Thank you all for the warm welcome and support!! I will definitely keep everyone posted on my progress. It was a long and hard decision, but in the end I wanted a Zill variety. ST just sounded like a must have
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That was exactly what I needed to hear from you guys! I wanted to tip it on day one but the self proclaimed mango experts that were surrounding me (my parents grew up in India lol) were literally having a panic attack when I'd mention the word "cut". Like everyone said, I want bushy and compact growth not upright.
TFH, unfortunately that's the max height I have to work with, but your right, the ideal location of the light is directly above the plant. And this tree will remain in a tent year round! I feel I should cut it now so it can veg over the winter.
I'm going to do what I feel is right. I'm tipping this baby. But I have a couple concerns:
- I just want to know where would be the best place to do it? On the main trunk, there are three flush points, the top most one being the one you see in the picture where the leaves are almost touching the ceiling of the tent. At the lowest flush point, there are 5 secondary branches. 4 of them have two flush points each. So should I tip below the first (lower) or second (higher) flush point? The rest of the secondary branches have only one flush point so I will tip below there.
- Should I tip her now, wait a couple weeks, then re-pot? Or re-pot as is, wait a couple weeks, then tip? Benefit of tipping now would be that I can re-pot it higher in the pot to give the roots more space to grow and spread.
The gentlemen at Zill's also suggested I re-pot and root prune. It looks like it's root-bounded and "feels" that way to me. On top of that I feel like there's too much dead organic material in the soil. I noticed a lot of the leaves have brown tips. Is this an indication of that? Zill's soil mix consists of:
30% Melaleuca chips
30% Saw dust
25% Florida peat
15% Coarse sand
That's 85% organic correct? They also use 8-4-8 fertilizer every four months. My tree was fertilized two months prior to me receiving it. The nursery I purchased it from, not Zill's, suggested I fertilize again in a month which would be about now. My main goal is to get her in a bigger 25 gallon pot, and use this soil mix:
40% Pumice
30% Peat moss
20% Plaster's Sand
10% Perlite
Humic acid - Add per instructions for total volume of soil used
Again thank you TREESNMORE, simon_grow, puglvr1, and TropicalFruitHunters for your advice! You guys gave me the confidence I was lacking
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