Citrus soil mix help

[Berengar]

I recently bought an Italian mandarine in a small pot, and I want to place it into something larger for the next few years. Mandarines do survive the winter here, but they need protection from the strong cold winds we often get. So we decided to delay placing it in the ground for a while.

I've read about the 5-1-1 mix, but unfortunately can't find pine bark except for large coloured stuff used as mulch. Would a slightly modified cactus mix work as well? I was thinking 30/30/30/10 - store bought potting soil / coco coir / perlite / hydroton. Is there some particular condition, like pH or something, I need to worry about? Any advice on minimising transplant stress, or any other usefull bits?

Thanks!

[2Deep2Handle]

Find the best premium potting mix u can in your area. For me it's Searles. The searles is actually better I've found for citrus than the Scott's osmocote citrus formulated potting mix. Water it in well with seaweed emulsion (seasol for me). Mulch with Lucerne or sugar cane depth of 25-40 mm , and leave a 100 mm diameter circle of no mulch around the trunk to stop collar rot. Mix in a handful of gypsum clay breaker to the soil if you want for the calcium, without modifying ph, which will already be right on and slightly acidic (6.3-6.5), perfect for MOST citrus. Don't use high nitrogen ferts in attempts to pump rapid growth, or the citrus leaf miner will savage the new flushes of light green, sap filled growth.

[etherealdrifter]

yeah the collar rot thing is very important. they have big ,fat roots near the surface close to their stem there and pulling back the mulch will eliminate 1 problem from growing em in the pot. Trim em back hard when not flowering and blow em a kiss when you walk past them. in the ground they'd love ya but they're hungry so be prudent when and how much you feed them in a pot.

The flowers actually setting fruit can also be a problem - real annoying. Give a good feed when flowering not always otherwise you'll just get lots of green, lush beautiful leaves.

piss is good for em. i'll stand by that last statement.

[Berengar]

Thanks a lot guys!

I can't really get any kind of premium potting mix in my area, I was thinking of buying some good potting soil, and aerate it just a bit with small ammounts of coir and perlite, should that be OK?

Also, do hydroton clay balls on top work instead of mulch? I've seen them in people's citrus pots, they should perform the same function as mulch, no? I don't like that coloured bark mulch stuff, it's nasty and it looks hideously unnatural. And am not really in an area that has sugar cane near.