i have some tall upright young branches i would like to spread at a lower angle.

Funny that you ask this as I just finished doing the same on my fukushu. Tree likes to grow very upright and I prefer a more spreading habit, plus I grow indoors so I want light to hit as many branches as I can. Tree grows so fast it's kind of like a game of whack-a-mole. Citrus are really easy to shape when the shoots are young, just wrap and bend. If they're still rubbery and you're gentle, you can make any shape you want.

This is one of the branches I did this morning. You just wrap a soft wire around the branch and bend how you want. You use rope or weights on the more established branches once they harden.

i appreciate the info - i should of started earlier, but i really dont know what i am doing. Your photos are inspiring. Meanwhile trying to keep the citrus spider at bay :-(

No worries, there's really no "perfect time" to start, just different techniques. I've wired older branches just because I decided I didn't like them and I've done it to younger. I usually use rope and some kind of anchor on the bigger branches just because you'd need some hefty wire to bend those. We're all really just students, figuring it out as we go along, some of us have just been at it a bit more time. Everyone has to start somewhere. Horticultural oil can deal with the spidermites, or if your tree is small enough you can do the nuclear option and dunk it leaves and all in a bathtub or bucket with lukewarm water. One teeny tiny drop (tip of a pin) of soap to a full tub can help if it's really bad, then leave it for a max of 2 hours. Any that are in the branches and any in the soil will die, and the eggs will be washed away. Then just don't water again until the plant dries out.

If only i could 'dunk' it in a bath, i usually resort to olive oil soap - though it sounds like i may need to dilute it more. i will take a photo tomorrow, & start training a few branches. Thanks for the feedback, it is a relief to find a place away from the online madding crowd, this has given me somthing positive to think about instead, its good to learn useful stuff. Thanks

Outdoor! Awesome! What I would do for those mites is to get the strongest hose I could and spray it down every few days, it'll knock them off and they should struggle to come back. Then I'd just jet the leaves on watering day. If you want to shape the big branches I'd use rope, smaller, wire. Rope around the trunk to another branch.

Thank you so much; i have been fine spraying the lemon & the Pomegranet tree (aphids run amok this time of year) but it is really hard to keep the spiders off the lemon trees.

Definitely, I need to learn to ask in-ground or potted as not everyone wanting to shape a tree has it in a pot. Ha. I've dealt with spidermites on outdoor trees before, I help a family member with their garden and have for many years, and their neighbor has a couple big trees absolutely infested with both those and bark beetles and can't take them out for various reasons (though they have them trimmed every year and the service they use always drops a couple massive branches into the yard and we have to deal with mites in at least one tree, AND bark beetles). The most effective thing we did was to jet them with water on a daily basis with a really hard water jet. (I use the same setting to clean crusted and dirty planters for reference, not quite a power washer, but the strongest jet you can get with just a hose). Once the populations got down low enough that they couldn't effectively reproduce that fast, we switched to a regular spray setting and only on watering day. You want to make sure your tree can handle it without getting damaged, (go with the hardest setting your tree can take without shearing leaves), and spray it down.

your help has made me make a (late) start to this project, i would post a photo but i am a little ashamed of the current set up, i have rigged up a brick tied to a branch, with an anchor line on the fence, i will move a huge urn into position so i can anchor the line there instead of the brick (i cringe just thinking of it)

Do you think we do things any different? We don't so don't worry.

Steve

inspiring :-)

when shaping branches with weights, can i increase the weight & angle in stages?

Yes. Do it slowly

Don't bend to the angle you want all at once, do it in stages. So yes, go slow.

Shaping my tree

Steve