Orchard People

[00:00:00] Introduction and Lemon Tree Experiment
Hi everyone. A few years ago I went out to a local nursery and I bought myself a lemon tree. Now that sounds all well and good until you realize that I actually live in a cold climate. Lemon trees can't survive our cold winters here in Toronto, but my goal was to grow that little tree indoors in the winter and outdoors in the summer.
It was an experiment, and it was a really fun one. That's because there is nothing that smells as magical as lemon tree blossoms. And to see the baby fruit growing into full grown and delicious lemons was so gratifying. The problem was that each year my little lemon tree got bigger and bigger, until finally it was taking over the small room that I'd put it in.
And despite the beautiful blossoms and delicious fruit, After a couple of years, I kissed that little tree goodbye and founded a new home in someone else's house. Now, as it turns out, my lemon tree experiment did not have to have a sad ending.
[00:01:05] Interview with Byron Martin: Growing Tropical Plants
Today I'm going to talk to Byron Martin of Logee's Tropical Plants in Danielson, Connecticut.
He's also the author of a book called Growing Tasty Tropical Plants in Any Home, Anywhere. So it is possible to grow tropical fruits in any climate if you know what plants to buy and how to care for them properly. So we're going to chat about that today. So let's dig into today's topic. Byron, welcome to the show today. Thank you. So you heard my story, Byron, earlier in the show. I had a somewhat fun, but failed experiment with a lemon tree here in Toronto.
[00:01:47] Light and Temperature Requirements for Tropical Plants
What are the most common I think that the biggest issue, of course, is with any plant, you need the light level, to maintain it.
And then secondary, as we're growing container plants, they have to have accurate or the needed watering cycle to keep them thriving. And then the third, of course, being the temperature that they're grown in, depending upon the species. many people listening to the show will say, Oh my gosh, what light level do I need?
I have a window, that isn't that good enough? how much, how many hours of light a day? yeah, so what do you mean by a good light level? of course, all plants have their own light needs, but generally, if we're trying to fruit plants, we need some direct sunlight. So in that case, it's a southern exposure or southeast southwest exposure.
Sometimes you can grow plants fine in less light, which would be east or west or maybe even north, but then you're going to diminish the ability for the plant to flower and fruit. of course, there's always instances where plants can be grown outside for the summer and moved in for the wintertime, where they hibernate or stay static, and then they're moved out again in the summer, and that does work for some species.
Yeah, I always wonder about that, because, here, with my lovely lemon tree, so it really, let's see, the window was, east facing. No, wait. Yes, it was east facing. So it got, that much light, but then in the summer, it's out in full sun, and you'd think it would be shocking to a plant that's not really used to, having a limited amount of sunlight during the day.
there's the maintenance level for plants, and of course, for those of us in the northern, temperate areas of the country, our light level actually gets so low that a plant won't even grow. At the depth of winter, which is December and January. So it's really a holding pattern no matter what you're doing.
and then, of course, as the season progresses and light level comes up, even an east window can grow plants fairly well. again, as I mentioned, a lot of the, light is, predicated upon whether it'll fruit or not. So Obviously plants that are in lower light have a more difficult time. As far as citrus goes, they are very well adapted to this, indoor window situation and outdoor in the summertime.
[00:04:31] Choosing the Right Cultivar and Container
So yes, so citrus, and in terms of citrus and other plants, how important is it to choose the right cultivar? Or can you randomly, go to your, plant store and just pick one, or do you have to carefully consider which cultivar, which variety of that plant you're going to choose? Exactly. And that's one of the reasons why we wrote the book and our experience with growing fruiting plants and containers.
There's a wide variety of, species and cultivars in every genera or every species that will adapt to a container or to the home environment and those that won't. And some of the limitations, of course, are the size of the plant. it's hard to grow trees that grow to 60 feet in a small container and get them to fruit, not necessarily impossible, but it can be more challenging.
So our work over the years has been trying to select those plants, in the many different species of fruiting tropicals that actually do well in containers. Aha. And do you, guys buy in these cultivars or do you develop cultivars yourself, across pollinating different plants. Like, how does that process go?
I can't say I've ever done any hybridizing, although we do breeding here at Logee's, of, fruiting plants per se. Most of ours is searching things out and selecting them and of course, when you get to know a plant, after you've grown it for a while, you know the pollination needs of it, as well as the cultural needs.
Yes, exactly.
[00:06:11] Listener Questions: Buying Tropical Plants in Canada
We just got an email from Roger on Howe Island, Ontario. Question, Logee's doesn't ship to Canada. Is there a good place where I can buy tropical plants in Canada? I don't really have an answer to that, and I'm really sorry that we can't ship into Canada. We used to years ago, but it became too problematic with the movement of mail.
So I do know that if you search online, there have been a few companies there. I haven't looked recently that were selling tropical fruiting plants. they may still be in business. This was probably four or five years ago that I looked into it. so I certainly do an online search for Canadian suppliers as such.
And I'm sorry, but, at the moment, it's not something that's going to come forward. Immediately, anyway, in our business. Yes, and, to, to Roger, if you find a place, that's good, I know there is a place in Toronto somewhere, I can't remember the name, then email me. I would love to know info at orchardpeople.
com so I can share that information when we post the podcast of this show. We have a question from May. I have a nearly 60 year old grapefruit tree here in Toronto. Oh my goodness, that I grew from seed as a kid. It has never bloomed. Can I graft a branch from another citrus tree? Would that produce any fruit?
My tree is inside in the winter with extra light and on the back deck in the summer. Wow, what a great experiment. I really love that. Congratulations for 60 years of culturing a plant and still having it. And the answer, of course, is yes, you can graft a branch. most of the citrus that, or all of the citrus that we grow are clonal propagations, either through cutting or grafting, and that gives you a much quicker flowering and fruiting plant. An example for your grapefruit, if you had started with a graft, 60 years ago, it would have probably fruited in two or three years. we had a tangerine seedling in our greenhouses that, went for 60 years and it finally did fruit.
it was passed along to us from a friend of the family, and it took it that long to, come into fruit. So where would she get a branch to graft onto her grapefruit tree? You're going to have to find somebody that has a grapefruit that fruits and if certainly if you were nearby.
Danielson here in Connecticut. I would give you some scion wood is what they call it to do the grafting but being in Canada, you need to find somebody that's growing fruit and grapefruit and there you can get your scion wood to do the graft. So a couple of suggestions on my part is that there is a group called the North American Fruit Explorers, NAFEX, and they have a Facebook page, they have a website, and that's fruit growers from all over North America and beyond.
So you could probably find, put out a notice saying what you're looking for and you could probably get it. And also I know in Allan Gardens here in, if you're anywhere near Toronto, we've got a garden. I think they've got some tropical fruit there and maybe they would give you a cutting. So that's a fun experiment.
You've got to tell us how it works. I'd love to know. We've got an email as well from Chuck. Hi, listening from Vancouver, BC, where can we get Byron's book? P. S. Love Byron's accent. That's nice. So where can people get your book? It is a really fun book. I really have enjoyed reading it and looking at it. We sell it at Logee.
So you can go to our website and we can ship it to you. I believe it's probably on Amazon. So those would be two places to get it. Not sure where else. We do sell it here, though, at the greenhouse. Okay, so that's good. And you can ship books to Canada. Yes. and here's an email. We got a lot of Canadian emails today in the beginning of the show.
Mark sent an email. Hi to both of you. Mark from Montreal. My apartment does not get a lot of direct sunlight.
[00:10:37] Listener Questions: Pollination and Artificial Lighting
Is it possible to replace direct sunlight with artificial light? If yes, how many hours a day? Thanks. Good question, Mark. That is a really good question. the answer is yes. And, generally in lighting.
you give them 16 hours a day of direct, artificial light on the plant. And even though you may have a window nearby, where they are getting some light coming in, you want to keep that light on during that 16 hour period. the only Variable in that is if you need something that has to flower on a shortened day length, so then you need to follow normal photo period or have your light on when the sun comes up and turn it off when the sun goes down.
Generally, because we do use artificial lighting a little bit in the greenhouses, generally it doesn't work quite as well as full sun, but it will do the trick in terms of keeping your plant growing and keeping it thriving through the wintertime. On that same track, we have an email here from Norman in Toronto.
He says, can you supplement indoors with LED lighting? If so, have you done it and tested it? And can you recommend the spectrums? So do you have to consider what type of bulb you're using? Will it make a difference? yes, I don't know a lot about LEDs, other than that. They're used in the cannabis industry quite a bit and people are using them in indoor growing.
We don't use them in the greenhouses because the expense of putting the units in, but in horticulture, there are, growers that have put them in and install them. And when you're growing plants, you want a very broad spectrum of light. You don't want one single wavelength coming in, like a normal LED light.
And they do make them for horticulture. I think if you investigated a little bit online, you'd find all the information you'll need for doing something like that. Okay, and we have another question from Anthony. What about pollination of indoor plants? I always wondered that with my lemon tree, how it pollinated itself. what about pollination of indoor plants? Do we have to choose self pollinating plants, or do we have to do it by hand? Thank you, Anthony.
There's some variability in, plants and their ability to pollinate themselves in an indoor environment and some that, can benefit from hand pollination, generally like your lemon tree there. It will, Self pollinate. the miracle fruit that we have, which is wind pollinated.
Actually, you need to rustle the branches when it's in flower. And then, there are times when a paintbrush is very good. When you can get it the midday and the flowers are open, you can go from flower to flower on certain types of plants. It's worked for us on, the cocoa, Theobroma, the chocolate tree, and it's also worked quite well for avocados.
Yeah. Avocados. Oh my gosh. Can you imagine? I would love to grow those inside. That sounds great. And we'll talk about that in a little bit.
[00:13:52] Beginner-Friendly Tropical Plants
Danielle writes, Hi, I'm in Woodbine, maryland and wondering what some of the easier tropical fruit trees are to grow.
So let's go into the nitty gritty. What are the beginner ones? What's the easiest one to start off with? I actually think a lemon tree as long as you have a sunny window, the lemon or the lime is a good plant to start with for two reasons. One, they bear very young. And, both the lemon and the lime fruit, almost continuously, or flower almost continuously throughout the year.
And they grow continuously. And this is, Different than our other edible citrus like grapefruits or oranges or tangerines. They also can handle a wide variety of temperatures. So they can be grown in a warm house. They can be grown in a cooler house without any problem. And, we were talking about pollination.
They do self pollinate. So there's really no need to be fussing around with trying to get them to self fruit. the other one that comes to mind is the coffee tree, which is a very good indoor plant. And, it's very easy to grow under lower light. We all know shade grown coffee. And shade grown coffee is actually grown under the trees.
And in our homes, we have a lot of shade. this was something that would do very well in the east to west window, during wintertime, moved out in the summertime, of course. And they can become quite prolific in the, beans or the cherries that they produce once they get older. So really, for me, a coffee tree, what a great idea.
But really, how much coffee are you going to get out of your little house plant coffee tree? will you get? a cup or two out of the results? you probably get more than a cup. Larger trees, generally we don't grow them any more than five or six feet and then we prune them back. So you don't want them to get so big that they overtake the house and coffees also respond very well to pruning.
when the trees are in fruit, there's a good quart or two of beans or cherries that you can pick off of that and so you distill that down and you've probably got a cup to a pint of, of hulled, coffee beans. And then, of course, you have to go through the roasting process. there's quite a few cups of coffee there.
the trick, of course, to making good coffee is the roasting process, which, if you don't have a lot of experience in it, it can be an interesting journey. Yeah, I was just wondering, how will this coffee taste compared to your favorite coffee from your favorite coffee shop? Or, But I guess just it's the fact that you grew it yourself.
Whether it's perfect coffee or not, you did that. You grew those beans. The interesting thing about coffee is it's not only the coffee that you get from it, but it also goes through these flushes of flowers usually once or twice a year. And those flowers are intensely fragrant. So when your coffee tree isn't flowering in the house, it really fills the growing area with fragrance.
Which is very dense, at least the Arabica forms have a very dense growth habit to them. they become these, when they're not in fruit or flower, they become these beautiful indoor specimens, usually grown with a central leader and lateral branches, like a Christmas tree. so they do make a great indoor specimen, even when they're just being a plant.
I think it's such a fun idea. With regards to lemons, I've always wondered that when I have managed to, when I did buy the lemon tree, it was a Meyer lemon tree. And why are those so popular? Are they just, a cultivar that kind of can be smaller and more compact for a home? Or is it because of the flavour that they're popular for houseplants?
the Meyer lemon is actually not a true lemon. It's a hybrid between a lemon and a sour orange. It was imported into the country during the turn of the last century from China. Meyer has a richer taste to it. If you have the two lemons together and you cut them open, there's a significant difference in the flavor, Meyer being more lemony, I guess would be the way to say it.
They also have, more cool tolerance. So lemons are, lemons and many of the limes, like key lime, are very sensitive to low temperatures. Whereas the Meyer lemon can actually take some freezing. This is in areas where they grow them outdoors. so for those two reasons, and I do think that, For the culinary use, they've become quite popular, probably in the last decade or two where more and more people were seeking them out, for eating and so on.
Yeah, because you can't really, I don't think you, can you buy them in the supermarkets? I don't know if, if it's common. But I guess, again, it's fun to have an interesting cultivar. You grew it yourself and you can do fun things with it, Yeah, mark wrote back again from Montreal.
[00:18:59] Advanced Tropical Plant Care: Fertilization and Pruning
Can your guests talk a bit about fertilizers?
Please do citrus need special fertilization? How about other plants like guava and pomegranate? And the second question, I believe fig trees will not produce indoors any other plants to avoid cultivating inside. Good questions. Plants need fertilizer, particularly those that are growing in containers.
The only way that plant is going to get its nutrients is from you, the gardener. Whereas plants that are outdoors can always have root systems that are expanding into new soil. And of course there's a, there's a buildup of soil and nutrients just from the normal process of season. Generally, I always recommend an organic fertilizer, granular fertilizer, for two reasons.
They are less likely to burn plants in containers and, a little, being a little gentler on the root system. it also supports, ecological growing and the environment when we demand that from the state of commerce. in terms of, the nutrients, you want to make sure that your fertilizer has a balanced ratio of nutrients.
And that doesn't mean it has to be like a 10 10 10, but make sure that you're not lopsided on the nitrogen side. That tends to induce leaves rather than flowers. Make sure that the numbers are fairly uniform. There are plants that don't do well as container plants to fruit indoors. figs can actually fruit very well in containers, but they do like that cold weather during the wintertime.
ideally, as an example of a fig, you can grow it in a pot. And you can successfully fruit it, but it's not something that you want to keep in a 70 degree house. It would grow for you, but it really likes that dormancy or that rest. And then the initial growth that comes out right after that is where your figs start to form.
Yeah, we have actually a while back, and Mark, you may want to go back and listen to the show that we did on figs. And that was maybe a couple of years ago, but it was a really good show. Lots of details about, A friend of mine, Steve Biggs, who grows God knows how many figs. He leaves them in his basement in the winter and doesn't do much with them and puts them out in the summer and has a fig harvest like nobody's business.
In Toronto. Amazing.
[00:21:41] Unique Tropical Plants: Kumquats and Pomegranates
So Byron, we talked a little bit about, easier to grow plants like lemon trees, even a coffee tree might be interesting to grow.
Let's talk about some interesting options. And I also got an email here from Cliff who asks, what can you tell us about kumquats, especially me. I don't know if I pronounced that M E I M E I. And then Cliff asks, can you smoke any of these fruits? I have no idea what he's talking about, but maybe you do.
That was smoke? Yes. I don't know what Cliff is up to in his spare time, something about smoking fruits, but, very strange. Kumquats are really great citrus to grow in containers. you're going to get a grafted plant when you buy them, and you don't want to grow them from seed, although kumquats will actually come into fruit.
there are four varieties of kumquats, and I believe that he's probably talking about Meiwa, M E I W A, I think is the way it's spelled. pronounced or spelled. And that is actually a kumquat that is sweet through the entire fruit. the normal kumquat that we see in commerce is Nagami, and that has a sour interior and a sweet rind.
Whereas the Meiwa are actually a sweet like candy all the way through. and there's also a variety called Changshou, which is a much larger form of the Meiwa. The Meiwa is actually not as easy to cultivate and does have issues in cultivation, whereas the Nagami tends to be a much stronger grower. And I believe that's probably the reason why we don't see it, it's availability and also it's, availability in terms of fruit in the market.
place and also why it's a lesser grown cultivar, as a plant. Now, I don't think I've ever tasted a kumquat. What I understand, they're little tiny, little mini citrus fruits where you can eat the whole thing, the skin, everything. Is that what it is or? Yes. they're a small fruit, probably about an inch and a half long, oblong.
The Nagami is oblong. we have a tree in our retail greenhouses that is probably one of the oldest in the greenhouse. It, came in the 1930s, and it was given to the family by an elderly woman, so it's, right now it's probably well over 100, 125 years old. And It covers itself, and they're prolific fruiters, kumquats are, and in the winter time, right about now, usually around Christmas, the tree is just dripping with fruit every year.
It's interesting that the flowers are very fragrant on that, and it's a little bit off cycle to most citrus. It flowers in the summertime rather than the spring or late winter. The fruit is, that particular cultivar is very tart inside like a lemon, and yet when you eat it, you can eat the entire fruit with the skin, which is sweet.
and, they're quite good. You can actually find them in the stores, and they ship them up from the south, during this Christmas season. So if you had a little plant, a kumquat plant in your window, not a huge tree, would you get a decent harvest out of it, or are you going to get three kumquats a year or something?
No, you would get quite a few kumquats. A four or five foot tree, which is about all you could probably fit in your window, probably give you three or four quats when they're in full fruit. And, again, it's something that you move out in the summertime, and they set fruit during the summer, and then you move them in for the wintertime.
So when is harvest? They're very strong growers. When is the harvest then? Sorry, the harvest would be in the winter then, or? Yeah, they're usually around Christmas. We still have them right now. We still have our tree still has fruit on it. Of course, everything that's within reach has been picked off by this time of year, but up in the top of the tree, it's still loaded with fruit.
And what about something, oh my goodness, dwarf pomegranates? that sounds to me like it has to be a pretty big tree. actually it's not. Dwarf pomegranates, are actually great bonsai subjects. Because they, being dwarfs, they grow quite small. There's two things about the dwarf pomegranate.
One is that, they are sour. Not very sweet, the fruit isn't, and that's typical of a lot of rogue pomegranates that are grown from seed and such. Sweetness is something that, like in many fruits, has been selected. the other thing is, pomegranates, the type we buy in the store, generally have to go through a chill period in order to, fruit.
they have to have, 400 hours of chill, and that's usually temperatures, below 40, to get the buds to form. The dwarf pomegranate doesn't. It'll fruit right in the, home situation. and, pomegranates are not heavy fruiting plants anyway, if you ever see production on those in our, western states, California and such, the trees are not like dripping with them like, a apple tree does, or even an orange tree.
And so the dwarf pomegranate is the same way. A young tree may hold four or five fruit, in a container that's six feet, excuse me, six inches, and the plant itself is two or three feet tall. What, out of all these ones we've talked about, and all the ones you write in your book, what is the most compact plant that you can grow of all these wonderful tropical plants. You can grow in a window, get a decent harvest, but small, the smallest thing you can grow.
Let's see. We have a very interesting plant called the Australian Beach Cherry. It's a Eugenia. And it's obscure, but it is really a great plant for containers in terms of the amount of fruit you can get off of it and, the size of the plant itself. The plant in a container for us never grows above three, three and a half feet tall, and that would be an older specimen.
The only challenge to it is it's grown from seed. And so it takes a few years before you actually can get production off of it. But they have a shiny hard leaf which lends to growing under lower humidity and having a certain amount of drought stress. They're native to northern Australia and to some of the islands around Indonesia.
Beach cherry is that they're actually found close to the coastline, so they have a fair amount of salt tolerance to them. The plants that we grow, our mother plants that we grow, can have hundreds of fruit on them over a period of a year. And it also, the fruiting goes on for a long time. I think we just harvested our last fruit, probably about a month ago.
And then by the time we get into spring, This thing will stop putting out fruit. And then another flower cycle comes by and they put out more fruit. It's in the myrtle family and some of the myrtles, fruiting myrtle type plants are in the Myrtaceae family have to have cross pollination. This one actually does very well in terms of self pollination.
That's actually one of my favorites. The only challenges I mentioned is it does take a while from a young plant to get it up to flowering and fruiting size. And sorry, what does the fruit taste like? Is it a sweet or a sweet fruit or? The fruit is a little round, like a cherry.
It's red and it's very sweet, has a large seed inside, probably larger than a cherry. but it has a lot of sugar to it. it's really a delight to eat them. And, In our work here, we save all the seeds because that's how we reproduce them. So sometimes it's a grower's job to just go in and eat, beach cherries for a while and collect the seed.
That's a nice job. That sounds pretty good. we got an email back from May. she was the one who wrote us about her, 60 year old grapefruit tree that she grew from seed. Anyway, she says, I have found a lime tree at Plant World on Eglinton between Jane and Royal York. That's here in Toronto. She said, I didn't buy it because it was over a hundred dollars.
So we were talking about where in Canada you could get. this type of tropical plant, what are the prices like, is it a big investment to get a tropical plant to, to grow at home? that depends upon, the size that you're buying. a hundred dollar, lemon or lime tree is probably a pretty good sized plant that's been grown for a number of years.
The longer a plant has grown, the more, the cost is and the more expensive it is to the grower. So certainly starting if you're a gardener and you love watching plants grow, which most of us gardeners do, starting with a smaller plant can be rewarding and also cost effective, but it's not unusual for very old container plants to be as expensive as that as 100.
So we would expect a big tree out of that.
[00:31:30] Caring for Tropical Plants Indoors
Byron, let's just talk in a little bit more detail about what's involved in caring for your tropical plant. I grow fruit trees in my local park, in my garden, and there is so much involved in fruit tree care. You've got to prune them annually. You've got to feed them annually and more so you've got to consider pest and disease problems.
so how, to what extent are these still issues when you're growing your tropical plant indoors? They are all issues, then some are greater than other depending upon what you grow. Pest and disease would be an example of that. some plants are prone to, certain insects and to a lesser degree some diseases, while others tend to be pretty free of it.
we did mention coffee that has a very resilient root system. so root disease, which is usually one of the bigger, Problems in any plant in the container is really not an issue with a coffee plant, whereas citrus, you're talking about lemons, they can actually have a lot of problems with that. And that's up to the grower to be able to culture around that as a way to keep the plant growing and be healthy.
you'd think in Toronto, for instance, here in Toronto, I grow my lemon tree, I bring it outside, and we don't have lemon trees growing outside on the whole, so would there even be pests that are attracted to these plants? they'd have to fly all the way. generally the big challenges in citrus growing are scale, which if you grow it outside in Toronto, you're probably not going to have problems with that unless it's, there's an infected plant nearby.
and then we have mealybug, which is, the nemesis of all of us that grow container plants. That again is a bug that has to be brought in on something. So a plant that you got. That had it got near that citrus tree and jumped over to it. And the third one is our spider mites, which, are, outside in the summertime and often get on the plants, during the summer.
And then we bring them indoors. Now, outside there's biological controls, there's predators that are feeding on them and so on. When you bring them in, that usually shifts the environment so that they become a problem. Generally. I recommend is to do a preventative spraying with, an oil. I'll define horticultural oil or neem oil.
before you bring them in, give them a couple sprays in the, late summer and then move them inside. And that usually arrests most of your insect problems. That would be an example of one plant, that you could work with. Now don't many of these insects, they also get into the soil. So you can spray your plant, but they might be happily living in the soil of their potted plant.
generally that's not an issue. in horticulture, Canadian horticulture, we do have some soil insects. the most annoying of them are fungus gnats and shore flies. they do feed on the roots to some degree. Most of them are living on the organic matter in the soil. and that's something that would obviously be something you could pick up from outside and bring it in.
both of those insects as soil insects, can be managed simply with dryness. So if you regulate your watering properly, you bring the plant down to dryness or near dryness between waterings, soak it up good and then let it go through another dry cycle. The larvae cycle of those two insects can't thrive, and that diminishes them.
It's always a wet, damp soil where, they become a problem. other than that, there's really not a lot of soil insects that, bother plants and containers. I'm sure there's some grubs that would get in the summertime, rose chafers and, other such things, but generally they're not really an issue.
And what about pruning? So how important is pruning? And I'm talking about pruning the top of the tree, not the roots. pruning is as important. It's probably not, it's not as important as when you're growing fruit trees outside. In terms of fruit production, but pruning has its place in a container plant, mainly because it will do two things.
It can create form for you. in terms of the beauty of the plant, and it also can limit its height. but that would become, specific to each species or cultivar. for instance, olives are really great plants if you've got a cold place to winter them over in. And by that you'd need to have a room that, or a grow room that got down to near freezing, preferably below 40.
during the wintertime and then, if you grow them for a number of years, these plants are going to get so big, you can't even fit them into their growth space. And, that actually takes some pruning to head them back, but they flower on the summer's growth. So you have to be like any fruit tree that's outside.
If you're pruning in the wintertime, you have to be cognitive of where your flowers are going to form in the springtime. Yeah, so you have to really understand a little bit about the, sort of the biology of the plant and, you don't want to cut off all your potential fruit. Correct. Yeah, so Anthony from Baltimore wrote back again.
Okay, so this is a good question. It's linked to what I was going to ask. Do we have to transplant into a bigger pot periodically? And my part of it is, do we have to root prune to keep it small into the smaller pot? So is that a way we measure? The interesting thing about container plants is the size of the container you grow in will restrict, to some degree, the size of the plant.
for instance, if you were going to spend the money on buying a dwarf lemon tree, grafted onto a dwarf rootstock, it probably isn't worth the expense. Whereas a standard citrus tree, lemon or whatever it is, grown in a container, will restrict the size of the plant. To a degree. there is some pruning that's needed to maintain some height on it, but there's going to be a restriction.
And I always go back to the example of the bonsai, which is, 400 year old tree that's kept in this tiny little pot forever. And it's done by root pruning and top pruning and then fitting into the size of the container. As far as root pruning goes, some plants respond very well to it.
Generally, I don't bother with it. we just allow the plants to grow. So they fill the pot up with roots and the roots continue to grow. some very fast growing plants can actually push themselves out of the pot. The roots grow so fast. In that case, if you wanted to maintain that plant in that pot for that window, you're going to need to root prune it.
And you want to do that at the very beginning of the growth season. Obviously, whenever you're root pruning, you're going to cut off a percentage of the root ball, and you're also going to trim the top back equally so that this plant isn't too stressed. Generally, I don't do a lot of root pruning on our fruiting tropical plants, and you don't necessarily recommend that people need to keep putting them in bigger and bigger pots and making the bigger you only want to put them in as big a pot as they're going to fit into the space that you're growing in.
And as I mentioned that Australian beach cherry, that could be maintained in an 8 inch pot, 6 inch pot for a very long period of time. If you were going to, try something, Like a papaya tree, you could grow them in a tiny little pot and they'll stay as a tiny little plant, but they won't really give you much fruit.
there's variables in that. Just always think, just always go back to the bonsai and in how that's maintained and that will give you the size of the container and the plant that you want. That makes sense. Now earlier, I mentioned that as I was flipping through the book and really enjoying it, there was something called a peanut butter fruit.
You've got to tell me what it is. Okay. the genus is Bunchosia. it's a fruiting plant, I believe from the new world. And, it puts out, it's an upright grower with, pointed plant shaped leaves. And it puts out these clusters of yellow flowers, which are followed by, these red fruit, probably about an inch, and a half long, that have a sweet, outside pulp.
Sort of is like peanut butter. I, wouldn't buy it to think that you're going to really get the peanut butter out of it, but it's a name that got tacked on to it. they're quite good eating and in our culture here, they produce a seed, but it's not viable. So most of the interior of the plant is, pulp rather than seed.
they're very good eating. they don't produce very well, unless they get to be big plants. So if you had a standard windowsill and you were growing it, the fruit production on it's going to be somewhat limited as opposed to having a conservatory that you could grow it in and allow it to get, eight feet tall or so.
I just have this, I can just imagine that working at your nursery must be the funnest job in the world. Do you guys spend all your time just eating tropical fruit that you grow yourself? Is that what the job is? Because it sounds fun. I eat a lot of them, for sure, but, it's a lot of fun working here, for sure.
not only the fruit, but just all the plants we grow. Yeah, big playground.
[00:41:58] Conclusion and Resources
And Byron, thank you so much for coming to chat with us on the show today. You're welcome. That was great. Yes, and thank you for
your book and all the resources and we wait for the day that you also can send your stuff to Canada.
That would be fun. that's good. Oh, I think we lost Byron. Okay, thank you everybody for tuning into the program today. That's it for today's episode of the Urban Forestry Radio Show and Podcast. I hope you enjoyed, and if you wanted to, enjoyed it, I hope, if you want to listen again or download other episodes, you can find them all at Orchardpeople.
com slash podcast. You can listen to previous episodes. We have an episode on figs. We even have an episode on lemon trees. You might want to listen to if you're interested in tropical plants. And if you're ready to up your fruit tree care game, you might want to check out my online fruit tree care training course.
My students include home growers, arborists, master gardeners, and lots of other people. The course is great for both beginner and intermediate level growers, and you can learn all about it at orchardpeople. com. You've been listening to the Urban Forestry Radio Show brought to you by Stark Brothers Nurseries and Orchards.
This is Reality Radio 101, and I'm Susan Poizner from OrchardPeople. com. Thank you so much for tuning in, and I look forward to digging into a new fruit tree care topic with you next month. See you then.
You've been listening to the Urban Forestry Radio Show on Reality Radio 101. To learn more about the show and to download the podcast where I cover lots more great topics, you can visit orchardpeople. com slash podcast. The show is broadcast live on the last Tuesday of every month, and each time I have great new guests talking to me about fruit trees, food forests, and arboriculture.
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Thank you for listening to the Urban Forestry Radio Show with your host, Susan Poizner. Right here on Reality Radio 101.