That may seem like a harsh blog title, and
it may be unfair, but that is what I have found with my citrus. I went crazy with dwarf citrus trees about
5 years ago. I was so excited that
I could fit so many trees into such a small area. I have been battling disease for a while (mainly on the dwarf trees) http://edibleurbangarden.blogspot.com.au/2010/09/citrus-healthy-and-not-so-healthy.html.
I have found that the
standard sized citrus trees have flourished and the dwarf trees have not. It may be the type that I have chosen –
2 varieties of orange and a ruby grapefruit….but all have been more disease
prone and have never fruited (although they have had the best positions in the garden). My standard sized trees – a Tahitian
lime (which is marginal in Sydney), Eureka Lemon, Ruby Grapefruit and Imperial Mandarin have all
been productive and far less hassle.
I do prune them quite a bit to keep them at a manageable size. I wonder if anyone else has found
this? Or maybe it is just the
varieties I have chosen. But for
now, the dwarf trees are being given away on freecycle.com and I’m focusing on
the full size trees.
A dodgy photo of the fairly unimpressive 4 year old dwarf Valencia Orange tree
Happy full size Ruby Grapefruit (even after being moved 3 times over the years - although it takes a year to recover each time). I keep it pruned to about shoulder height.
5 comments:
Wow, Lanie, that's disappointing news, but nevertheless very interesting to me in my line of gardening magazine work. I'm going to mention it to my gardening writers to see if they are hearing the same things too. Everyone extolled the virtues of the dwarf fruits early on, but it seemed to me that they didn't have a lot of real-world evidence to back up their enthusiasm. I'll be interested to see if they discover any other people with 'low-performance' dwarf citrus.
Thanks, that would be great Jamie. I am completely aware that there could be other reasons - a sample size of 3 vs 4 isn't high quality research!
Hi Lainie, a friend and I have been disappointed with apples on dwarfing rootstock. We are both considering pulling them up. Cheers Barb
Re the 'dud dwarf citrus' thing, our garden writer asked some citrus experts what they have been hearing about them. They say that the dwarf citrus were originally developed for commercial farms (for ease of harvesting) and they have performed well in that role. It was only much later that they released the dwarf trees for home gardens.
However, the one thing which did surprise me was the casual mention of how relatively slow-growing they are. None of the stories I have read or edited have ever said that!
The other comments on your dwarf duds are just them repeating usual citrus-growing mantras about making sure plants have a lack of root competition, maximum sunlight and perfect soil drainage. The fact that you have perfectly healthy other full-size citrus growing in the same backyard didn't seem to influence them at all! So, in summary, there's not a lot to report in the way of widespread trouble with them.
Secondly, a request from our photographer, Brent Wilson..
Brent is a keen blog reader and always reads your blog (and mine). He noticed you had a photo of potatoes in your latest posting on kids in gardens, and wondered if you had any growing at home right now, as he has been asked to find some spuds growing in a bag to photograph. If you do, and if it would be OK for Brent to photograph them, let me know and I'll give you Brent's contact details. You can email me at my gardenamateur@gmail.com address if you're interested.
Cheers
Jamie
Enjoy your blog. I've also heard of gardeners having problems with dwarf citrus. I've not had any experience and will stick with my full-size mandarin tree, which seemed to ripen very slowly this year (probably due to lack of a proper summer). I have made many batches of mandarin marmalade - after battling the armies of stinkbugs. I've written about my adventures on my blog 'The Good, the Bad and the Italian'. cheers, Ambra
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