Dave in NoVa, your Armstrong satsuma is an very nice well balanced tree. You have done a great job with it cultivation.

I can not find satsuma here

Very nice growth on your tree. Has it historically been an alternate bearing variety or just something that happened this year?

really nice looking tree.

Steve

Thanks all. Armstrong has been mostly alternate-bearing for me. Almost always there will be an 'on' year when it will fruit freely, and an 'off' year when few, if any, fruit are produced.

I don't know whether that's a 'variety thing', or something that just happens with many citrus in containers. It seems my Owari Satsuma does the same thing as do some other mandarins I have.

Meyer lemon doesn't seem to care. It's always working on new blooms and fruilt. And my Oroblanco never stops blooming and bearing. Although the fruit on Oroblanco seem to take forever to mature and it can't hold on to very many at a time.

Maybe alternate-bearing is more common in the varieties that tend to bloom in a specific season, and not the more everblooming varieties? I have no idea.

Ken "Fruity Paws" (N-Va 7a), how are your citrus doing this summer? I've been a grafting fool since I'm home so much of the time now 'teleworking'.

HOWARD, I picked this up at CostCo many years ago.

try to develop it to mature earlier

HOWARD, I do not understand your comment.

Dave, this year has been the most challenging year for citrus for me. The weird weather, was enough on its own with crazy wind storms early (which broke branches and killed my baby red finger lime when a bigger pot blew over and broke the scion at the graft). The recent swelter fest and monsoons luckily haven't done any damage. For a first time, the birds have decided to try eating all my baby citrus fruit (assuming they're probably tasty like my blueberries, which they eat even when green - but are covered with bird net). I have one tiny lemon and a few tiny mandarins fruits still present. My satsuma and cara cara were picked clean of fruitlets and my Moro didn't flower this year (usually fruits every year).

On the flip side, I too have had success with grafting, clefted several persimmons and chipped a cara bud from an early wind storm broken branch.

Dave, your tree looks beautiful! I'm sure next year will be overwhelmed.

Laura, that seems to be the pattern!

nice tree. I like its somewhat upright pattern

sometimes it costs less to buy supermarket citrus and develop them than commercially grown young citrus trees

I'm trying develop my trees to develop fruit sooner than normal