On 8 Dec 2006 23:03:45 -0800, "Ivan" wrote:

Hi all.


I recently bought a house and in the back yard I have a mandarin tree
and a lemon tree..

It seems as if though the previous owners were somewhat neglectful of
these though, and they are not in the best of shapes..

The mandarin trees has no leaves at all, and is full of the smallest
fruits you could imagine.. The lemon tree seems to have snapped during
its life, and it has a plank of wood holding it up.. Its leaves are
green, and it has a few lemons in it, though perhaps about three lemons
on the whole tree..

In Australia it is summer right now, and we're having dry heats coming
in..

It looks like either tree has never been pruned.. When is the best time
to do this?
What should I feed them?
I'd love for these trees to prosper..

I can take some pictures and post them somewhere if it'll help you all
diagnose the problems of my new trees..


Thanks..


You can prune citrus any time you want, any way you want. Cut them
back to get them into shape.

Where I worked they just used urea for fertilizer, they just need
nitrogen.

Too much water can kill citrus, be careful of that. They do need
some, the rancher used to water every six weeks.