My sister bought a house in LA with a lot of your standard southern Cal fruit in the front yard. She’s the type of gardener that could melt a plastic cactus, so she doesn’t care very much, but she also wants to be healthy and just had a baby boy she wants to teach good habits to. She’s dismissed the orange tree in her yard as not being very good, but both my mom and I remember it as having been good right when she bought the house. I’m thinking a combination of not knowing exactly when to harvest as well her lawn guy wildly over irrigating has lead to huge watery fruit. I’m trying to figure out exactly what advice to give her to make the fruit something she’d like. The fruit are huge, almost like sweet small grapefruit, and they “hang” in the skin, like the skin was a big sack the fruit is loosely dragging down into a tear drop shape. She’s been there about a year and a half now, and probably hasn’t thinned or deliberately harvested anything that hasn’t just fallen. She’s in LA county, her tree is blooming now, if that helps identify it or give advice on when the “ideal” harvest period might be.
She sent me these pictures:
My feeling is they need to harvest as much as they can right now and kinda start over with a new full tree of fruit since it’s blooming, then thin it back and cut back on their watering over all, and fork in some bone meal possibly. They have a beautiful Avocado, some kind of small sweet lime, and this giant orange tree. I’d love to help them get some use out of the previous owner’s hard work and loving care, in no small part because I’m super jealous of their trees.
Based on the description and photos, this tree is most likely a Minneola tangelo (hybrid of Duncan grapefruit and Dancy mandarin). Very, very popular here in S. California, especially back when the tree was planted. It is very, very good. I would recommend always picking the fruit from January through March. She can use a good granular fertilizer formulated for citrus. All fruit should be picked, so the next round of fruit can be produced. By allowing fruit to sit on the tree too long, you can force a tree into alternate bearing, and of course, you’ll get less than optimal fruit. It is in need of fertilizing, and your sister should apply fertilizer about 3 to 4 times a year, from late January/early February, through about October. It appears this tree is planted in a lawn, which is not optimal for many reasons. Mainly, due to competition for nutrients by the grass. And, of course, you sure do not want the tree to absorb any herbicides (broadleaf weed killer) or insecticides that might be applied to a lawn. I would see if your sis can lay down mulch under the tree out to the drip line (edge of canopy), and make sure no sprinklers are hitting the trunk, as that can cause serious, even fatal damage to the bark.
http://www.citrusvariety.ucr.edu/citrus/minneola.html
Patty S.
Minneola tangelo is my favorite citrus. They are really good out of Florida too. They are in the grocery stores now and are divine. To me, they are so very beautiful.
it takes a bit of effort to actually kill anything green in so cal. One of the few places in usa where one will see fruitful papaya trees growing feral, often as volunteers around dumpsters, totally ignored. Even by the vagabond alcoholics who’d best benefit from the fruits as refreshing and vitamin/electrolyte-rich treatment for hangovers…
citrus and avocados are way tougher and much longer-lived than papayas, so all your sister needs to do is water when dry, and maybe prune a little bit.
going back to her citrus, it does look like a tangelo. Would you have pictures of the fruits’ cross-section and longitudinal cuts?
Thank you! It sounds like a perfect tree for her. Too old to kill, low maintenance, and yet if she puts a very very little bit of love into it she can be highly rewarded and encouraged to do more! Hopefully, this time next year she’ll have a box of them to ship me ::cough::
my mom has citrus in phx, az, which has a more hostile growing conditions than so cal, and like your sister, her working motto has been-- and for the past 10 years-- ‘just add water’
avocados are tougher to grow in phx, btw.
