Q. We have an orange tree that did not produce any
flowers this last December. Over the last week in March the tree has started covering itself
with buds all over.
We inherited
the tree when we bought the house last summer so I don’t know much about the
tree. Just that its only a couple of
years old and produced a couple delicious oranges in December of 2012. I’d love to have
some oranges, but is fruit coming this time of year bad for the tree
somehow?
you are okay with the flowers. They should sail through the summer with no
problem. They probably got hit with a couple of freezed we had in December and January. My biggest worry is a late freeze which did not happen so you should
be good to go.
The best fruit will have some shade covering so it does not get
sunburned. If it is in a container try to double pot it or somehow keep the sun
off of the outside of the container. Keep it well watered as you would any
other fruit tree or nondesert landscape tree. They do better with some surface
wood mulch. Depending on the orange you should have ripe fruit some time late
fall or mid winter. Hope this helps.
citrus.
They updated that a bit for the MG class in 2011:
http://cals.arizona.edu/maricopa/garden/html/general/CitrusSupplement2011.pdf
Most of our citrus in Phoenix blooms in March as well.