50 Shades of Green

We had some friends over one Friday night for a potluck style dinner and an outdoor movie. After everyone was finished eating, the kiddos had all run off to the treehouse to play, the moms were hanging out on the porch chatting away and the men had made their way to their own corner back by our garden to do their thing. Although I did make my way over to tease them about starting their own party away from their wives, I have to admit it ended up being a great thing (for me) that they did.

Prior to ordering our fruit trees, Jason and I had taken a fruit tree class hosted by our county master gardeners group. In the class we were given the advice to pot our citrus trees for the first year, if not two, to allow them better protection from the elements and a chance for their root balls to develop better before being put into the ground. When our trees arrived, we followed the lessons we had been taught. Our 6 citrus trees (3 satsumas aka mandarin oranges, 2 grapefruit and 1 lemon tree) got put in their pots of soil, with drainage holes in the bottom and mulch on the top to keep the soil moist. As we struggled with water and drainage with all the trees planted in the ground, these 6 citrus chugged along and thrived. Until……

After months of doing great, two of our trees started getting lime green leaves instead of the dark green they had been. Jason guessed the lighter color was new growth and we didn’t think much of it. Here’s where the men’s group comes in…..I have mentioned our arbhorist friend before and he happened to be in that men’s group that night. He told Jason that the lime green color was actually the tree telling us that it was suffering from a lack of nitrogen. He recommended we get a citrus fertilizer as well as add some Epsom salts to the soil. The tree that had two distinct shades of green leaves had the nitrogen deficiency and the other one that just had lime green leaves (with spots of yellow) needed magnesium. Fertilizing both and giving both Epsom salts would aid both trees and by adding it to the others it would give them what they needed before they showed signs of not having enough.

We bought the citrus fertilizer and followed the directions on the bag as well adding the Epsom salts. After a week we still didn’t notice any improvement. I decided that perhaps the soil was the problem; we used a 60/40 split off top soil and the natural dirt from our yard that they would eventually be growing in. I carefully, took the trees out of their pots and changed to a top soil specifically for citrus trees (the bag said to still use some of our natural to our yard soil as well.) While changing out all their soil, I reread the tags on the trees; I found out that I had missed another important growing tip for these and the other trees….the mulch needed to NOT be touching the stem. I had placed mulch all over the base of the tree and then mounded it around the tree a few inches away from the trunk to form a bowl. As i switched out the soil, I also brought in new mulch, keeping it away from the trunk, I built new bowls around the tree base. I went back to our ground planted trees and corrected my mulch mistake there too.

Here are the soil and fertilizer than I used….

I really liked this site’s info on the Top 5 problems with citrus trees and they also have the mix ratio listed for the Epsom salts (2 Tbsp of salts to 10 liters of water.)

https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/home-property/66443866/5-common-citrus-tree-problems

(I do have the best helpers too!)

I would still like to see more improvements in these two trees, but there is improvement. I will keep fertilizing our citrus trees according to the bag (2-3 times per year) and clean up that mulch as needed. One more tip I can pass on to any of you planting new fruit trees, the first year, make sure that you pinch off your blossoms. Trust me I know how hard that one is; winter’s over and spring is creeping in and the blossoms show up on your new trees! There’s a small or not so small, celebration dance that you haven’t killed your trees yet and you are so excited to see these bright, colorful blooms. Well, leaving those blossoms, will allow the tree to develop young fruit, which will put the strain on the tree to grow fruit instead of growing roots like it needs to the first year (even two.) Think of it like a new construction house….you wouldn’t want to start building walls on a wet foundation. You would let the foundation cure before starting your framing. So as hard as it will be, pluck off those blooms and keep an eye out for any little fruits you may have missed and pluck those off too. Remember, you want these trees to be there, thriving for many, many years, so you have to do your part to give them the best start you can! And then do some finger crossing, praying and hoping, really I swear starting fruit trees might be the toughest task we have done yet! Who knew?!?!