the largest container the trees would like is going to be too big for you to move. I plan to let mine get to about a 25 gallon size then not go any bigger. I have a banana in a 25 gallon and I can still move it OK but its not exactly easy.

Mike

First of all, I must point out that my growing conditions here in England are very different from yours - but...
I have found that CHC mix can dry out alarmingly quickly even in our summers. In Arizona, I guess you would have to irrigate almost continuously.
Final container size is more your choice, rather than a requirement. In other words, to a great extent pot size determines and limits tree size. If you continue re-potting into bigger containers, the tree will eventually reach its natural limit, by which time the pots will be totally unmanageable.

I have seen trees in pots over 6 feet diameter. At some point in the future I hope to have my meiwa kumquat tree, seed grown, potted to a 60 inch box. That translate to 900 gallons. My trees to will not be moved but will have to aboveground. in my situation.

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Meiwa , Thee seed grown kumquat tree will have to wait may years before then

Forgot to ask. Could you post a couple of close up pics of your best trees.

thanks

With adequate root system maintenance, there's no reason why you can't grow productive trees in manageable containers. Annual repotting and root pruning (especially the root pruning) will enable the plant to be healthy and happy in a reasonably sized container. I think that a 20 to 25 gallon size is the most you'd need.

You know, citrus can be grown as a bonsai. I'm not suggesting that you go to that extreme, but we all would do well to learn from those practices and apply it to the kinds of potting media we use, root pruning, and other techniques.

I'm curious about your medium! Could you take a picture of it, with a coin in the shot for size comparison? I'd love to see it.

i was wondering about pot size too. if i rune the roots on a regular basis to fit in the same pot it came from, will the fruits getting smaller too? talking about 25 gallon pot not bonsai form ;)
and how do you move a 250 to 300 pound pot including tree around?
thank goodness my trees are still small but maybe one day?

susanne42

What if you used pearlite of varying size nodules in stead of granite with a homemade cactus mix. The 25 gallon half barrel could have handles on it so that four people could carry it easily Pearlite Is extremely light and can be bought in bulk at greenhouse suppliers. 2 people could carry a 100 gallon pot with a 'TRUE' citrus mix using pearlite. When you plan to move it, stop watering a safe time ahead so it is dry but not drought dry. This alone will decrease the weight of you tree by 3 out of 4 lb. I will be using 55 gallon barrels in transition to the 60" boxes and will be using a barrel dolly to move mine

Thank you for these posts. I will try to have pictures to you in a few days.
Yes, I went to CHC because I needed good drainage. When I considered the dry weight of a 15-gal pot, I was comparing over 100 lbs to just about 20 lbs. Pics to come of the soil medium.
I don't plan to move the pots too often, but by using pots, I have a lot more flexibility in terms of movement and spacing.
poncirusguy, you seem to have quit the set up. Have you any plants in 55 gallon barrels? Can you recommend a way to get such containers?

i know the orangeries in europe are using some sort of tractor to move the trees into their winter quarter. i think not only moving but repotting might not be easy too

I have 3 fig trees in 55 gallon barrels i in 5 gallon bucket

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To finish up where I ran out of time. My friend works at a pharmaceutical company and gets lots of drums. He gave me 13.

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Fig on hardy chicago in 5 gallon bucket

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hardy chicago fig tree 5 gallon bucket. Tree has ten figs

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Hardy chicago fig in 55 gallon drum.

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Seed grown poncirus trifoliata

If you use smart pot 'Tm' you can get a sizeable pot for little money see link below.

You can also build a versii planter very cost effectively. it can have handles at each end like those used to carry very important people by subordinates

http://www.thedesignconfidential.com/free-woodworking-plans-build-small-versailles-planter

sorry you will have to cut and past

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.smartpots.com/tan-smart-pots

i wish i would have known about the smart pots a bit earlier. i will definitely keep them in mind when next potting needs to be done.

I've been making my own "pots" lately for my large citrus collection (large in individual size and large in number). Once the plants get too big for my poor back to haul around I park them in the hoophouse (which gets closed up in the winter, I'm in zone 7b) and build a container around them by looping a length of metal wire screen - sold as hail screen or rabbit cage wire - around them and lining it with cheap landscape fabric and then fill it up with a homemade blend of potting media and pine bark fines and sand. So far so good. In a year or so when they need new soil I can snip the zip ties holding the ring of wire mesh together and unroll it away from the root ball. Chop off old soil and rebuild the ring and re-fill with new soil. BUT, the plants can't be moved easily. These "pots" don't have bottoms. To move them you would have to un-assemble the whole thing and rebuild it somewhere else. My hoophouse has an asphalt floor. If they end up needing to be watered too often I will rig up some sort of drip tape and hook them up to the watering system I use in the rest of the garden.

trianglejohn

Thanks thats a great idea and I will use it to plant blueberry plants in our miner city community gardens. This will be inexpensive way to bring high quality food to our food desert. We do not have a grocery store with in a 6 mile round trip walk. Our elderly can not make that journey on foot. We are planting fruit trees in common ground and vegetable on abandon lots. So far it is working well but I need ideas on how to do thing near free

For my citrus trees I have enough 55 gallon drums to make 5 citrus tree planter of about 170 gallons with enhanced drainage and root aeration.

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The 55 gallon half barrels will have will have 500+ holes about 1/8 " diameter in the side walls and about 200 holes in the bottom. the platform in the center holds the base of the tree from dropping as the soil recedes. no need to dump the tree out to get soil under neath. this will fit on a 4 by 4 skide for a forklift

Since my seed grown kumquats and tangerine trees look so pathetic, I broke down and bought 5 plants at home depot. They are now in 5 gallon buckets and will be transferred over to these pot when ready. They look so nice.

I'll post pics of them tomorrow since my wife had the camera till dark

steve did you buy them just now? going to homedepot and lowes all the time in hope to see a kumquat or grapefruit. but no luck so far.

susanne

I bought them sunday, but this is in cincinnati. You do not have a choice on varieties you take what they have. Here in cincy the choice was key lime, moro blood orange, and meyer lemon, all ten stores. None of them do even fairly this far north as container plants. So iI bought 3 legacy and 2 bluegold northern highbush blueberry bushes. To *%@# with citrus I am done at the end of this summer. My fig tree has already produced 12 figs since I rooted a 1.5 inch cutting 8 month ago.
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2 months of pathetic regrowth in 2 months

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blueberry;3 legacy, 2 bluecrop

I have no interest in spending that much time on one plant. I am going to keep it though. If I can get it to grow like it did all winter I will reconsider. I will still read these forums, as the advice on citrus can grow anything on this planet.

Steve

Steve,

Looks like your citrus are having micronutrient deficiencies, i.e. Iron or Manganese, A chelated foliar spray should shore up the leaves right quick.

steve we will see how good they will do. i have the moro, meyer lemon and the key lime. would love to add another meyer thou. maybe should go to HD again and look although have been there last sunday. but who knows
i did not start from seed but bought little trees. maybe that is the difference? will give my everything to make them work for me.

Thanks Matt

I will look around at more specialty stores and see If I can get a source of affordable fertilizer. Citrus fertilizer goes for a premium. I haven't' thrown in the towel yet. Its still in the air

Steve

Steve,
Get to know your chemical ingredients. With a good deal of mix-and-match, you can buy the cheap stuff and come out ahead.
For instance, in AZ, for some reason Palm nutritional spray is very cheap, while Tomato spray is very expensive. The tomato spray comes in 5 oz and costs about $6, while the palm spray is 20 oz for $8 - and the palm spray contains the same nutrients, only ten times as concentrated! Mix the palm spray with water and you have 200 ounces of tomato spray for about $8!

I am currently using. 12-24-18 rose food with 33 -0-0 lawn fertilizer + muriate of potash 60-0-0

Muriate of Potash (KO2) should be more like 0-0-60 on the N-P-K.
Way too much K!
Also, muriates have too much chlorine for your little citrus - preventing nutrient uptake.

This post was edited by MattByc on Tue, Jun 18, 13 at 14:21

I'm guessing my wire cage pots to be about 40 gallons. I can't remember if the wire mesh is 24 inches tall or 30 but I have some 35 gallon pots beside them and the wire cages are only a bit larger. The wire is cheap, the landscape fabric is cheap, the zip ties are cheap - the growing media is not cheap. Even if I blend it myself with bagged ingredients it takes a shocking amount of dirt to fill the pot. At least they won't weigh as much as they did when I had them all planted in the gravel blend.

Matt your right I did meant to list 0,0,60 I got all the p i need in the rose and azalia food. I add a good amount of the grass fertilizer and very little of the muriate of potash since it is so powerful. The overall mix has azalia food worked in the soil. it has micronutrients. I then combined. the 33-0-0 with a small amount of 0-0-60 such that the ratio of the food comes out to be 10-0-4. the p is 0 because I get so much in the 12-24-18. I was not aware of the chlorine content of the potash product of mine. I will try adding more vinegar to the solution to compensate for the chlorine

I simply don't have the money to buy the expensive foods or grafted trees. I have seen treads by northerner that have spent close to a $1000 on trees alone. I am aware that I can grow a large kumquat tree successfully at great expenses.

Thanks again for the advice. I will continue on the citrus but at a lower level of energy.

Steve

My super walmart had lemon ( meyer, eureka, varigated pink), lime ( key and persian) and " fruit cocktail"- meyer lemon and key lime in one pot. They were $20 each in 1 gal pots. The key lime was just an itty bitty twig and died. The rest are doing fine in spite of some rat damage. See my thread for initial pics of the plants. Oh, all but the meyer lemon have had blooms ( back at wally world there's a few with baby fruit :(

My ex had a banana plant and built a huge wooden cart -- 2 wooden wheels on one side, fixed legs on the other, with short wheelbarrow-like handles to facilitate moving it from the yard into the garage. It was still SUPER HEAVY (cuz he built it to be really large - i think it was like 3ft cubed), but it rolled easily enough. I'd encourage heavy duty rubber tires instead of the wooden wheels he crafted (they had to be replaced from being out in the elements, even with sealing). It really was a handy planter, and i'll probably try building something similar for some other things next year.