I recently bought a whole load of new citrus trees....they are all young and most are dwarf.....we seem to get a lot of rain here in Perth Western australia through the winter........
I experimented with my transplantation into the next size pot up....I drilled extra drainage holes......this is what i did .......
1.some where potted up into osmocote premium potting mix with some composted chicken manure added.Root ball only slightly disturbed.....onion mesh on bottom of pot.
2.transplant done into osmocote premium mix with perlite added...mesh on bottom of pot.......rootball slightly disturbed.
All plants had their rootballs in existing soils.
Its awkward as its mild and raining a lot here at the moment but it gets to 35+C in the summer......
I found the rootball of all plants was rock hard and stayed wet all the time and never seemed to dry out...esp the one with chcken poo compost added around it.......even when left in the sun.....I left for 2 weeks and was still reading max wet on my moisture reader(i know some dont like these but i do)..........I knew that if i left it like this....the roots will die and the trees will go down hill.There was some signs of that when i repotted...I noticed some leaves starting to go yellow(a sign i have seen before)......so i removed everyone and washed everything away in luke warm water in a bucket....made a mix of the osmocote premium mix with fine and coarse perlite and have put them out of the sun and away from all the heavy rain we are getting.....Watered in with seaweed....The trees seem all good and they have already come off the wet on the meter(unless i go down the bottom third).............I just wonder why these trees come in these black bags with rock hard soil surrounding the rootball with no inorganic materials and then hang onto water like there is no tomorrow!
I watered them with seasol(seaweed) to help the roots recover but i removed all the medium from the roots...was gentle with them and used luke warm water and didnt leave the roots exposed to the air at all.........I didnt add any fert to the mix....the premium mix already has some osmocote in it....no sign of any shock from any of them.....just hope i have done the right thing...a complete change of vibe for every tree(seven of them)....Will keep you posted.
