repotting, pruning, root pruning

6 years ago

I recently picked up a lime and kumquat. Just finished up repotting them, so here's a little recap of my journey. All comments welcome, as I am new to this.

When I pulled them out to repot, the bottom 25% of the pot was full of broken off roots. The mix was mostly peat and was always wet, but when I washed it off, you could tell there was some bark in there.

The alarming issue was that one side of the rootball just fell off. This happened on 2 plants. Just gonna guess it rotted, but it's odd that it was one side. Here's the kumquat after I washed it. (It was a little easier to see that it was a half rootball when the soil was on it.)

I don't really know what I'm looking at with roots, so I just pruned off the double root that wraps over, although I kind of wondered if it would start to grow downwards. I left that other sideways root for stability. Maybe it's not even alive?

They need pruning because of unevenness, but when should it be done??

Look at all the little branches near the bottom of the kumquat :)I will stake the big branch because I don't want to cut it off, but when do you do major and minor pruning??

I put these into 5-1-1 and used berger mix for the peat portion. I have never used berger before, and I don't like the way it looks compared to promix. AND this is my first season trying 5-1-1, so I'm nervous. Before putting into similar sized pots, I treated the roots to a little dusting of powdered kelp. Again, a new thing for me. I'm sure they feel pampered, right?

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Comments (5)

evdesert 9B Indio, CA
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
Hibiscus I hate to be the bearer of bad news but all those "little branches" at the bottom of your tree look like rootstock suckers. They Appear to be coming from below the graft line. If you could take a closer pic of the trunk and post it we can verify if they're rootstock or not. As for pruning, you can prune at any time during the summer or fall. You can prune you tree however you want, depending on your tastes you can have a short bushy type shape or a tall tree like shape with an exposed trunk. Your tree also appears to have a stake holding it up. Remove that so your tree can sway back and forth in the wind naturally. This will help the trunk thicken up and better support your tree when it's holding fruit.

Evan
evdesert 9B Indio, CA
6 years ago
What is on the pink tag that's hanging on the tree, does it say the rootstock type?
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Sugi - In restrospect, I would have gone one pot size up. At the store, the pots looked so big that I didn't want them to start taking over the living room. They also looked like the same size as the existing pots, but ending up being just barely smaller which caused all my troubles. As for cutting in half/whacking them, I've gone with Al's advice to wait and see how they grow. Repotting was just the first step to improving their health! Hopefully I'll be able to control their growth a bit, while still keeping them both very healthy. The Schefflera is doing great with lots of new growth. The tree is growing now in three places: the left side straight up, the top (very small near the ceiling), and the right (obscured). I'm pretty happy about that! The Dracena... not so much. I kind of suspected it because the tree wasn't doing the best even before root pruning. It is in a very slow decline since repotting - the upper leaves have drooped a bit, while the lower leaves have just begun yellowing the other day. I'm really hoping the tree can balance its canopy to roots quickly. Here are photos of each that I just took (to compare with the original photos in the OP):
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These are some of the tools I use for repotting. The tool that looks like a root rake to the right of the pruning saw is a root rake, can be had here for under $10, stainless steel a few $ more. The wooden tool made from a dowel rod looks exactly like a 'tell', which is used to check moisture levels deep in a pot, but this highly specialized tool made by sharpening a dowel rod in a pencil sharpener is filling in as a root-pick, which is used to tease soil out of the roots. The hooked tool with a wooden handle is a single prong root hook. It's used to untangle roots and can also be had here for less than $10. When I root prune, I comb out some of the roots, then snip them off, then repeat. When I'm done, there is a hollow in the root mass directly under the trunk where there are no roots. The tree, regardless of it's size, will have a root system that looks like it will fit over an over-turned soup bowl, or for trees older than 25 years, the root system might be flat. When I pot the tree, I mound the soil in a volcano shape, set the center of the roots on the peak and rotate the tree back and forth to settle the soil into the hollow before adding more soil and working it into all air spaces in the roots with the root pick. If you stick the tapered tip of the root pick in beween roots and rotate the end in your hand in a circular motion like you're following the rim of a funnel, you can watch the soil settle into the roots like it's going down a swirling drain. Strong work, JS. If the last image in the OP shows what the root mass looked like before it was repotted, I'd have pruned roots tight to the bottom and removed all the long roots sticking out of what's left of the root mass. You might even have done that, but I thought I'd make the suggestion. Al
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tropicofcancer (6b SW-PA)
6 years ago
May be a closer picture of the graft point will help in figuring out what those little branches are. It looks like it is a pretty low graft but not sure.
hibiscus909
Original Author
6 years ago
No rootstock designation on the tag. Oh yes, there were some suckers in that photo, it was the 'before' pic. I removed them already.

Hopefully that main root that goes straight down (sideways in the pic) is OK even though it is forked.

I figured I would wait a few weeks to remove the stakes, otherwise I do think the plants will fall right over in the loose 5-1-1. Even with the stake I think there is a noticable amount of movement. Eventually I hope to try using sand in lieu of perlite in the mixes.

The lime, kumquat and meyer (pic in my other thread) all came with tiny fruits. They have been dropping them every day, which I expected. Fingers crossed that a few hang on. All the meyers are gone, though. And no flowers. And that's the one that I don't need to prune.

So I guess I will go ahead and prune the rest now; blazing hot summer-time is OK?
evdesert 9B Indio, CA
6 years ago
Yes, I just trimmed my key lime last week and we were in the 120's.

before the haircut

After the haircut...

Evan

repotting, pruning, root pruning

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evdesert 9B Indio, CA

evdesert 9B Indio, CA

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repotting, pruning, root pruning

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