grason76 These are excellent tips! We have a slew of citrus trees and I'm not always sure the best way to care for them. Thanks for sharing, Noelle!

David Martinez This is an awesome article, thank you for explaining a lot of the what is needed to grow healthy and fruitful citrus. One quick question. My wife and I are considering trying to grow a lime tree, and live in Maricopa county. Is this a good idea or should we consider other citrus alternatives? Thanks again for the informative article.

Marilyn Chapman Thanks for the info.. I want to put in some citrus trees but was unsure of their care, now I feel better equipped with knowledge you have shared.

Becky Neville I was happy to find this article on Houzz today, Noelle.

Tanya Coovadia Another adage that older Floridians spout: "Orange trees don't like anything on their feet." This means no mulch, no plantings, no stones. I set back a few trees several seasons before I realized it was true.

Noelle Johnson Landscape Consulting Hello David,

Thank you for the compliment :-) You can grow a lime tree in Maricopa. Lime trees tend to be the most sensitive of the different types of citrus trees - especially when it comes to frost. So, take care to protect it with frost cloth when temps dip below freezing.

Noelle

Zheng Liu Thank you very much for this great post. Now I know my lemon tree needs some nitrogen. :)

patscats2 Thanks for this idea book and reminder, it's time for me to go fertilize my lemon and orange trees. We've always used fertilizer spikes and our trees have thrived. It's the easiest form of fertilizer and not messy.

Darcel Gary How would one get started with a citrus tree? I would love to have lemons or even oranges year round. I am in the ne usa. What should I do to get started?

patscats2 I can't help you as I live in the deep south so I wouldn't know the first thing about growing anything in your part of the country. Your county extension office would be the best sourse. You can google search to find the office in your area. It will tell you how and what to plant for your region, how to care for, etc. Good luck.

FROST NURSERY You can grow your potted citrus tree outside during the summer, then bring it in before it gets cool in autumn and place in front of a sunny window where it will be warm and get lots of light.

msbill I moved from Denver to Tucson 2 years ago and brought my potted Meyer lemon tree with me. I have repotted it twice in 2 years since it is getting so big! One thing though...it flowers in the late summer and currently has green fruit. It's a very healthy plant but I always thought that citrus was harvested in the winter. Is this a normal pattern?

James Brooks Thanks for the great post. So many articles on citrus just confuse me but this one is concise, and easy to understand and remember. I especially like the way to remember fertilization dates. You also helped me diagnose the manganese problem on my Kumquat.

lavs101 What about urinating on them? Sounds crass, but plenty of people swear by this!

patscats2 lavs, I stopped going to a popular organic gardening web site because they talked about pouring urine into their compost pile and encouraging the dog to urinate on it. I'm sorry, but I don't want anyone's urine in the dirt where I am growing food!! That is so disgusting I can't imagine!! To each his own I suppose. I know I use rotted manure, but draw the line at urine. LOL

lavs101 So manure is ok but urine isn't? Makes no sense patscats........

Leaf Green Productive Landscapes If you companion plant your citrus with appropriate nitrogen fixers and dynamic accumulator plants you reduce your required input of fertiliser dramatically. What's more if you have a worm farm for your kitchen scraps you need never buy any fertiliser ever again.
Dont support the 'big-ag' giants and buy nasty chemicals to poison your living soil. Just plant smart and watch things grow as nature intended.
The information is all out there. Try googling "permaculture citrus tree companion planting" or similar and good luck!

Becky Neville msbill, I also live in Tucson. Our Meyer Lemon blooms more than once per year. We've had ripe fruit for months, and it started blooming last week.

msbill Thanks Becky.

patscats2 lavs, I know, that's why I ended with LOL.

julietjones @ Frost Nursery: What would be the best type of citrus tree to grow in a pot, to bring in in the winter? I live in Memphis TN, where the winters are too cold (probably) and the summers hot and humid.

FROST NURSERY Meyers are highly recommended. All our citrus fruit trees have the Meyers brand on when they are imported from California to B.C. Canada.

ikwewe Could you say something about Citrus Greening? We had a beautiful healthy orange tree in the yard when we bought this house three years ago. It was a cold winter, and the tree began to show signs of trouble the following summer, smaller fruit, dead branches. We talked to several different nurseries, and were told the tree would recover if it was cold damaged, but it has not. Now the bark is scaly and peeling, and Citrus Greening has been mentioned as a probably cause with no cure. It is spreading in our area. We want to replace the tree but are afraid a new tree would be also susceptible. The neighbor's tangerine tree next to the side yard appears to be affected as well. We did plant a small kumquat tree in the front yard, with the orange tree in the back yard.

pocodot This article is not written in the best interest of soil, food, or anyone who is environmentally concerned.
Any idiot can break something... like the environment, but it takes a truly enlightened individual to understand and enhance their environment. I would suggest that you & your readers make an effort to educate themselves before they take the advice of some misinformed fertilizer salesperson. There are alternatives... and we owe it to ourselves and our children to make the best informed decisions we can.
Runoff of synthetic fertilizer can enter the waterways, causing water to be polluted and to lose oxygen. Over time, chemical fertilizers can degrade the quality of the soil by building up toxins or leaching away natural nutrients, making the soil unfit for growing plants. Using too much fertilizer can damage plants by chemically burning roots and leaves. If you grow edible crops, synthetic fertilizers may contain unnecessary, and sometimes harmful, chemicals that will end up in your food.
Organic fertilizers are more difficult to use than synthetic fertilizers. Because the nutrients in organic fertilizers can vary, it is more difficult to determine how much should be used. Organic fertilizers take longer to break down in the soil and are much less potent, so if they are not applied in the right amounts at the right time, your plants may not get the nutrients they need. They are more expensive and must be applied in larger quantities than synthetic fertilizers.
Both types of fertilizers have disadvantages, but in most cases, fertilizing plants is necessary to maintain a healthy garden. Plants often require more nutrients than their soil is able to provide naturally.
If you are at all concerned about environmental issues and health, you might want to use organic fertilizers.

Leaf Green Productive Landscapes I agree with pocodot's comments although I will add that fertiliser need not be necessary at all. Get a worm farm and the castings and juice is all the soil amendment you might ever need. Companion plant your citrus with support species and that's it. Nature does the work for you and you don't have to buy fertiliser - and you can recycle your kitchen scraps in a convenient way.

patscats2 Worms in the ground is proof of a healthy soil. I've been trying to fortify my barren wasteland of a yard for 2 years since moving into this house, with tons of organic matter. Slowly but surely it's getting there. I'm not sure however if I'll live to see the fruits of my labor.

jmoore78 Noelle, Thank you very much for the article and especially the accompanying photos. I've a problem with my orange shedding and it appears to be a nitrogen and manganese deficency. I have a lime, orange, mandarin, satsuma, lemon and kumquat cluster in one area. While we have excellent soil, I suspect I may have over loaded the site.
A question on the lime...we are in South Louisiana, it is about ten years old and has reached about fifteen feet in height and become very thick and broad. I was tempted to cut it back, but am hesitant to touch a thriving plant. It is just very difficult to access the fruit above 9 feet or so.
Thank you again for the article.

jamdot I live in the very northwest corner of Florida panhandle (almost Alabama). We have a beautiful orange tree that we planted 14 years ago and bears many delicious oranges for us every year. The past couple of years, however, we've noticed some black spots on the leaves and perhaps something (unseen worms or bugs?) eating the leaves. Do you have any suggestions on what could cause this and what to do about it? Thanks.

pocodot Hello M. Jamdot,
“We've noticed some black spots on the leaves and perhaps something (unseen worms or bugs?) eating the leaves. Do you have any suggestions?”
M. Jamdot, I don’t consider myself an expert. That being said, I’ve worked the family farm, worked large scale rice growing in California, served two terms in the agriculture/environment sector, U.S. Peace Corps, sub-Saharan & tropical Africa teaching organic and natural pesticide, and most recently wrote and published the environment monitoring program for a large scale international mining project during construction of over 220 kilometers of pipeline. I live in tropical Africa with my wife and two kids.
In reference to your question (funny you should ask :o), I have just remedied the same or similar problem with my own orange trees. Although they are considerably younger than your trees my three year old trees suffered a black leaf disease that at first glance looked like fungus. It turned out to be… ants. The ants feed on the sap from the aphids, much to the delight of the aphids and ants deter predator species like wasps, ladybugs and praying mantis. The aphids eat by defecation, produce (ask a scientist) a black mold on the leaves.
The answer is two-fold. The first step is to stop the ants from climbing the tree. I accomplished this by soaking woodchip (not a lot as I am not a fan of wood chips for mulch) in neem oil and placing them against the base of the trunk. The ants stop and the natural predator insects (wasps, praying mantises, ladybugs, etc.) return.
The second step is only practical if you have only a few pruned trees. Wash each leaf with soapy water. I used an anti-foliage mitt and scrubbed most of my leaves. :o) chuckle, chuckle. The leaves are tough and won’t fall off. A ½ hour a day for a week or two. The new shoots will again produce orange blossoms O.K, I love my orange trees. :o) More practical, for many and bigger trees is to produce a neem oil/soap solution and spray. The soap solution produces a barrier that the aphids and hang on to and they fall off. Once again the new shoots will produce orange blossoms.
The soap solutions are simple; 1 bar of cheap soap to with a small basket of the active ingredient mixed in 5 to 7 liters of water. Multiply by quantities desired (in Africa we make it in 50 liter batches and a bushel basket of active ingredients as we have to re-apply it after every heavy rain).
There are graduations to the soap solutions depending on the degree and severity of the infestation (not only aphids) from
1. soap/garlic (ours is not expensive),
2. soap/chili-peppers (ours are naturally occurring or inexpensive),
3. soap neem oil (available at garden stores; ours is naturally occurring),
4. soap/tobacco Our taxes for agricultural use are small but we need a permit from the government),
5. and some have even used soap/small quantities of kerosene.
As much as I like some of the gardening forums, I’ve found that much valuable information for the small-scale farmers (and home gardeners) is available by perusing university websites, I.e. Purdue University Agricultural Extension Service, University of Georgia Cooperative Extension, etc. The U.S.D.A. site is also very useful, but much more boring and often not easily navigable.
I hope this rather long winded response was helpful.
pocodot

jamdot Thank you so much!!! Yep, those leaves look like ours!

smittycdm Not certain where you guys live, but in SoCal we have been hit by two types of Citrus bugs: one is called a Citrus Leafminer & can be controlled be semi-weekly applications of natural liquid spray. Available at Armstrong's. A new one just came to town in somebody's suitcase, thank you very much, is much worse called the Asian Citrus Psyllid.

Just an FYI, for all types of plants and the pros can give their 2 cents, I don't fertilize a plant that 1) is dry, 2) has bugs, or 3) has scale, leaves are rolled, etc. I take care of the aforementioned problems, then add any nutrients.

I've heard from the "experts" if your citrus gets the dreaded Asian Psyllid there's nothing to do but yank out the tree. Any comments?

pocodot Hi Mr Smittycdm,
You state, “in SoCal we have been hit by two types of Citrus bugs”.
I believe that in general your comments are valid and correct. However, the solutions are cultural in origin, they may be as complex and as difficult to interpret as “the world economy” or as simple to understand as observing our natural environment, which is ultimately more complex than anything our human mind has yet to devise. Whole books have been written on the subject, and rightly so. To emphasize my point, let me relate an anecdote (condensed) involving humanitarian aid from U.S.A.I.D. (which has since, and is still, undertaking a reorganization to avoid vast expenditures that serve little or no purpose).
USAID sent an agricultural expert to a very poor developing tropical country in Africa. His goal was to implement a sustainable agricultural solution to help feed the people and alleviate poverty. The expert was quick to observe that some regions of the country produced a lot of bananas. He organized the farmers and implemented an agreement with the governments to export and buy vast quantities of bananas. The farmers assumed the wisdom and expertise of the plan, after all how could such a rich and prosperous nation not understand the path to success and wealth.
The farmers went into the forest and cut vast swaths of rainforest and planted groves of banana trees expecting nothing less than wealth, prosperity, and food for their families. In six months all of the trees became infected with a root weevil and unable to support themselves collapsed under their own weight at the stem and died resulting in short term famine, economic up evil, and an economic reliance upon wealthy donor nations that still persists even to this day and a general distrust of any expert advice that does not involve cold hard cash, making development work just so much more difficult to accomplish. (chuckle, chuckle, please excuse my diatribe, but sometimes an anonymous soapbox is just too good to pass up :o).
The farmers had inadvertently, in clearing the land, destroyed and distanced the trees from the naturally occurring predator pests that fed on the root weevils that would have normally only been able to feed on and destroy the weakest and most vulnerable of the banana trees, in other words, “survival of the fittest”.
O.K., my story is too simplistic, but the solutions need to be analyzed within their context. I.e. agriculture in the U.S. and much of the developed world especially after the Great Depression and the dust bowl, etc., has evolved and been driven with the goal of economic, commercial and social prosperity (all worthy goals) but often with disregard for the natural laws or (sic) “survival of the fittest”, and much agriculture now relies on large quantities of artificial nutrients, fertilizers, and pesticides. Many agrarian experts suggest that this over use of artificial ingredients in the soil will result in the decline of food production in as short of time as the next 50 years. These compelling arguments will engage many interested people in philosophical debates, perhaps until the end of time as we know it.
The point of this suggestion of solution is that many small organic farmers and backyard gardeners are actively trying to reintroduce the natural elements into their production methods, often successfully depending on the amount of time and effort they can practically afford.
So the sort answer Is, prevention is the best defense against for Citrus Leaf miner and/or Asian Citrus Psyllid infestations by spraying with solutions, either the afore mentioned organic solutions I’ve mentioned in previous posts, or with store bought solutions which may or may not contain artificial ingredients. Also I advocate the reintroduction of natural predators largely by recreating the natural eco system or perhaps even a forest garden. To some degree you will be able to measure your success by the amount of birds that you will see returning... c

pocodot continued:
Also I advocate the reintroduction of natural predators largely by recreating the natural eco system or perhaps even a forest garden. To some degree you will be able to measure your success by the amount of birds that you will see returning to your garden, homestead, or farm.
As pointed out by your research Mr Smittycdm, the leaf curling disease produced by the Asian Citrus Psyllid, is spread and transferred by the larva from flying (hopping) insects being impregnated into the capillaries of the leaves after the birth of the larva in the bark of the trees and traveling internally through the trees and into the leaves (primarily young trees that haven’t yet produced the mass of leaves and foliage to effectively fight the disease) the best solution after infestation is first, the removal and destruction of the infected branch, usually by burning (not by burying or composting!) and finally the removal and destruction of the whole tree or trees.
Obviously my suggestions will not be heeded by large commercial farm enterprises that produce mass amounts of product. They will have to continue to use large amounts of fertilizers and pesticides or face economic ruin. But you my friends are in a perfect position to begin and thereafter advocate your own organic solutions… I hope you will.
In these fast paced times, when people have barely enough time to spend on their gardens and farms and require quick short precise answers, my views may only appeal to Dr. David Suzuki (or maybe not :o) and other likeminded individuals but I offer them in good faith and I hope you might find them useful.
For further information, I would suggest an excellent coffee-table book called, Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy Of Industrial Agriculture by Andrew Kimbrell.