Citrus From Pot to Ground? Should I?

I have these citrus (one is a lemon, the other a Satsuma orange) in these pots for about 3 years now. First year got a few of each, 2nd and 3rd nothing and compared to the oranges which we have in the ground for just over a year, they are puny. Your opinions? Should I plant the first 2 in the ground?

I'm in the South so even in these large pots, I have to water daily to keep the first 2 alive! I did get flowers and the start of fruit but they all fell off back in the Summer before they were even 1/4" long.

These are the ones in the ground:

I guess my question is "why havent you already?".
I put some Satsumas in last fall and they breezed thru the winter without losing a single leaf. However, this year is supposed to be freaky/snowy/colder. Either put them in now and protect this winter or wait till spring. Either way, LET YOUR BABIES FLY!!!!

Give the lemon more protection than the Satsuma. I have lemons here in 8b so should be no problems once they get some girth on the trunk.

Thank you both. I would have put them in a long time ago, you guys just helped settle the issue between my DH and I ;o)

If you are really concerned, they have a new product called FreezePruf that is supposed to give them an extra 3-9 degrees buffer. It is supposedly eco-okay. One spray lasts 6 weeks so two sprays could last a whole winter.

You mean you spray it on the leaves and it protects them?

I protected the ones on the ground their first winter, but the last one I didn't at all and they did fine. Lost a few leaves up top when temps got down into 20s but I was glad not to have to protect them.

Does anyone have an article or something I can send my DH about why (if) it's better to plant in the ground? I've told him: nutrients, root protection from cold, drought, etc. But he's thinking they just need bigger pots instead :oS

Ladyborg
You and your DH are both correct. A local nursery decided after the 1998-1999 freezes (down to 8 degrees) that they would never loose at least one orange tree. This tree is at least 10 feet tall and loaded with fruit every year. The pot is now 150 gallon and has to be moved with a forklift when really cold weather threatens. So you see it can be done in containers, but at some point it becomes impractical. If you decide to stick with larger containers, a simple cart can be fabricated with 2”x6” treated lumber and casters. The container stays on this movable platform and can be moved around quite easily.
Frost blankets and Christmas tree lights will also give you some protection. Trees in the ground will out perform any container citrus that I have seen but there is that freeze thing to worry about.
Oldude

I dont have an article but here are some things off the top of my head.

1. Rootbound. This is where the roots twine into a ball. It becomes tighter and tighter and eventually it strangles itself when the tree is much older. Once a tree becomes rootbound in a pot, it can still die years later even if you put it in the ground. That is why I dont buy big trees in small pots at the nursery unless I pull the tree out of the pot to see if it is rootbound. There should be some circling of the roots but if it looks like 60 percent root circling in the pot, I dont buy. If you pull a tree out of the pot and can barely see the soil, that tree is almost sure to die a few years down the line unless you cut up the root system really well. Then it is still iffy. Pecans, Jujube and Paw Paw are good examples of trees that do this. They have a long taproot. Calamondin citrus can do this to a certain extent.

2. When plants roots hit a surface and cant grow further or become restricted, the plant know to slow down its growth. When roots can grow unrestricted, it is a signal to the plant to grow at its normal rate.

3. If you leave it in a pot, eventually the pot becomes almost all root and no soil and can not get the nutrients or correct moisture levels. This also removes the temp buffer that soil usually gives so the roots either become too hot in summer or too cold in winter.

4. Pots are more likely to freeze in winter or cook in summer. Both are bad for the plant.

5. Just like in aquariums, the larger the better. If something bad happens in a pot such as fungus and mold, there is very little buffer between the plant and the bad stuff. In the ground, there are microbes in the soil designed to take care of things like that.

6. You can fertilize like crazy in a pot but it will never get many of the essential nutrients that are not included in regular citrus fertilizer.


Hope this helps. If you want a decent citrus tree in a pot, shoot for 30 gallons or better.

Sorry, I didnt answer your question about FreezePruf.
It is a foliar spray but I think they recommend spraying the trunk as well. They isolated the chemical in plants that makes them cold hardy. When you spray the plant, it absorbs it and sticks around for six weeks.

If your husband is concerned about the plants freezing, you can always plant them closer to the house and put xmas lights at the base and cover it with a blanket. Plug in the lights on a cold night and it gives you a really good buffer. Make sure you use the older xmas lights and not the new compact florescent lights because they dont produce as much heat. I buy old sheets from Goodwill and thrift shops for less than a buck each. If you put plastic on them, make sure you put a sheet first and then plastic as the cold xfers thru the plastic that touches the leaves.

Juju i do the same thing buy all the blankets and towels all that I can buy and frost cloth. Last year I lost a key lime that had been growing 5 years good size tree temps dipped down a couple times 18 or so Killed it.

I dont care what anyone says, limes are much more sensitive to cold than most nurseries claim. I just dont grow them anymore. However, they sure can produce a lot of fruit.

DH wants me to clarify something and get your re-assessments on whether to move the 2 in pots.

Looking over my paperwork (I keep copious notes on what I plant, when and where). The ones in the ground ARE Satsumas. The ones in pots are a Meyer Lemon and the other is an orange which was labelled 'Meyer Lemon' when I bought it. It was obviously mislabeled because when we DID get some fruit out of it a couple of years ago, they were more like tangerines, about 2" across and squatty.

Therefore, DH wants to know if this isn't a smaller variety which should stay in the pot rather than go in the ground.

I managed to find a photo of that unknown orange with fruit (below), JIC it might help.

That looks like another Satusuma variety. Probably Owari, Miho or Seto. It will be hardy to 14 degrees when older if it truely is a Satsuma.
The Meyers Lemon will be the most cold sensitive. Mine has taken 19-22 degrees but I protect it every year with a blankie. I think they are only supposed to take 23-24 degrees but my neighbor down the street has an 8 year old right up close to the house and my next door neighbor has a 4 year old. We are zone 8b.

On a side note, I ran across a farmer with Satsumas supposedly hardy to 5 degrees. I couldnt get clippings so I bought about 30 fruit and have trays of seeds set out. They were definitely a mix between Sats and Flying Dragon as they were very seedy. The taste was average to good.

Thank you all, you've been great helps! DG members rock!

JUJU you're not nuts, limes and true lemons are not cold hardy. A myers lemon is fairly cold hardy but that's not a true lemon. I've been trying to find a good sub for a lime but really haven't found anything. I would like to try a limequat to see what it tastes like but I can't seem to find one to try.

Try the Calamondin. It is hardy to 18 and same size as the keylime. It does lean more towards a sour orange than a lime.

I can get one of those but I would like to try the fruit which is a little hard to come by.

The trees will have fruit on them right now so just find a nursery that has them and go taste a few.

I thought I'd ask you experts about this......MOST of our crop was eaten, but by what? At first only a few lower ones were eaten into, and there's been a rabbit hanging around, so I figured that was it, but what could have gotten the ones up higher up? As high as 5+ feet?!?

Another photo:

FYI, the usual suspects (the critters around here) are: deer, racoons, skunks, squirrels. We don't think it's the deer, we've seen them close to the oranges but never seen them show any interest in them.

Do you have any cattle? Although they are grazers, they have a sweet tooth and will browse on tasty fruit.

Maybe the deer just sampled them. They have tasted leaves on mine but usually only a few and then stop.

On another note, I found that citrus variety that is hardy to zero degrees. It is called Yuzu and looks like a lumpy lemon/mandarin cross. It is very tart and tastes similar to a lemon. It is considered a delicacy in Asian countries. I have yet to find a Texas vendor selling one. They are for sale by OnegreenWorld but they cant ship to Texas.

lee

Ladyborg: it could very well be rats. I know that sounds gross, but we had a scary infestation of roof rats here years ago and they were climbing up and eating our citrus.

I know a couple of places around here that sell cold hardy citrus. http://www.mckenzie-farms.com/interest.htm , they do mail order. http://www.plantfolks.com/index.html I've bought trees from the plant folks and actually they know the people in the first link I gave you, not sure if they do mail order. Both places are very up on cold hardy citrus.

Unforturnately it is illegal to ship any citrus plants into Texas. We can only buy what is grown here.

That's kind of funny since we can't buy citrus form Fl or TX I don't think. We don't have a citrus industry but there are enough citrus around that infected trees could cause serious problems. FL is plague central, I'm afraid of getting anything grown down there.