Hi Everyone! I'm Evaldas from Lithuania.
So I've started talking about problems with my Calamondin on the "UBC Botanical Gardens Forum" and Millet along with another user helped me a lot, but the forum unfortunately is closing down so I thought I'd move to this forum...
So I bought a Calamondin in the middle of last month and the tree started to drop leaves, the soil would dry only after 7 days after watering, some of the branches started to dry out, so I was told that the soil has bad drainage and the plant needs repotting into a mix of pine bark and peat. Unfortunately they didn't have nor of the items at the shops, because "it's not the right season" according to them. But I was told that if there are orchid mixes sold that are mostly made of bark then it should be OK to repot the tree into such mix.
So I bought "Epiphyte orchid mix" that contained big pieces of bark (probably pine and rosewood) so I cut the pieces into smaller pieces.
So here are some pictures and questions:
Here's how the Calamondin looked before:

Here's how the scissored pieces of bark looked like:

Here's how the roots looked like:

NOW: about the roots:
Do they seem OK?
They were very fragile. I thought that I would simply spread them a bit, but I wasn't able to. At one point I even thought "did they put some hay in here at the nursery?" because it seemed like hay...
And as I couldn't spread the roots I had to leave the rootball surrouned by the same soil. The thing you see in the picture was looking the same way when I was putting it into the bark.
And the after:


But my question is can a citrus plant grow in bark? Can it actually spread its roots into it like some orchid? Because I'm kind of sceptical and so are a few people I've asked about this...

So how did I do with the repotting?

Hi Evaldas. I use pine bark medium to grow all of my citrus in from seedling to 3 gallon or larger but eventually i plant them in the ground. The soil that I use is 60% 1/2" PB 20%1/4 PB 10% fine PB and 10% composted or aged PB this drains good and holds moisture for several days according to the tree size and growth. this soil is hard to find unless you buy it in bulk and can have it custom blended. I don't think the large lark is a good idea and peat has not worked for me. Some of the cheaper potting soils that I have tried have been mostly bark mixes but you need to check. I never disturb the roots when I re-pot trees I transplant my seedlings to 3 gallons to start with bout I want them to be ready to graft in 9 mouths so they need to grow fast.

When you remove your tree from it present container, in order to transplant it into a larger one, and notice that long ago the roots have reached the container's internal wall, and have begun to circle around and around, you will need to loosen at least an inch of the roots so that they can rapidly grow into the new medium. There is an hard and fast rule that states......" A ROOT GROWS AS A BULLET GOES". Meaning a root will continue to grow in the same direction as it is pointed, until it hits an obstruction causing it to change directions. Therefore, unless you remove a inch or so of the outer edge of the root ball, the roots will tend to continue to circle, even when placed in the larger container. One method that helps to make it easier to remove the outer portion of the old root ball, is to place the entire root ball into a larger container of warm water and slosh it up and down to soften the outside of the root system. If you just planted your root bound tree into a larger container, without redirecting the roots, I would recommend that your re-transplant the tree correctly. - Millet (1,065-)

Today I re-re-potted it, and spread the roots.

If it likes the new pot, new soil, how soon should it grow new leaves? (we have about 10 hours of daylight and it's standing on the window where it's about 17C (61F)

If the environment is satisfactory, new growth should start anywhere from several weeks to two months. - Millet (1,063-)

And if I didn't do well with repotting when will I see the signs of it? And what will those signs be?

From what you wrote in an above post, by spreading the roots, your tree should adapt well in its new container. When watering your new container be careful so that, so that the water doesn't take the path of least resistance and just run down the sides through the faster draining new medium. Insure that the old root ball portion also receives equal amounts of water and or fertilizer solution. Citrus growth occurs in cycles. When the root growth cycle is complete, which takes approximately two to three months, the foliage growth cycle will begin, which also takes approximately two to three months. Up to 3 or 4 of these cycles can occur in a year. So just be patient and your tree should do just fine. - Millet (1,061-)

Millet, Wouldn't it be much better to completely bareroot the tree and then put it in a proper mix? I just don't see how the tree is going to be watered evenly with the way it is now. I have always tried to get rid of as close to 100% of the nursery soil as possible.

I would agree and may be my inexperience but I've had a hard time with a medium with two mixes that drain differently. In order to keep them equally watered, I'd have to water the outside more frequently since the inside one won't give up the water to the outside. I've only done in thrice, but was never satisfied.

Extended the advice from Millet, gentling massaging the ball while underwater will remove nearly all that soil. It's at that time I will prune any roots at the circle point or that reverse back inside as suggested.

Another reason I 100% bare root from an old to new soil is I'm frequently shocked at the roots that are circling the pot or are the surface: they come from the OTHER side of the rootball.

In the worst cases, the top few inches of apparent "healthy surface roots" are coming from thick roots that traveled around the center soil a while before hitting the bottom, a side, and then reached the surface. What a entanglement that I'd expect would strangle other roots since they were so much thicker than the others it wrapped around.

You can't see this unless you remove all that soil.

If trees are planted in Root Maker's Air Root Pruning containers, there will NEVER be circling roots --- NEVER EVER. One may certainly bare root the entire tree is so desired, I never do. The old tough center roots absorb very little water or nutrients anyway. A lot depends on what the original medium was. Many of the great citrus collections of Europe have been in the same containers for 100+ years, with only root pruning and new medium added around the edges, then replacement back into the same container. - Millet (1,059-)

Can this be considered as new foliage growth? Or is it something that Calamondins just have, like thorn?

What is the age of this tree? I have a 3 year old Variagated Calomondin and the size of it's fruit so far is about the size of an average ping pong ball. The fruit on your tree looks quite large in comparison. Great looking tree! Thanks, Tim.