Florida Garden

Ruby Red Grapefruit

Originally planted a Hirado Buntan Pummelo Pink in August 2010 but replaced it with a Ruby Red Grapefruit in December 2012 after the Hirado Buntan Pummelo Pink lost its bark just below the ground level.

Grapefruit Tree August 2013

This grew and then died back. Seems to be holding in there but not much more.

Grapefruit Tree November 2012

Replaced the Hirado Buntan Pummelo Pink with a Ruby Red Grapefruit tree I got from Walmart for $10. The Hirado Buntan Pummelo Pink was basically dead. I think I might have planted it too deep and the base of the tree rotted. It had quite good roots but there was a clear junction in the bark which had either rotted away or suffered from a bacteria or virus. The top bark had tried to root but they were not too deep. Not sure why it died but I transplanted it to a quiet corner where it might survive. Thats two years lost. Should have taken a photo of the base, it was quite clear what had happened.

The new Ruby Red Grapefruit is tiny but im ever hopeful.

Hirado Buntan Pummelo Pink October 2012

Think I have figured out why this is not growing. I think it has collar rot. You can see from the photos that the bark is sort of missing from below the ground level. Worse than that but I think i snapped one of the fine roots that was linking it to the soil. There appears to be another one so there is still hope. Much of this comes from me piling up mulch around all my plants thinking that was the thing to do.

February 2012

As unexciting as ever. Not sure this will ever grow.

November 2011

From memory (its Dec in darkest England, bbbrrr) this is not doing much. Its sitting there like a sulking child not growing at all. At least its not dieing.

Hirado Buntan Pummelo Pink

Seems to be doing OK. After planting it in August and coming back in December I noted that like most of the citrus I planted at that time it had lost many of its leaves, its growing now but I think that the hot weather was not good for it. In fact, I often seem to arrive just in time to save many of my plants. I like to run a garden that can take care of itself, it has to, im 8-10 thousand miles away most of the time, so most of the time they really are on their own.

The first photo is the Pomello today in April 2011, as you can see it has leaves. The one to the right is a group photo after getting back from the garden shop, the Pomello is actually in the front just a bit left of center on the green concrete thing (which I have repainted since). The third picture was of a huge branch that fell out of the sky onto my lovely orange trees squashing them, but you can see the pomello just to the right in the background, with clear absense of leaves. The third photo was taken in December 2010.