Susanne, good to hear that your trees arrived safely and that you were satisfied with your trees. Ruth and Steve are good people to deal with. I look forward to the pictures and seeing what you ordered. I am expecting my shipment from Harris later in the day. I always get excited on delivery day and greet the FedEx driver right by his door.. just hand the packages over to me and we are good to go. I have everything ready! :D

The owners of Harris citrus are very interesting people. They are Eskimos by nationality living in Florida raising citrus. Ruth is an extremely nice woman, wonderful to work with. I have trees from them and all have done well.

Why is the tree tied to a support?

Because it is just repotted and michigan can be very windy at times. When the roots are grown through the pot the stake will be removed

Here is the Shiranui. I did not expect a tree that size. Probably will re-pot next spring but for winter coming just did not go over board with pot size

And last the Sanbokan Lemon. Lots of new growth.

I just ordered a shiranui from them. Is this the 3 gallon?

I want a Shiranui. All my grafting attempts failed :(.

I am with you on that!

This is the five gallon

Very nice varieties, Susanne . That Shiranui tree is lovely. Last summer I purchased a Shiranui in a 4" Citra pot from Harris and it has put on a lot of growth since then. It had one bloom and a tiny fruit this spring but it fell off. That pot should do fine till spring..

I hope to get some fruits next year. Don't need a lot. Just maybe two or three for tasting :)

How high up are the grafts? They look leggy I prefer lower/bushy growth.

I love that they are higher up (stems will get thick over time) as this will be easier for winter. can put the pots closer with the lower trees mixed in.

Susanne, that works good if you don't have the room. I stacked them up too. I have limited room dedicated for citrus. My lighted basement has 10' ceiling so needless to say it will look like a jungle again this winter.

It looks to me that the graft is lower but they are pulling out lower vegetation as it comes out. Is that wrong? That is a good consideration for people dealing with lots of pots, having some tall and some short to pack in there!

Very beautiful trees, Susanne! Whenever you end up trimming your Shiranui, keep me in mind, I would love budwood to graft on to my Friendship tree ( Thanks for the great idea you planted in my mind, Vladimir :)) ). By the way, my tree is putting crazy amount of new growth. I will open new thread about that tree soon.

Sunshine I certainly will think about you. I love the idea of a friendship tree a lot. When would be the best time to send a bud wood? And how old would the best to succeed?

Silica,

It's been 4 days now; and since no one challenged you, I guess that Eskimo is now an official Nationality... at least on this site.

Sunshine, you can call on me as well for your tree when you're ready. As you know, (as Brian mentioned), I'm reproducing the UC Riverside collection in my backyard ;-)

Susanne absolutely love your new trees incredible height and health congratulations.

Brian

Susanne, I will let you know, the branches on my tree are ready, but I want it to grow more roots. Hahaha Laura, more like Annapolis citrus research center :) because you are observing and teaching your observations too :)) I definitely will let you know. I have big plans for this Friendship tree :), this tree is a special one!

Thanks for the good info, Silica!

very interesting Silica. I'm now wondering why they cut all the side branches off so early and if this will eventually hurt to grow to maturity?

The Shiranui sounded very interesting. BUT, they don't ship to California. There was one called a dream navel that sounded good too!

Most of my grafted citrus has that form - lower branches cut off.

I was hoping that once they got more light on the lower trunk the branches would regrow, but they have not. Any chance these is a way to induce new lower branches?

Cytokinin is a hormone used to force branching, its great on most plants, It is what is used in micropropagation in agar to grow many genetic copies of a shoot, before
changing agar solution to one containing an Auxin such as IBA ( used as rooting
agent )

I have used it for years, its great on most plants, roses etc

You can get the pure chemical on ebay kinetin or cytokinin , or use coconut miik as a natural alternative

You can mix it with tiny bits of GA3 ( gibberelic acid ) to make the shoots grow longer at the same time, but best stick to just cytokinin

There are loads of videos on youtube under micro propagation that shows what each hormone does in vitro , all can be used on a growing plant as well

Make sure you have a decent root system when using things like this or use just a bit on one or two buds you want to grow
if you root a cutting for example and don't wait long enough for a decent root
system the plant will not be able to hold all the branches that grow and the
cutting will/may die. On an established plant it shouldn't be a problem

A lot of nurseries producing plants use this to produce the very tight branched ornamental plants sold

Wow, cool, did not know about coconut milk, I will look into that.

I thought cytokinin would do branching on existing branches, didn't think about putting it on the trunk. I mean, there's no existing buds there. You just put it on the bare trunk?

I will check youtube and after watching 20 worthless videos, maybe I will find a good one ;)

I'm very glad you mention roots. Unfortunately, my one meiwa has a limited root structure. The (potted) plant was dug up by critters in April, and I just checked the rootball and it definitely has some good healthy roots, I am just worried it's not enough. The plant actually didn't lose significant leaves after the event.

I will try branching the other citrus, tho.

There's probably latent buds on the trunk depending on tree size.

pip should I spray the trunk with coconut milk to force them to grow?

I don't know anything about coconut milk, but it can't hurt to try as long as you are watching it for microbial growth.

I have been looking into it and have yet to find some solid info on whether it is coconut milk or water.

Just wanted to put my 2 cents in on this nursery. They do a terrible job packing their trees. On the last 3 orders I placed, the screws that were to be used to secure the pot missed the pot completely.

Edit: One of my trees did arrive damaged last year. It was my variegated minneola and it was a main branch that was sheared off. I don't know how I could have forgotten that when posting. Since I did post on this thread. I received another tree from Harris and was crossing my fingers that it would be fine. It was, but the screws completely missed the pot AGAIN. I opened the box this time around with the tree standing upright, peeled away the cardboard from the tree. Well when I went to throw the box away, the screws were at the bottom of the box. I agree with Dave below about price and selection, but you should be aware of what may happen and hope there are more trees available for replacement if you do have to get a replacement. I have never received a broken tree from Four Winds Growers as their packaging is more than just attaching some screws through the cardboard and hoping the pot is on the other side.

I'm sorry you had trouble Denise, but as you said, the trees arrived well. I have never had any issues with Harris (either packing or trees) and have wonderful trees from them. Let's try to look on the bright side of things...

Hobby growers ought to be delighted that Harris even bothers to take the time to sell to them. Commercial nurseries such as Harris sell thousands of trees to commercial growers. Selling one or two little trees to a hobbyist is actually a pain in the rear for them.

Very old thread.

Considering the price and the selection, I vote whole-heartedly for Harris and I hope they continue to offer citrus in the mail-order retail market!

Mine have always been well packed.

Just a word of warning. Don't order plants right before Christmas. With the huge amount of pre-Christmas shipping volume, damages increase.

I edited my previous post.