![]() The varieties I ended up planting along my driveway were Satsuma, Kishu, and Gold Nugget mandarins, and a Cara Cara navel orange. I had been under the impression that when a nursery labeled its citrus trees dwarf, semi-dwarf, or standard it was, at least in part, because they used various rootstocks that dwarfed the scion varieties more or less. Orange trees grow bigger than mandarin trees, rootstock influence notwithstanding.īut the rootstock a citrus tree has also influences how big it will grow, how dwarfed it will be. As I already mentioned, different citrus varieties naturally grow to different sizes. So our citrus trees have two parts that affect how big they will grow: the rootstock (roots) and the scion (variety on top). What affects the ultimate size of a citrus tree ![]() (Watch a video of Don Durling budding a citrus tree here.) (You must always remove branches that grow from below this graft union, as I wrote about in this post.) Where the two were joined is called the bud or graft union. Now the whole top is Nordmann Nagami kumquat and only the trunk and roots are the seedling tree, scion on top and rootstock on bottom. Once the Nordmann Nagami kumquat branch is long enough, maybe a couple inches, the seedling tree is cut off above the kumquat branch. The tree now has two parts: a branch of Nordmann Nagami kumquat (scion) growing out of a seedling tree (rootstock). If we want to make a Nordmann Nagami kumquat tree, then we take a bud from a Nordmann Nagami tree and stick it onto the trunk of the seedling tree. Then a piece, called a bud, of another citrus tree is put onto that seedling tree. Usually, a seed is planted and a tree grows up for a year or so. How citrus trees are made, in two short paragraphsĪlmost all citrus trees you can buy are made up of two parts: the roots part and the top part, the rootstock and the scion. Disregard that the Cara Cara tree is labeled dwarf only consider that its tag says it will grow to 10 feet. How big did the tags estimate the trees would eventually reach? Numbers are objective. This made me think that I should pay more attention to the numbers on the tree tags rather than the terms dwarf, semi-dwarf, or standard. In other words, a dwarf Cara Cara orange tree would still be bigger than a dwarf Kishu mandarin tree because orange trees are always relatively bigger than mandarin trees. So maybe the terms were being used in a relative sense. I was experienced enough with citrus in 2014 to know that, in general, orange trees grow bigger than mandarin trees. ![]() One dwarf citrus tree will grow to 10 feet while another dwarf might get to 5 at most? Remember, the Cara Cara grown by Durling and labeled dwarf was said to reach 10 feet. But the tag said it would only be 3-5 feet tall at maturity. ( It is the best fruit tree for kids, as I wrote about here.) I found a Kishu grown by Durling and labeled dwarf. So what if we compare two different trees grown by the same nursery? Are they consistent in their use of the terms within the nursery? Another variety I wanted to plant along the driveway was a Kishu mandarin. The term is not regulated or standardized by the industry. (Almost all citrus trees we buy in Southern California were grown by these two Southern California-based nurseries.) Maybe they just have different opinions of how tall dwarf is. These two Cara Cara trees were grown by different nurseries, the dwarf by Durling and the semi-dwarf by La Verne. Huh? Then what’s the difference between dwarf and semi-dwarf, if they both grow to 10 feet? Another Cara Cara tree had a tag that said it was dwarf and would mature at 10 feet tall. One Cara Cara tree had a tag that said it was semi-dwarf and would mature at 10 feet tall. ![]() I knew that one variety I would plant was the Cara Cara navel orange, so I visited nurseries as well as a nearby Home Depot. ![]()
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