Nice Little Dancy

I picked up a nice little Dancy mandarin tree at Lowe's. We have been getting those tiny mandarins from the grocery store in those mesh bags that are so easy to peel in the winter, and the idea to have a tree filled with those fruit sounded awesome!

It was planted in a very large pot, and overwintered, and had a heavy flower load, then started dropping all of it's flowers, and in a panic I determined that I cannot grow fruit trees in pots because the irrigation when it is on the same cycle as the rest of the yard, it is too difficult to dial in. Well it is just too much water in a pot. The same amount of water in the yard is a different outcome so in the yard it had to go.

Now, next to the patio where I had taken out the Pink Lady seemed like a promising spot. I had already filled in that spot with a pineapple guava and I was pleased with the fact that this is a foundational spot, this is the corner of the yard, and to have an evergreen there for winter was something that was needed because that whole area loses any sign of life, the peach loses it's leaves, the asparagus and the cannas completely disappear, and all you have are a few vining branches of the orange tube flowering vines and some iris.

So I snuggled the mandarin in next to the pineapple guava, and between the two of them there is humidity for this baking hot corner, and I think it will fare okay in the long run. I particularly like the depth of the plantings in this corner.

Transplanting a tree with fruit was daunting, and it did drop a few but I think there are 4 left, and it will be the first fruit for this tree if they hold on!

Some of the leaves have curled, and I wonder about the water difference, and the location difference of sun and heat, and the mulch, how it pulls nitrogen to break down. There are all of these differences to have to isolate why a particular thing is happening, like why are the new leaves curling? So I am watching it to see if it modifies back to normal.  What do you think? Mulch? You know, even a bagged product of soil to add to the planting hole can rob your nitrogen. I think it is the soil I bought to add while planting.