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#1
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citrus fertilizing
hi all
i just bought a small lemon plant and a small orange plant (am loathe to say tree at the moment because theyre not even a foot tall yet!) i have planted them in john inns number 2 compost, as advised - hope this is ok. i know that they are greedy as anything when it comes to water and fertilizer. i bought from a garden centre something called 'citrus drop by drop' basically, twist the cap off this little vial, turn upside down into the soil and for 15 days it slowly drips out a fertilizer into the soil. i have just potted them in much larger pots - they were in 3x3inch ones previously. should i give them time to get used to their new environment before giving fertilizer? i dont expect fruit in the next year or anything, but i would like to give them a fighting chance! thanks all danny |
#2
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citrus fertilizing
"danny22" wrote i just bought a small lemon plant and a small orange plant (am loathe to say tree at the moment because theyre not even a foot tall yet!) i have planted them in john inns number 2 compost, as advised - hope this is ok. i know that they are greedy as anything when it comes to water and fertilizer. i bought from a garden centre something called 'citrus drop by drop' basically, twist the cap off this little vial, turn upside down into the soil and for 15 days it slowly drips out a fertilizer into the soil. i have just potted them in much larger pots - they were in 3x3inch ones previously. should i give them time to get used to their new environment before giving fertilizer? i dont expect fruit in the next year or anything, but i would like to give them a fighting chance! Whilst Citrus do not demand an acid soil they do prefer it so I always pot our trees in Ericaceous Compost in which I add some bark chippings, as used in Orchid compost, to aid drainage. You could use gravel but it would make the pots heavy and having to move them about that is not wanted. Being in a Hard Water area and sometimes using tap water it becomes more important to use acid compost. BTW The old Head Gardeners always put a sick citrus in ericaceous soil to cheer it up. The are greedy feeders but too much water at the roots will certainly kill them, never use a water tray under citrus, let the pots drain through. If trays are unavoidable raise the pot up so there is no possibility of the pot sitting in water. Roots sitting in water is the biggest killer of citrus but on the other hand they don't like it dry either, just moist is right in winter. For feed I use a handful of chicken manure pellets each spring together with some sequestered iron and water with citrus feed every other watering, especially in summer, flooding the pot through with clean rainwater between feeds to ensure no build-up of salts. I use the separate summer and winter feeds which you change with the clocks. As your plants get bigger/older they will have ripe fruit, growing fruit and flowers at the same time, strange plants that seem to ignore the seasons. Oh, and the fruit can take almost 12 months to grow sometimes. Of the ones we grow the Lemons and Tahiti lime grow excellent fruit just like in the supermarket. Ours spend the summer (from March till Oct last year) outside against our South facing house wall and the winter in our clear twin walled plastic roofed garage. A neighbour has left his large Lemon Tree out all winter and I'll be interested to see how it does. -- Regards Bob Hobden |
#3
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citrus fertilizing
On 8 Mar, 19:50, danny22 wrote:
hi all i just bought a small lemon plant and a small orange plant (am loathe to say tree at the moment because theyre not even a foot tall yet!) i have planted them in john inns number 2 compost, as advised - hope this is ok. i know that they are greedy as anything when it comes to water and fertilizer. *i bought from a garden centre something called 'citrus drop by drop' basically, twist the cap off this little vial, turn upside down into the soil and for 15 days it slowly drips out a fertilizer into the soil. i have just potted them in much larger pots - they were in 3x3inch ones previously. *should i give them time to get used to their new environment before giving fertilizer? i dont expect fruit in the next year or anything, but i would like to give them a fighting chance! thanks all danny -- danny22 There is a good reason why the advice generally given is to repot a plant into a container that is only a size or two larger than its previous pot; unless the plant is extremely fast-growing, when moved from a small to a large pot it will have large volumes of stagnant compost in contact with its roots and those roots can start to rot. Citrus have shallow roots, apparently. I had a lemon tree that I potted on because I thought it couldn't possibly do well in so small a container; about a year later when it was looking poorly, I took it out of its pot to find that it had barely rooted into the new compost. John Innes No. 2 is a good base, but you could add composted bark to the mix, and also perlite, which will help to aerate the compost. |
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