Wow, it is getting close. Should be moving in in two weeks. The new house is looking nice!
http://mrtexascitrus.weebly.com/
The getting ready to move has been stressful. I've lived in our existing home for 19 years and in Beaumont, TX for 35 years. The house is full of boxes and I've been painting and fixing for what seems like ages and it doesn't appear I can get everything done in time to move. I've painted the outside trim and am just finishing up repainting the kitchen cabinets. We have put in uba tuba granite in the kitchen and baths to help sell our home. One new room of carpet as well.
I'll have some space for growing citrus at our new home. I'm putting in an 8 foot wide bed by 90 feet along the back fence. This is less space than what I have now but still ample. I had 25 trees in the ground at our Beaumont house. I'll have space for 10 or so dwarf trees in Missouri City. I'm taking a hint from a friend of mine that has more success than me growing citrus here locally. He irrigates his trees year round. I quit watering when the trees got some size.
The trees I have bought for the new house are all Xia Shan satsumas on flying dragon. I'll grow them up to around 4 feet and then graft some over to tangerine, round orange and grapefruit varieties. I've never had satsuma trees die back when they are small but a couple years ago my small grapefruit were killed back to the stump 2 years in a row even though I banked them with dirt. My thinking is that the satsuma trees will get some size on them and become more cold tolerant before grafting them high over to more cold sensitive varieties. I've also got a couple persimmon trees and a rio grande cherry to plant in my back yard. Japanese atringent persimmons are really my favorite fruit to grow as they are so sweet and tasty. I'll plant saijo and honan red. I also got a biscamp pear tree from Doremus nursery, Bonnie's favorite pear.
