It doesn't look bad at all. Great job on cleaning it up. If you have a spot for it, get it in the ground as soon as possible. It's starting to leaf out for spring and will do best if you can get it in the ground before all the buds have pushed out new leaves. If you plan to leave it in a pot, you might try slipping the pot off the root ball and inspecting the roots. I doubt it is root bound yet but if it is, pruning a few of the roots and moving up to the next size of pot would take care of things for the next 3-5 years.

Thank you. Should I prune it anymore or leave as is? As soon as we find a place in the ground we'll plant it.

Do you have an idea of what size you want the tree to be at its largest?

I don't. Ideally not too large to where we can't get the fruit, when and if it ever fruits, but other than that, no real restrictions.

You have the option of letting it grow out as is for a few years. Conversely, you can make what's called a heading cut wherever you want the first branches to start at. Somewhere between your knee and your waist on the main trunk. This will cause the tree to start growing branches below that point and that's where your fruit production will begin at. The tree can be pruned to whatever size you want but this heading cut is to keep the height ideally at what you can reach. Most of my trees have been pruned in this fashion and I will keep them at about 7 feet, the height I can reach from the ground.

I'll Google heading cut cause I'm not sure what that is but it would be nice to keep that short.

I would get it in ground asap, remove the stake, and leave it alone. Tree will be happy to get in the ground.

I'm thinking that's the plan. It's in a large enough pot as it is. Those extremely large ones aren't cheap, and the ground is free. I'd still like to know more about pruning it though.

Ok, so it's in the ground now. I'll post a picture soon. The blooms did start to open but it's also just starting to grow leaves. I'm looking up the heading cut but when to prune? Is it just in winter?

If its been in that pot for 3 years could be rootbound. But it doesn't look too bad. I'd pull it out of the pot any put it in the ground. If it's rootbound and roots are circling pot I'd trim the roots up a bit.

Will it hurt it if i didn't trim the roots? I planted it yesterday. I can't say that some roots didn't get a little trimmed in that process...it was very hard to get out of the pot. But I'm hoping it does well. It's leaning to one side a lot so i do have it aided a bit by a loosely tied stake.

I did try to plant it as straight up as I could.

You should be just fine. Try to water it sparingly, say once a week to every two weeks till it starts heating up into the ninties. Then maybe once a week. Cover the root zone with 3-6" of mulch to keep in the moisture, and let it grow. You can trim the tree at any time of the year but with such a new tree, I wouldn't prune it since the leaves and buds are pushing. This video give you a basic idea of a vase shape or backyard orchard style of pruning. You can watch some of the others in the series if you want more info.

Thank you for the link. It was a good, informative video! I'll pick up some mulch this week. I mostly have citrus trees and have read they're not supposed to have anything around the base so I never though of getting mulch.

In wetter areas, mulch will hold the moisture against the trunk and cause it to rot as it can't dry out. Any fruit tree can suffer from trunk or root rot in that scenario. Since you are in zone 10A, I doubt you will have a problem but leaving a small circle between the mulch and trunk is perfectly fine. I'm in inland San Bernardino where it is hot and dry and zone 9B. All of my trees are surrounded with a thick blanket of mulch. In fact, I am trying to pick up another load in the next week or two.

I got a huge bag of mulch so maybe i will put it near my citrus as well. Thanks for the advice. So far so good with the tree in the ground! I know we probably won't see fruit this year but hopefully maybe next year!

I haven't fertilized it yet, I did when I first got it but not when we put it in the ground. I was going to give it a bit to get used to its new home first. Should I fertilize now or in a week or so?

In my admittedly limited experience, you could use an organic fertilizer right now. Using a synthetic fertilizer isn't recommended unless used in a very diluted strength as it's easy to burn the roots. Give the tree a year or so to get itself situated before applying synthetic ferts.

I'd imagine if any flowers were pollinized, the fruitlets will drop off due to the shock of planting. You may see fruit develop next year but I'd advise to pick almost all of it off. I generally allow 1 or 2 fruits to grow on my new trees to see what I can expect taste wise. Otherwise, I pick the fruitlets off so the tree can concentrate on growing it's rooting and branching structures. By about year three is when I start leaving fruit on. Heavily thinned still.