My mandarine tree ... some advice, please?

Can you do citrus on wheels, farmer?

Thinking of orangeries I've seen....

Given you have a serious pot, oh, a 36" or greater terra cotta or concrete pot ... or even barrels.

but then you'd have to have a green house or somewhat warm garage..

I've toyed with that idea myself here, but I don't have the bankroll to work it out...

Yep, you got it cjhsa! Late summer in Melbourne, Oz. Tiny little green mandarine fruit this year. (following a super duper bumper crop last year!)

Wandering around my back garden early this morning, before the rain.:

I noticed that the mandarines are just fine. Lots of them. Though smaller than last year. But with so much less water, what the heck?!

Question: my mandarine bush is well ... very bushy! When & how much is it OK to prune? I'd like to make it a bit more of a tree than a bush, with less rampant growth closer to the ground, & more up top.

Very pleasing discovery! Remember I mentioned that all my feijoa bush's flowers had appeared to have all fallen off in the extreme heat? (Or so I'd thought) Well, miraculously, I have a number of quite respectable feijoa fruits! I'm amazed & absolutely delighted. I figure there are between 30 to 40 of the little blighters. Not bad considering the hideous conditions!

THEN, I heard this most incredible cacophony! REALLY loud bird screeching! Something like 40 white galahs/cockatoos descended on the big cypress tree in the yard next door. They were all over the branches of the tree, making one helluva racket! I have never seen anything like this here before. (Remember, I live smack in the middle of a very urban environment.) I figure it's something to do with the drought, perhaps? Or maybe they are moving from A to B. But it was an absolutely stunning episode. I just stood & watched, gob-smacked!

Prune lower stems back to the trunk in late winter. No branch stub should be left.

Msolga--

Now that you hold the title to the back yard, all sorts of wonders will manifest.

So right smack up to the trunk? Should the cut areas be treated an any way?

I'm hoping for much (more) rain, Noddy. That would be a wonderful start to the manifestations! The (clayey) soil is as hard as rock at the moment! Impossible to dig.

It does seem counter to common sense to leave a wound uncovered when we consider it from a human perspective. That is the way we tend to think about wounds, but remember a tree is not a human, or even an animal, and responds to things in a different manner. In the natural environment, branches break from trees in wind storms and must have a mechanism to defend themselves without a gardener going into the forest and applying wound sealer to every injury. Certainly, some of these cause problems for the tree, but in many cases the tree has the natural defense mechanisms to manage the problem.

Thanks, dadpad!

I feel I will be able to proceed with confidence now!

(You're up late. Me, I'm just heading off to bed now.
Night, night.)

Can you mulch? Do you have earthworms?