Thank you for all the help. I wish I had found this forum earlier...

I have 2 Meyer lemons in pots which I move indoors in Winter. Both are blooming well and show new growth, yet if the tree is shaken many of the blooms fall off. Being a newbee, I didn't remove the 1" drain plugs from the pots (removed yesterday) and had been using the "Aqua Globe" to water these. In addition, I was using a citrus fertilizer stake. Despite this, they appeared to be doing well (no yellowing of leaves or excessive leaf drop). I have since removed the drain plugs, ceased the aqua globes, removed teh fertilizer spike (replaced with granular) and elevated them above the drip tray to avoid the standing water. They were planted this spring in a mix of potting soil and sand.

When watering yesterday, Lemon "A", did not drain any water (1/2 gallon added). I added another 1/2 gallon and still no drainage. With a moisture meter - it consistently reads a 4 and feels moist down in the soil. Not sure why it is not draining now that the plug is removed. I plan to not water for the next week or so (monitoring with the moisture meter) so I can basically start over. Does this sound reasonable, or do I need to repot immediately with the better soil mix that is recommended here?

When watering Lemon "B" it nearly immediately showed some of the water down in the saucer under the pot indicating good drainage. Unfortunately, below the surface level (1/2 inch) of the soil it is very dry to the touch. The moisture meter reads 1 or less on this one when inserted 2/3 of the way down. I added over a gallon and it seemed like only the surface would hold water.

I'm worried that I don't have the right soil mix - but also don't want to stop all the growth I have going on right now by pulling them out of the pots if at all possible. Would you recommend removing some of this soil around the sides of the potted plant and augmenting with a more favorable mix?

Thanks again for your responses.

There is premixed soil especially for citrus trees you can buy at the nursery. I did that being a total newbie and lazy . Worked fine for me and saved me some guess work. I don't think the aqua globes had anything to do with your leave dropping though. I read that fertilizer spikes are not recommended for potted trees (I never used them becauase of that).

A member on this forum named Millet told me about chc, and after getting some I'll never use anything else for my Citrus. It eliminates alot of common problems like over/under watering, root airspace and soil acidity. It can be difficult to find in small amounts but if you decide to get some I found mine at the pet store. Just look for the product below in the reptile section...

http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3092177&utm_source=googleproduct&utm_campaign=5133039&utm_medium=cse&mr:trackingCode=728C780E-2484-DE11-B712-001422107090&mr:referralID=NA

...or...

http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2752434&keepsr=0&clickid=prod_cs

Just be sure to get the husk and not the fibers. I don't think they would be as effective at creating airspace for the roots. Mix it 3 parts chc to one part sphagnum peat moss.

Thanks for the help. I got some CHC and mixed at a 60/40 ratio with new Miracle Grow Citrus/Cactus Soil (couldnt find more CHC). I've replanted in this soil. Still no draining after I water (out the bottom), but my moisture meter reads 4 still (max) 3 days later. I literally added 2 gallons to this thing and nothign comes out the bottom - yet the soil is SATURATED.

The tree is approx. 38 inches tall from root crown to top and is currently planted in a large container (15 inch diameter). Is the lack of drainage because the pot is so big? The roots were brown and looked like they were rotted some when I repotted and the "ball" was only about the size of a softball.

It continues to look healthy (green leaves) with buds producing, but the buds all fall off the tree after bloom. I have been polinating them.

I'm baffled. Please help - I really don't want to kill my investment. Thank you so much.

Glad I could help Brian, I hope it helps with your problem.

As far as the bud drop goes, I don't know much about it but I think citrus trees are supposed to drop something like 98% of their flowers, otherwise they would never be able to bear all of the fruit all of those flowers yielded. Of course all of the flowers will eventually drop off after blooming, but I think only 1 or 2% actually bear fruit. If you're dropping leaves too then there may be another problem, but a certain amount of leaf drop from the tree is also normal as the tree discards it's old leaves.

It's possible that if you left the old rootball intact and planted it in chc, the water is running through the medium too fast to actually get to the roots. If that's the case try soaking your pot in a bucket instead of watering the traditional way.

I can't figure out why there would be no water draining from the one pot. Either you're not watering enough or the drainage in the pot is really bad. I think Millet has said you're supposed to water until 20% of the water drains from the bottom. This ensures that you have given the plant enough water and also helps reduce the buildup of soluble salts in the soil. So my recommendation would be to just keep watering until water comes out, and if no water comes out, change the pot.

I hope all of this helps.

Brian, the reason for using CHC is to make a growth medium that will hold a lot of water, while at the same time still providing excellent aeration in the root zone. Because a medium of pure CHC has such rapid drainage, some peat moss is added to somewhat slow the water's pass through, plus the peat moss also helps retain some water and some nutrients. A common mixture is 4 parts CHC and 1 part peat moss. Some growers make a 3:1 blend. However, in your medium when you add 40 percent filler you are greatly reducing the aeration and losing much of the benefit of a CHC medium. Lately I have been testing a 100 percent pure CHC medium made up of 10 percent 1-inch CHC chips, 40 percent 1/2-inch CHC chips and 50 percent 1/4 inch CHC chips. So far so good. You have added to much filler in your CHC blend, therefore your mixture is holding way to much water, at the expense of oxygen. - Millet (1,156-)

Millet, just out of curiosity what is the advantage to using three different sized chips vs. one sized chip? Aeration?

No, if the medium was nothing by 1 inch sized chips, the aeration would be much greater due to the larger chip size. I formulated the pure CHC medium with mostly the smaller 1/4 inch chips, to slow down the water pass through during watering, so that the medium has time enough to absorb the water before it drains out the bottom. Even in a medium where the majority of the chips are 1/4 inch, the root zone aeration and the drainage remains excellent. When I water, I tend to soak my trees for a minute or two using a larger bucket. CHC mediums offer excellent tree growth, with no concern of ever over watering or root rot. One draw back with light mediums, such as CHC, is that when the tree is placed outside in the wind, they tend to blown over quite easily, therefore the container requires some sort of anchorage. - Millet (1,152-)

Millet, et.al.

I live in zone 9 in the San Joaquin Valley in Central CA where temps get outrageous during summer. I'm interested in trying your soil suggestion for my container citrus.

Do you mind posting a picture of your soil, like a closeup with the plant partially pulled from the container? I've never used CHC, but my inexperience become obvious when I asked for it at a local hydroponics store and there were 10 different bags of various types. I think there were only two that were in "chip" form (they were cube shapes, with some loose in between, that did fall apart when hard pressure is applied). Is this CHC?

Question: Do your Citrus roots grow INTO the CHC media or just in the peat/media between the husks? My concern is when I need to bareroot down the road, will I be able to pull the tree out and shake off 100% of the media?


Here is the root of my concern:

I've developed a hatred for [what I believe is] Coco-peat when I attempted bare rooting all my new container blueberries (couldn't find a source for my variety in time). Five major growers all used some kind of COIR, probably Cocopeat but I'm not positive, in the prop. trays (seedling and up to 4x4" size) and then someone (grower or retail) places loose soil around it when potting for sale. When you pull the plant up from the container, all the loose soil falls away and the rootball is left in the shape of the prop tray. The rootball is very very stiff and cannot be penetrated without sawing or spending hours manually "underwater massaging" it.

Take these 4 Monrovia 2gall BB I bought recently. After soaking and underwater bare rooting, the peat and bark products did drain out and only the COIR remained -- the roots had grown into it and the coir was now matted down around them. They could NOT be removed -- they can never be removed from the COIR.

CHC is made from ground up coconut husks. The normal commercial sizes available are 1/4 inch, 1/2 inch and 1 inch chips. I purchase all three grades. COIR is coconut husk ground up into a power form, and used much like peat moss. When a citrus tree is grown in a CHC/peat moss medium, the roots grow both in the CHC portion and in the peat moss portion. In fact, the root will grow into and through the chip it self. Therefore, you cannot remove 100 percent of the medium if you wished to completely bear root your tree. Anyway, why would you want to bear root a tree? The advantage that CHC provides when being used as the growth medium are (1). high aeration, (2) high root zone water while still providing excellent aeration, due to the ability of CHC to hold up to seven times its weight in water, (3). the perfect pH required by citrus of 6.5, (4) soled breakdown, lasting up to 5 years, (5). rapid draining. I purchase all of my CHC from The Crystal Company of Saint Louis, MO. in 2 cu.ft. compressed bales. - Millet (1,060-)

Thanks Millet,

soled breakdown, lasting up to 5 years
Anyway, why would you want to bear root a tree?

Question: What do you do when (after 5 years or whenever) the medium has broken down and needs replacement? How to do replace the medium without removing nearly all of it, i.e. bare root?

I bare root the first time when purchased from a container (removing the old soil place in custom soil, such as yours) and in the future I need the majority to fall away so I can check the root size every couple years to determine if/when I need to root prune. I want to try the chc on two standard rootstock trees I have in containers.

So when you're purchasing it in compressed bales you are "chipping" it yourself? I thought the "commercial sizes" you listed come bagged in chipped form already -- that's what I"ve seen locally and it looked similar to the pic on the Crystal Company website.

The 2 cu. ft. bales of Coconut Husk Chips that The Crystal Company of Saint Louis sells, are already cut and sized by them before being packaged. In other words, they sell 2 cu. ft. compressed bales of 1/4 inch size chips, 2 cu. ft. compressed bales of 1/2 inch sized chips and so forth. When the compressed bales are cut open, they actually provide 4 cut. ft. of CHC. The main reason I purchase from Crystal is that they pre wash and squeeze dry the chips 3 times to remove the salts, before packaging them for sale. Therefore, all I have to do is soak them in a little Epsom Salts and Calcium nitrate for an while, and then use them. When the CHC has degraded to the point that you need to transplant, you can either prune the roots, by removing the outer inch or two and then replace back into the same container, or remove the tree from the container and shake. Most, but not all, of the old CHC will fall away, and then replant. About 30 to 40 percent comes off rather easy. Anyway, the vast majority of water taken up by a citrus tree's root system is accomplished mainly by the new root growth (from the root tip back 4 inches). The older thicker roots take up (absorb) VERY little water. - Millet (1,059-)

Thanks for the info Millet.

reversethong, in you above post if the word "soil" refers to dirt, then yes, I would wash all of the dirt out of the entire root ball, by soaking the tree in a large bucket of warm water. If I had a tree that grew for years in a clay pot, until the tree became root bound and the root system had long ago begin growing around and around in circles, I would prune all the long circling roots, soak the original root ball so that I could remove 1 or 2 inches from the outside edge of the old root ball, place the tree into the air root pruning container (ARPC), start adding new medium at the bottom and while carefully raking the roots up with my other hand, so that they will be laying horizontal in the new medium, until the new ARPC was filled. - Millet (1,059-)[/u]