Hello everyone!
This is my first post on your forum. I "met" Darren on the GW forum. He was very nice and suggested I come over to this forum. I am so happy to have this resource available to me! While I grow lots of other stuff, I am pretty new to citrus. I have 2 questions please.

1. I have a variegated pink lemon tree (2-3 year size) coming on Wednesday from Four Winds. I want to have my potting mix ready to go when the tree arrives. I know there's not "one best" soil mix, but.........you guys are the experts. Is there a store-bought mix you recommend? If not, what should I combine for a homemade mix? This will be an indoor tree that goes out in the summer and comes back in before frost.

2. What are the steps to post photos on that part of the site?

Thanks for any assistance you can give me. Stephanie in z7, Germantown, MD

I know some people swear by a sandy potting soil (Toni on GW), Ive read, and had a few months experience- Something chunky, cactus mix, orchid mix, soil with some bark chips... all pretty decent. The "best" per many of the container experts here is CHCs.
Im going to order some soon, im giving in and actually buying juvenille trees! Ive had seedlings and small plants in really pearlite-rich potting soil or cactus mix.


If you use CHCs, coir dust (cocoa peat, can find but usually $ at pet stores) will make it even longer lasting. theres a lot of good info about this on GW if you just want to browse and read.

good luck!

I use 4 parts coconut husks chips (CHC) and 1 part peat moss or coir (coconut peat) on all of my trees (52). The value of CHC is that they hold seven times their weight in water, while at the same time allow for maximum aeration and rapid drainage of the container's growing medium. Also CHC degrade VERY SLOWLY, and last 5 to 7 years, have a natural pH of 6.5 which is the perfect pH for container grown citrus. The root rowth in CHC is tremendous. I purchase my coconut husks from the Crystal Compay of Saint Louis, however, there are many other suppliers. Any store that sells orchid supplies, should have CHC's and coir. Pine, fir or other wood chips also work well, but they degrade much faster and will have to be replaced. - Millet

Hey Garnet - you might be right that many around here use CHC, but I and one other person were using cactus mix with citrus 2 years before "Toni from GW" even started citing it. But it works. Otherwise, create something brand new that works, either here or there, that people have never seen, tried, or tested. She'll either attack the idea, or convey it as her own. Regards. (edited for brevity and focus)

A speaker at the last Citrus Expo mentioned regular good commercial potting mix but with sand added for better aeration. I believe he mentioned 30% sand, though if by volume that's a lot of weight in sand. I prefer perlite as it is much lighter and much better in aeration. I use wide pots so weight-induced stability is less important to me.

I make lots of potting soil for a variety of woody fruiting plants, including citrus, though mainly for pawpaws. Quality at volume and low expense are the bywords. I use as a base the finer-ground pine bark usually sold at any "Megalowmart" as "soil conditioner." The finer this product the better (varies by store and brand), and the best is about "fingernail on pinkie finger" size," i.e., about 1/4-1/3 inch. I add sphagnum peat to fill in the spaces between the chips, a little agricultural limestone for pH control, and some dried manure or cottonseed meal for initial fertilization, plus a little cheap kitty litter to add some clay minerals. All these except the peat are very small volumes. I'm going to start adding perlite even to this, as a bulking agent for when the chips start to decompose in a few years.

I think you will find that container growers (of all types of plants) sort into two main types. Those who want easy, effective, cheap, and to be done with it, and those who like to carefully craft and critically optimize their mix. I'm more the former.

Citrus is not real finicky though, in my experience. You should see the heavy peaty potting soil often used in the Florida retail nursery trade for citrus. (BTW: I saw in an old book on fruit growing that the expression above used to be "finikin.")

There is certainly more than one way to make a good growing medium. For citrus, it is IMPORTANT that the potting soil have excellent drainage, and good aeration. I find that to much peatmoss quickly compacts. CHC's, pine bark, or catcus mix, or most anything chunky will greatly help keep the medium open. BTW, I also grew citrus in a catcus mix growing medium approximately two year ago. If I remember right I got the information from the Four Wind Growers web site. - Millet

Good morning all,
Thanks to everyone for taking time to reply to my question. What nice people are on this board! As we speak, I have a laundry sink filled with warm water and CHC's! My tree is to arrive Wednesday, 2/1, so I should have nicely rehydrated and rinsed chips for it. Thanks again, Stephanie