That's so good to know. I tried pruning last month, as I'm beginning to find I love gardening, but I didn't do the best job. Need more tools, longer gloves(this tree is sharp!), and to read a little. It is a beautiful tree!

Show us a picture, most here can help with a good visual.

I'll post one tonight. I don't think I fertilized it. It's been watered and somewhat pruned. We fertilized the meyer. Poor neglected ponderosa.

Here's a picture

Looks pretty good, but could you give us a close-up picture of the trunk? I can't tell if you have a lot of rootstock growth or not.

-Tom

Mines are always very juicy and a bit sweeter than a lemon..Beautiful tree)

That's a very shapely tree, the leaves look a little greenish yellow/nitrogen starved to me but that could just be because it's so far away. Perhaps look into a good citrus fertilizer and put some down according to the directions, its around the time of year citrus need some food anyway.

It's very possible. I'll fertilize this weekend. Here's a closeup.

The bright green on the ground I had just cut from the lower trunk. I snapped the pictures before cleaning them up.

That actually looks like two trunks growing together, two different shades of bark even, one could be rootstock. Are all the leaves on the tree the same?

Side note: get rid of that Palm tree on the right, today.

All the leaves look the same but I'll look closely tonight. Why get rid of the palm? We got rid of one but it was a lot smaller. There are so many!

Is that wire sticking out of the base of the trunk? Many young citrus come with a wire support in the pot, could that be what that is, left over and then grown around?

No I think it's part of the power or phone lines. We have a few going through the sides of our yard.

It sure doesn't look like any kind of telephone or electrical wire to me, more like a thin rod. And is it sticking out of the trunk?

I'm embarrassed to say I really have no idea. I'll check tonight and answer.

To me it looks exactly like the metal rods that I see used for support in young potted citrus for sale here in southern CA.

Palm: ten years from now all you will see is a giant stick in the ground. Plus it is planted way too close to that fence. It will not be able to establish a proper root system. It will blow over in the wind.

Have you ever had a soil test done?

From the looks of both your palms and citrus, they might be lacking Iron and or Nitrogen...They are notorious for needing iron especially, most tropical, and if the soil is either too acidic or too alkaline, most likely alkaline, especially near a cement wall, there lies many of your problems...An alkaline soil will hold up those nutrients...

It is one of those rods, and it is very deep in the trunk. I can't pull it out. We have many palms of different varieties along the wall. Including a few unidentified trees. I also have a dwarf meyer tree that just lost all is blooms and looks like it has no fruit, though it did have fruit when we moved in.

We have almost 30 palms. We are going to dig up a few. Maybe that will be included.

I haven't had the soil tested but I dI'd fertilize the meyer. Will regular fruit tree fertilizer work or do I need to get specific nitrogen/iron?

I appreciate all the advice!

So there's a lot going on with this trunk, but it's hard to tell for sure what the situation really is. In the picture above, (1) looks like something grew but died (possibly the scion), and (2) looks like there might be a graft line, but it's really hard to tell. (3) could be a dead scion, too.

In summary, you may very well have a rootstock growing (which would have terrible fruit), or you just have an underfed/underwatered ponderosa lemon. If this continues next season after feeding it more, I'd rip it out in favor of something new.

-Tom

Thank you for the feedback. I just watered it yesterday. I will fertilize it this weekend or on our next watering day. We'll see how they come out this year. I'll try to get closer pictures tomorrow.

When I saw this tree before we moved in I thought, giant lemons? What could be better. I want them to be good. So we'll see!