I used to live in Sydney, and a friend who was a gardener, planted this
orange tree in a tub at my home.

That was around 25 years ago, now the poor tree has had a hard life, it was
on a balcony and fell through and dropped down 4 metres, it was poisoned
with too much fertiliser, and survived to produce a few fruits, even though
it was in a tub. It was not really looked after all that well.

As the my home was sold and going to be completely renovated, if I left the
tree there it would have been dumped, so I cut off all the foliage and
transported it to Cairns, as my friend who planted this was died over 20
years ago, so it had some sentimental attachments.

The tree when I transported it was just a ball of roots with some soil on
them, and a bare trunk some 1/2 metre high.

I did not think it would survive the trip up to Cairns where I now live in
the trailer, but I planted in the ground around 3 years ago, and it shot up
and seemed quite healthy.

I transplanted a lime tree from another part of the garden here in Cairns to
near this orange tree, the lime fruits, but the orange has never fruited up
here.

I fertilised both trees, and keep water up to them, they get waters every
couple of days, sometime every day, they are planted around 2 metres apart.

The orange seems to have only slender upright branches. There is some shade
(part of the day), from other trees, which I shall prune back to give the
orange more sun.

The lime does get more sun, but the orange is certianly not living in the
shade and would get full sun at least 6 hours a day. It has plenty of leaves
and is currenty shooting new leaves, just no blossoms.

Any ideas on how to make this tree bear fruit?

RamRod Sword of Baal wrote:

Any ideas on how to make this tree bear fruit?

**** on it.
aka trace elements.

"RamRod Sword of Baal" RamRod @truthonly wrote in message
...


I used to live in Sydney, and a friend who was a gardener, planted this
orange tree in a tub at my home.

That was around 25 years ago, now the poor tree has had a hard life, it
was on a balcony and fell through and dropped down 4 metres, it was
poisoned with too much fertiliser, and survived to produce a few fruits,
even though it was in a tub. It was not really looked after all that well.

As the my home was sold and going to be completely renovated, if I left
the tree there it would have been dumped, so I cut off all the foliage and
transported it to Cairns, as my friend who planted this was died over 20
years ago, so it had some sentimental attachments.

The tree when I transported it was just a ball of roots with some soil on
them, and a bare trunk some 1/2 metre high.

I did not think it would survive the trip up to Cairns where I now live in
the trailer, but I planted in the ground around 3 years ago, and it shot
up and seemed quite healthy.

I transplanted a lime tree from another part of the garden here in Cairns
to near this orange tree, the lime fruits, but the orange has never
fruited up here.

I fertilised both trees, and keep water up to them, they get waters every
couple of days, sometime every day, they are planted around 2 metres
apart.

The orange seems to have only slender upright branches. There is some
shade (part of the day), from other trees, which I shall prune back to
give the orange more sun.

The lime does get more sun, but the orange is certianly not living in the
shade and would get full sun at least 6 hours a day. It has plenty of
leaves and is currenty shooting new leaves, just no blossoms.

Any ideas on how to make this tree bear fruit?


I have no idea if it's the case with citrus, but I know too much nitrogen in
some plants can cause too much leaf growth at the expense of fruit.

Jen

Any ideas on how to make this tree bear fruit?

I'm thinking you should leave it to do it's own thing. This tree definately
qualifies as hardy but I think it's still recovering. I suspect it's trying
to build up it's strength again and may need a while to do that. Has it
flowered at all yet??

I have a mandarin that (before I knew better) I planted out in a root bound
state without loosening the roots first ... I know a lot of gardeners who
would have cut it down long ago, but I ignored it (I'm a big softy about
plants) and after 7 years the bloody thing began to grow! It's now looking
like a normal (young) tree and it's up to about 40 fruit this year (3 years
after it started to grow).

But that's just me. If a plant is going to die it does it by itself here. If
a plant seems to be not doing well I look after it, mulch, normal amount of
fertiliser and water, bug and disease control, and see if that helps it
recover. Then I ignore it!