, and fertilizing with FP every other day, again.

Which brings me back to where I started: when, where, and how much should I prune my trees :)

As always, any advice is needed and appreciated :)

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Atheen

Trim them back. Make sure the end bud is facing the direction you want the branch to grow back. It will keep them bushier. Trim shock and sun shock, space them out.

"Make sure the end bud is facing the direction you want the branch to grow back."

I have no idea what you mean, I am so sorry. Can you elaborate?

About the shocks, I gather you mean I have to get the trees accustomed to being back outside before I prune?

.

Thank you!

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Atheen

Hi, Atheen. Got your message a few days ago, but often have trouble keeping up with mail from Houzz.

Tim was referring to directional pruning.

I think I'd tend to do the pruning in 2 stages. The trees are really lanky, and you want foliage close to the trunk. It's best for the tree if you 'chase' the foliage back to the trunk in stages, rather than simply pruning the tree hard and hope it back-buds. I'd tip prune it a week or so before moving it outdoors. The pruning, along with added photo load and air movement will force back-budding that should offer a lot of good pruning opportunities. Once you see the new branches erupting, you can prune back to just above those branches.

In 2D, it appears that you have about 5 branches growing from very close to the same spot on the smaller tree. This is going to cause a lot of thickening in that part of the tree. If what the picture shows is how things really are, you should think about removing a couple of branches from that area to prevent the unsightly thickening common to citrus with that branching issue.

Once the new branches start grow, you'll have a lot of pruning opportunities. If you tell yourself that your focus needs to be on getting the tree whipped back into shape, you won't wimp out on the pruning. ;-)

Al

Odd as it seems, I agree with Steve. You said pruning would create a "Y"; that is only if you prune to where you have a leaf on either side; if you prune to where there is only one leaf, you will get only one new shoot, as explained by Al. As for timing, I would certainly wait until they are adjusted to the new light outside. With sunlight and fertilizer, you should begin to see new growth; and then you might want to adjust where you trim. Note that citrus are apically dominant; i.e., new growth will occur from the apical (highest) node. If the limbs are long and bend downward, you will get new growth upward from the highest point. Commercially it is why we never prune the tops until they have fruit that bends the tops down.