Lastly I want to talk about Citrus.
Logee's grows stuff in tiny little pots forever.
We're masters at it. Is that because we're lazy or you just never get around
to it or what?
This is a Meyer lemon, that wants to tip over. And citrus are really some of the
greatest container plants that we can get our hands on, just because they
really do it,
you know? I mean, this is not bad. I've like-- what I've gone through today are
really some of our more productive-- there's other ones-- but some of our
more productive flowering plants- fruiting plants-- but Citrus, as a whole, tend to
be very rewarding. And this is a Meyer lemon-
you can see the amount of fruit on it. It's just been- it's on a hanger here.
It's just been hanging around for years.
It goes through its flowering cycle,
usually in the springtime, but you have to remember that Meyer lemons- or
the lemons and the limes are constant fruiting and flowering, pretty much. Your
edibles like the Kumquat- that's the Changshou Kumquat, which is an
exception, but Kumquats,
Grapefruits, Tangerines, Oranges are much more seasonal. So, and they're a little bit
slower growing. So if you're trying to grow one of those, you got to remember
there really is a flowering cycle on that, that you need to be paying attention to,
so you don't prune your flowers off, and you're not going to get this constant
blooming. And we had talked- before, there was a question asked: 'Does this slow
down the flowering of it?' And the answer is Yes and No.
Yes- in that, the fruit has- the plant has to go through its ripening cycle before
the buds on these new growths will form, but if the plant's big enough it won't
make any difference; it'll just keep doing it. And on little plants, it actually
slows it down. You'll get a flowering cycle; the fruit will sit there; it'll take
all the strength out of it until it turns yellow. These are no longer demand--
taking any demand out of the plant because they're ripened.
We're gonna pick off some of these lemons...
Meyer lemon is actually not a lemon at all.
It's actually a hybrid between a sour orange and a lemon.
Anybody know the history of it? It was brought over, probably in 1913 or something like that,
from China. Sun is the most important thing, and I always feel that
when you're growing Citrus in containers, it's better to keep them warm,
even though that plant can take it down below freezing.
If you were-- we've quite a few people here, we've got to get a lot of wedges going--
If you're growing citrus in containers and it's cold- like we have them in the
big greenhouse there-
there's a potential for them to get root-rot. If you grow them really warm, like
we have ours-- Did anybody take the tour today? If so, in that Begonia-- we call
it the Begonia House--
there's a block of Citrus in there-- it's got-- it's a whole collection that's in there,
and it's got bottom-heat coming out of there, and that-- those plants, we very
seldom lose a plant in there. They'll go right through the winter time, actively
growing with active roots, and they dry out quickly; and the thing that kills
Citrus is root-rot, and they're very, very prone to it. If you've ever grown
one, and you're going through the season, and it gets up to like February-March
and then all of a sudden, all the leaves fall off; you tap it out of the
pot-- you tap that plant, and you didn't water it properly-- you tap it
out of the pot, you'll find that the root system's collapsed, it's all just brown
and dead.
And so, the critical thing is to have warmth, which keeps the root system
active. Usually those diseases do not affect the root system if it's a 65 to 70
degree root zone--
the temperatures at your roots. And always make sure that you bring them to
a state of dryness between waterings.