Hi folks,
This spring I've potted about 7 new citrus into terra cotta pots. My first 2, I was pretty "wimpy" about teasing the roots out of the rootball and left a lot of the original soil that came in the black pots from the nursery.

My 3rd was a sleeve from Four Winds, so I got to see what "bare root" looks like.

By my 4th-7th, I was much more rigorous with removing the old dirt and even snipped off some really large roots and some brownish ones. I was much more confident. One or two I actually rinsed off most of the old growing dirt to asses the condiiton of the roots. I didn't actually go all the way to bare root, but I was definitely not as "gentle" as I was with my first 2.

I ask this, because I am wondering if I left too much of the old soil on those first 2 trees. When I was checking their moisture levels recently, I realized on those 2 trees that the potting medium closest to the stump was much damper than the potting mix I used, which is composed mostly of composted bark, perlite, and a small amount of a peat/compost store bought mix.

The plants aren't showing any signs of distress, but it was one of those things that made me go, "hmmmm."

Part of me thinks that, when I potted it, most of the healthy white roots were on the outside of the rootball... so therefore they're getting exposed to my new mix and should grow into that and not suffer from soggy feet, right?

But then again, everywhere you read about citrus, they warn about overwatering and soggy feet, and I honestly don't know how many roots might actually be inside that old rootbal,and whether them being in the old soil poses a risk for the plant.Because essentially there are noticeably different textures of soil in the pot. And my bark/perlite mix definitely drains and dries more quickly than the spongy wet center.

And would you risk repotting them this soon (it's only been a month or 2) to achieve a consistent mix?

Just wondering, thanks!

Hi there.I have done all the things you have done,tried exactly what you have done.It can be a problem when two different mediums exist.I have done exactly what you have done and noticed the same.Another thing i have noticed is the terracotta pots tend to wick the water from the outside of the pot ,in.So your new mix will tend to dry quicker anyway.You could just water the outer part of the mix but water level around the roots is very important.
It is best to soak your new terracotta pots for an hour or so.You will notice air bubbles coming out.I have tried several mixes and the best i have used is standard potting mix(no water crystals) mixed with 50 % perlite.The reason being it rains a lot in Auckland new Zealand.The key benefits are
1.great aeration
2.great drainage
3.doesnt compact,which is important.
If it was me,i would gently remove as much of the old soil as possible within reason.Do in a bucket of luke warm water,so as not to shock roots.Water your plant before you do this.Limit exposure to the air and light for the rootball.In other words ,dont hang around.Spread the roots out.The container should be 4 inches bigger around than the rootball.
The perlite prevents root rot and the roots look nice and white.I have noticed the rootball seems to stay wetter when done like you do but if you remove at least 80% of the mix it came in,you will have a consistent mix.You could try a container mix with water crystals if you get very hot summers.Here it only gets to 26c.Now we are heading into winter and its rained every day for the past two weeks!!! I read that citrus roots can only handle having saturated roots for 48 hrs before they start to rot.
If you slide the plant out and all the roots look light brown or new white tips,then they they like your mix.If they look dark brown/mushy or smell.They are staying wet.I have noticed the feeder roots near the surface are prone to this.You need to drench the mix and then leave it to almost become bone dry.The roots need the mix to dry,so they can breathe.Use you moisture meter for that.I have 12 trees in terracotta.
They might need a bit more water in summer but its a god send in winter,when being wet causes root rot and leaf drop/twig die back.In isreal they grow in pure perlite! i love it but some whinge about it rising to the surface. you could make the top inch more potting mix i suppose.All my trees like this mix with slow release osmocote.It drains superbly.Good luck

one final thing,after you have repotted/mixed in slow release fert and watered.Dont feed again until you see new growth.In fact,i would suggest to repot when you see top growth going on.If you do it skillfully,the plant should carry on growing.Go easy on the fert for your trees.Little and often is better and best when you see active growth.Dont fert in winter and keep the mix on the dry side through winter.In spring,give the pot a really good flush of clean water(tepid) to flush out salts.I always use filtered water.Rain is the best!!!cheers

Thanks, Dood.
So I guess I'm wondering, would you go ahead and repot now, considering I just potted them for the first time a month ago.

They've put on a ton of growth and blooms since I potted them, and I'm confident I've got the watering thing OK right now. But we're headed into our summer here in the SF Bay Area.

And I'm most worried about shocking or stressing out the owari satsuma, since that's just setting little fruitlets right now.

Any thoughts about how long I might be able to wait for replanting? Is it better now or could I wait maybe through the summer to fall?

Thanks,
Kristi

Hi,i dont think it really matters when you repot as long as its done properly.If they are putting on plenty of growth and you are confident you have the watering under control,then why change something that works.As long as they are not becoming rootbound,then the roots must be growing into the new mix ok.Once established the roots will really suck the water up.
You can tell when they need repotting anyway=
1.Lift pot and look for signs of roots coming out of the drain holes(good idea to drill extra drain holes with masionery bit,going up in size gradually,so as not to break pot,time well spent)
2.gently lift stem and see if the tree wants to bring everything with it.
3.the plant will try to lift itself out of the pot or roots growing to the surface.
How old are your trees? If they are still young,i would suggest you remove all fruitlets for the first 3 years!! this may be a painful experience for you but you will benefit from vigorous root growth and top growth.In fact you can remove the flowers too,being careful to leave the leaves.Flushes of growth tend to come as leafy growth,flower and leaf or just blooms.You want to encourage a strong canopy and get the plant big and strong ready to carry fruits.This is what i am doing with my plants at present.If you try to grow fruits now,its a bit like a 10 year old smoking,it will stunt the growth.Its very demanding for your trees to produce and grow fruits at a young age and they will taste crap anyway.There is a saying="dont let any fruit tree produce fruit for the first 3 years of its life"
You will feel the urge to grow the fruit but hold off and you will reap the rewards further down the track. With your spring coming,you should flush the pots slowly with tepid water and i mean really water them through,maybe 3 times to flush out salts.This can often make them grow madly too!!! then let dry as usual.Start your slow release fert while growing,scratch into top soil and not too much,water in well.npk 5-1-3 plus trace elements or as close as possibile.The high nitrogen is important,if possible avoid urea. Good luck
p.s it has rained everyday for the past two weeks in nz,bloody depressing.

When giving the information on the transplanting of your trees, you did not state how much larger your new containers were, than the old containers that your trees were originally in. It is the additional container space that avails the root system additional growth. Laidback advises that the new container should be 4-inches larger, on all sides of the root ball. This is known in the nursery industry as the "Four Inch Rule", however this only applies IF your trees are growing in an Air Root Pruning Container. Because you are growing in a solid sided terracotta container you will only see new white root tips on the very end of the long roots. At some point in time, it becomes difficult to stimulate any additional tree growth unless or until the tree is transplanted into a larger container. AT LEAST ONCE EACH YEAR, EVERY TREE IN EVERY CONTAINER SHOULD BE TRANSPLANTED. There are a variety of reasons, but the main ones are that the tree runs out of space for additional exploration by the root system, undesirable elements accumulate from the irrigation water (particularly calcium and bicarbonates), oxygen becomes limiting because of the presence of so many roots, decomposition and compaction of the growth medium, etc. When transplanting at least 1-inch (2" is better depending on the size of the old root ball) of soil should be removed from the old root ball. This allows the root tips to be placed into the new growth medium. The older woody roots in the root ball actually absorb very little moisture for the tree. Almost all the moisture absorbed from the growth medium is accomplished at the root tip end of the root.. Depending on how much ADDITIONAL root zone space you afforded your tree's root system to grow into and explore, you probably could easily wait until next spring to transplant again. It all depends on the amount of extra root space you provided. - Millet

Thanks for your help guys. You're the best and this forum is so amazing for good solid info about citrus.

I'm guessing my trees are at least 3 years old and probably older. The owari has a stump that is about 1.5" diameter, and the meyer is at least 1" or 1.25". On most of my citrus, I splurged a little so I could have fruit sooner.

These were the first two I potted, so I wasn't rigorous about taking a lot of the root ball out. Probably only loosened an inch or two all around. But from Millet's reply, sounds like I'll be safe at least until later this fall. I'd like to see how it grows right now before disturbing it again.

To answer Millet's question, which is a great one, I was careful about not going up too big of a pot. For the owari, it came in a 12" nursery pot and I think the terra cotta pot is a 16" but I didn't fill it to the top, thinking that I'd have room to grow into it. Same with the meyer... it started in a 10" pot and I put it in a 14" pot. So probably 2" all around for both, but I also didn't fill the pots to the top rim... so maybe it was more like 1.5" all around.

The mix I used is a composted bark/perlite/peat mix that's a variation of something I have seen on Gardenweb as Al's mix.

Dood, thanks for the tip about soaking the terra cotta. I'll try that.

And as an aside, I think it's interesting about buying citrus from various nurseries. I wonder if sometimes they put it in a larger pot so that they can command a higher price for it even if the root ball isn't really that big. One of the more mature navels I bought (almost a 2" stump) was in a huge 14" pot and it looked root bound so I bought a ginormous 18" terra cotta pot for it and planned to open up the root a little. As I teased out the roots, most of the sandy clumpy potting mix fell right off the roots and exposed a root ball that was significantly smaller than the pot it was in. I know now that I probably could have gotten a 16" pot for this and been just fine.

Anyway, you guys have gone above and beyond in answering my question. I think I'll give them a few months to see how they handle living in my garden. Thanks!

I too have taken a reasonably large plant out of an 8 inch plastic pot and found a 4 inch rootball that looked like it came out of a baked bean can! I think at nurseries they sometimes just remove them and plonk them straight into a bigger pot and thats it.It had obviously,just been repotted and had become rootbound and it was impossible to tell when you bought it!Millets advice is always spot on,so you cant go wrong with his advice,he really should write a book on the subject,he knows so much! i would buy!
The key is to repot just before it becomes rootbound. There has been a lot of credit given to air root pruner containers on this forum,so you could search those out,however citrus have been grown in terracotta for centuries in europe in greenhouses and orangeries.The rootpruners really improve the root growth.Pity they are not available in new zealand.Would love to try them out.There has also been plenty of debate about the 2 inch rule or 4 inch rule for potting up!! I say whatever works.All i know,is its better to graduate up or
there is a lot of soil staying wet without roots in it.It is raining really hard out here.I cant believe it in fact!past two weeks non stiop.arggggh
Are you going to remove your fruits?Up to you! If you really must, you could grow a couple but 95% of people here would advise you to remove.You mention your trees are 3 years old,so i suppose they could handle some fruit now.Thin them out and just go for maybe 4 -6 fruits tops.Im sure others could pass comment here too.If you grow just a few,they would stand better chance of being better quality.Space them out around the tree at least 6 inches apart and you could get some joy.You are very unlightly to get the quantities in a container that you would expect from in ground.The real aim for us is quality not quantity,the perfect home grown potted fruit.That is very achievable,especially in your climate.Try to drill the holes too and lift your pots off the ground with pot feet to aid air circulation around your pot.Good luck bro.

Hey Dood, I'm a chick, no bro. LOL But it's all good.

Thanks for your advice.

I'm unsure if I'm going to remove fruit, though, because like I said all my trees are at least, if not older, than 3 years old.

At what point do they start being able to produce their fruit well? Can you tell plant age from trunk diameter?

I am not looking forward to removing any fruit or blossoms... though I know I'll do it on the one 2-3 year old gold nugget I bought from four winds. Do I wait till they are fruitlets, or take them off while they are blossoms?

And, 'nother question... LOL... if I DON'T take the fruit off and want to see and taste even just one this growing cycle, does it hurt the plant's growth long term?

Thanks guys.
-Kristi

A significant portion of a plant's food reserves (energy) are used for the purpose of reproduction. On average an annual species, which is a plant with a 1 year life span, spends 20-30 percent of it resources on flowering and fruiting, perennial, such as citrus, use about half that amount. - Millet

Basically,the tree will get better and better with age and the fruit quality should improve with age.I dont know if there is any way of telling how old the tree is,not that i know of.
The bigger the canopy the better the tree will be able to hold its crop.Citrus tend to be vigorous flower setters,its best to thin out.Although the trees often drop a lot of their flowers anyway.You can remove the flowers or the friitlets,doesnt really matter.The point is it puts a strain on the tree reproducing,just like millet says.
If your tree is large and well established with strong limbs,then it could handle a crop but if its reasonable,just grow 4 to 6.Thats enough for the first time.I am speculating as i cant see your tree.I like to thin out the flowers and visualize a small fruit with room around it to grow.Two or three tight together is not so good.Just make sure they get nitrogen when the fruits are growing,so the fruits reach their full potential.If it was me,i would grow 4 for the first go,they should reach good size if you have a good canopy(food stored).I find the california navel very yummy from the shops in nz,you guys must have a great climate.Where are you?
Sorry i called you a bro!!(its a bit of a saying in nz)
My trees are putting on an Autumn flush right now but i have them under cover from all this really heavy rain we are having.Let me know how it goes.Sometimes the flowers come with the leaves,if this happens,i would suggest waiting until the fruitlets are the size of a pea,thats a good time to remove them or thin out.Try not to be greedy with your crop at this stage,as the years go by you can increase the crop.I made the mistake of letting my mandarin in the ground produce lots of fruit last year(tree is 7 years old),they were small as a result but tasted reasonable.The downside is the tree might not produce at all the following year or not much at all.Thats what happened,a small crop this year! If you let lots of fruits develop they will tend to be inferior/smaller and not as tasty.You have been warned!!Lol .Cheers

OK need help ,
All the plants i bought 2 yrs ago are flowering but the fruit stays Dimne size .

am i doing something majorly wrong ?>
Tammy

PS just found the site again i had a huge comp crash and lost everything .
im working alot and keeping busy too busy foir a real life i get 3 days off but im working 4 12 he shifts so i may look for another job soon this is just rediculas. i did not mind the 4 10a but now they have me on swings . Miss you all and my yard is in diar need of care.

Are you feeding and watering at this time?Do you thin the fruit a bit or do you let lots of fruit form? Nitrogen is the growth maker,so is needed at that time.
Are they in a good spot? cheers