container trees – Xtremehorticulture

Potted Meyer Lemon Flower Drop

1 Comment / container trees, desert, fertilizer, flower drop, freeze damage, fruit drop, irrigation, Las Vegas, Meyer lemon, Mohave Desert, Mojave Desert, nevada / xtremehorticulture

Q. You helped me before with my Meyer Lemon, so I hope you have an answer for this one. My tree is in a huge pot. It is about 4 years old. Last Spring, it had massive flowers (yum) and a lot of little green buds followed. Then every single one of those buds turned black and dropped off. Not one remained. I want to figure out why and change what I am doing so this never happens again. The plant is fertilized with granular fertilizer 2x a year — early spring and late summer. It gets moisture and hasn’t dried out. However the leaves could look more beautifully green. Sometimes, some of them curl and are not quite bright green. I do not know if the two issues are related, but I sure hope you have a suggestion. A. Sounds like you had post bloom fruit drop. Fruit drop can also occur during summer months and just before harvest. The usual reasons for post bloom fruit drop is usually some sort of stress. Four years is getting up there for being in the same pot without repotting. You might consider repotting and adding some new soil to the mix. Meyer lemon flowers I know you said it had adequate water but if it went through just a few hours of drought during or just after pollination, fruit drop may occur. If we have some freezing weather during or just after flowering, that can cause the fruit to abort too.We had some on January 6 and 8 in parts of the valley. When watering, make sure about 20% of the water that you apply runs out the bottom of the container each time you water. This is important for flushing salts from the soil. Another possibility in containers is overheating them. If in direct sunlight and the outside of the container gets too hot and transmits this heat to the soil, this can cause stress and cause fruit drop. Proper fertilization is important. Over fertilizing fruit trees, excess nitrogen, can cause fruit drop. And finally less commonly some insects such as scale or mealybug infestations can cause fruit drop as well. What to do? Make sure your container, the soil volume, is big enough to handle wide swings in temperature and water. Monitor both closely. You might find a houseplant moisture meter to be helpful. Keep the outside of a plant container out of the hot sun. Double potting a container is helpful to keep the soil temperature down. Watch for freezing temperatures at bloom time and cover the plant. Water the soil just before the heat of the day. Wet soil heats up more slowly than dry soil. If we have any frost during bloom it will affect fruit production.

Potted Meyer Lemon Flower Drop Read More »

Growing Fruit Trees in Containers and Transplanting Into the Ground

Q. I would like to plant some trees in containers until I can plant them in my yard in a few years. Can they stay in containers if I’m careful with them? I’m thinking about apricot, pluot, orange and maybe a pomegranate. A. If you have purchased these in containers you will probably not want to keep them in the same container more than perhaps that single growing season if you plan to plant them in the yard. Generally speaking, if you plan to replant them then they should be moved into progressively larger containers or the roots will be permanently damaged. Eventually, the containers you’ll need will have to be large, whiskey barrel-sized or larger. 15 year old Gold Kist apricot at the orchard with minor pruning for size control Once these trees start to get bigger they will transplant into the yard with more and more difficulty. This just means they are more likely to suffer from transplant shock and recover from this shock more slowly when moved. I would recommend that if you want fruit trees in containers then keep them in the container permanently. When you are ready to plant in the yard then purchase trees specifically for the yard. Of the group you mention, citrus is probably the best choice for a container. Try to locate a citrus on a dwarfing type of trifoliate orange rootstock. Trifoliate orange rootstock is very cold tolerant which you will need in our climate unless you can protect the plant from freezing temperatures. There are a few selections of trifoliate orange rootstock that are more dwarfing than others. Focus on these if you can find them. My next choice for a container might be one of the smaller pomegranates like the variety ‘Sweet’ which would be a better choice for containers as opposed to ‘Wonderful’. The fruit is excellent, as good as or better than ‘Wonderful’. Read about Sweet pomegranate at Dave Wilson Nursery If you select an apricot then I would pick one of the miniatures like ‘Pixie-Cot’ or a standard sized tree like ‘Gold Kist’ which tends to stay smaller when on Nemaguard rootstock at least. Read about Pixie cot and Gold Kist at Dave Wilson Nursery Among the pluots for a container I would probably pick ‘Flavor King’ which stays naturally smaller than some of the other pluots but it will need a pollenizer tree such as ‘Santa Rosa’ plum. Read about Flavor King pluot at Dave Wilson Nursery Don’t expect these trees to be long-lived if you keep them in containers. I hope this helps.