Gardening - Hipster Homesteaders

What Indoor Grow Light is Better? Arms vs. Vertical

When we decided to get into growing tropical fruit trees in containers, we knew we’d have to bring the trees inside for winter.

In being in Zone 6b/7, most of our citrus and other tropical plants cannot tolerate our winters, and have to come inside from roughly November to April/May every year.

We are fortunate to live on a south-facing hill that gets plenty of natural light, but we are aware that even the best windows in our house can only go far. So we supplement lighting with additional grow lights placed near the trees, particularly to provide extra light to the sides that are away from the windows.

After trying flexible grow light arms and vertical grow lights, we thought we’d compare the two here for those who may be deciding what is the best to purchase!

After buying many, many fruit trees to grow at our house, both in containers (such as tropical fruit trees) and in the ground (more suitable fruit trees for our climate), we have certainly learned a lot.

Some of that has to do with the first things you should be doing once you receive a plant at your house, as transplant shock on trees is a very real issue that could have long-term impacts.

So in this one, we thought we’d share five things you should consider doing after receiving a fruit tree at your house- most of which should be done before planting or transplanting to a more permanent container!

Note: We’ll have some commentary here that may only be applicable for different cases, including buying a tree at a local nursery vs having one shipped in a box as well as putting a tree in the ground vs growing in a pot. Your mileage may vary on whether all of these are necessary.

Before getting into growing citrus and tropical fruit trees, I admit that I thought it would be a much easier undertaking.

Yes, I know that growing tropicals in pots in Zone 6b/7 is sometimes a lesson in futility. And, yes, I knew I would deal with some struggles, particularly around bringing the plants inside during the winter.

Three things I did not expect, however, were how much these trees consume nutrients, how bad pests (in our area at least) could be, and associated disease pressures that would still need to be managed.

So over time I built up a nice little collection of fertilizers (both macro and single nutrient) as well as insecticides to help keep my trees as vibrant and healthy as they can be. So in this one, I thought I’d talk about each and why they will likely be needed at some point in your future.

After buying a bunch of fruit trees to grow on our hill, and even more tropical plants to grow in containers that we bring inside every winter, we thought it’d just be a waiting game until the trees matured enough to produce fruit.

For many of our fruit trees, vines, and bushes, this was exactly the case- they just needed time to mature into a fruiting plant.

But for some, they would flower, seemingly get pollinated, and the flowers would drop off time and time again.

If you are having this issue with your own fruiting plant, we have some things to look for that could explain why you are not getting fruit!

Note: Much of the logic below applies to many fruit-bearing plants be it a fruit tree, vine, cactus, or bush. Some of the factors below affect certain plant species more than others, so you may need to take a closer look at your specific plant variety to further diagnose the issue. That said, we’re going to share some examples from the plants we have seen with these issues in our own garden all the same.

After keeping potted citrus trees for several years now, with most starting to reach mature production (and a few others just starting to set fruit), we certainly have seen it all.

Overwatering? Yep. Underwatering our citrus tree? You know it. Citrus pests? Every single year. Rootstock attempting to overtake the grafted tree? That too.

Just when it started to feel like we got a handle on all of these issues, we ran into another one once our trees started to flower- our pruning schedule became more important than ever!

So in this one, we wanted to talk more about all the ways we prune citrus trees in pots, and highlight one very important detail that you should not overlook- do not prune new growth if you want fruit!

Although we live in the city, our house is found on a hill with a decent number of trees and other weeds within our neighborhood which, naturally, is often home to several families of deer.

For the most part, the deer had left our little garden plot alone. But every now and again, they come in with a vengeance and decimate our crops. Fruit trees, kiwi vines, hops, you name it, they ate it.

So much like our tests for keeping a raccoon off our deck we tried several things to keep deer out of our garden!

Although this one wasn’t as black and white with the results, we do have some thoughts on each of the products we tried. That said, keep in mind you may need to try more than one!

Oh, fruit tree pests, sometimes you’re the bane of my existence.

For a few years, I tried treating my fruit tree pests with spray bottles of Neem, insecticidal soap, and horticultural oil, with mixed results. I’d spray, see a slight reduction in pests (notably aphids, mealybugs, and scale). But wait a short period of time, and the bugs would come back with a vengeance, causing particular damage when my citrus trees were brought inside during the winter months.

After going through bottle after bottle of the sprays, which can run north of $10 per bottle for a pre-mixed solution, I went apoplectic on one plant one day that had a mealybug infestation. Squirt after squirt (after squirt), I sprayed them as much as I possibly could, using most of a single bottle, and something interesting happened- I noticed a bigger reduction in the pests than I had before.

It was here that I had a lightbulb moment- it wasn’t the sprays themselves that were the problem, but rather that I was likely not applying them nearly liberally enough (or possibly even frequently enough) to make a dent on the pests.

So I tossed the squirt bottles aside, upgraded to an industrial pump sprayer, bought some Neem and horticulture oil concentrates, and really blasted my trees with a good dousing.

The pest population dropped dramatically.

So in this one, let’s talk about why squirt bottles may not be getting you all the way there and why upgrading to a proper sprayer is a better option- both for effectiveness and cost.

As frequent travelers, one issue we’ve had with growing potted fruit trees is figuring out a watering plan for when we are away.

These plants are notoriously fickle with water, needing deep waterings with dry periods in between. Despite that, we found that while going away for a few days was often quite fine, being gone for 10 days or longer presented a challenge. No matter if the plants were indoors or out, we needed to water them, and leaving our watering up to others always poised a bit of an issue- namely, we don’t like to be a bother to our family and neighbors for as much as we travel.

It wasn’t until a friend recommended we pick up some self-watering stakes that we started to see a path forward. Water applied to our plants over time while we are away? We were in, and picked up a batch right away with some pretty encouraging results.

But, that being said, we had a few lessons learned when using these that we wanted to highlight to make sure you get the most out of your self-watering stakes.

When I wanted to expand my planted fruit tree garden on our hillside, I was limited on space relative to the sheer number of trees I wished I could plant. So, naturally, my first instinct was to look at combination fruit trees to get a little creative.

Combination fruit trees go by many names, and may be referred to as a fruit cocktail tree (with different species of fruit like lemons and limes) or a 3-in-1, 4-in-1, or even 5-in-1 fruit tree, typically with multiple varieties of the same fruit (like five different kinds of peaches).

There are many cons to these kinds of trees, I am not going to lie, but I took the risk on them for a 5-in-1 peach tree and a 4-in-1 cherry tree to help get more varieties in our limited space. In my research and acquisition, these are some important things you should consider before buying a combination fruit tree!

Looking to pick up a new tree? Check out Fast Growing Trees, where we buy our trees from!

Ever since buying a number of tropical and citrus fruit trees to grow in pots, I’ve struggled with figuring out an ideal watering frequency. Part of this is because they live indoors half the year and outside half the year, meaning they experience an array of conditions, but also because I have found that conventional advice may end one step too soon.

Sometimes I water my trees per recommended standards, and they hold water for a long time. Other times, they dry out almost immediately and start showing underwatering conditions. It wasn’t until I really started to pay attention that I made a few more crucial observations that helped me get my watering frequency under control.

Before diving into this one, I want to make two important caveats. First, the following is based only on observations for my own potted tropical fruit trees, which include several types of lemon, lime, mango, longan, guava, blood orange, kumquat, and more. They spend half the year indoors under grow lights and south-facing windows, and half the year outdoors. Second, commentary here is just a theory based on what I’ve noticed with my trees. Your mileage will vary.

So, with that in mind, let’s jump into some observations we’ve seen over the years!

What Indoor Grow Light is Better? Arms vs. Vertical

5 Things to Do After Buying a Potted Fruit Tree

10+ Fertilizers and Insecticides You Need for Citrus Trees

5 Reasons Your Fruit Trees, Bushes, and Vines May Not Fruit

Pruning Citrus Trees in Pots – Balance Tree Size vs Fruit

5 Deer Repellants to Protect Your Garden (and Which Work)

Insecticide Spray Not Working? You May Need a Better Sprayer

5 Tips for Getting the Most Out of Self-Watering Stakes

5 Things to Keep in Mind When Buying Combination Fruit Trees

How We Avoid Over and Underwatering Our Potted Citrus Trees