About Orange Trees

Views: 18704 | Last Update: 2009-02-04
About Orange Trees - Provided by eHow
Orange trees thrive in warm climates, they love well-drained soil, and they do best in full hot sun. Care for an orange tree, only pruning after the tree has produced its fruit, with helpful advice from a sustainable gardener in this free video on... View Video Transcript

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Yolanda Vanveen

Video Transcript

Hi this is Yolanda Vanveen and in this segment we're going to learn all about oranges, one of my favorite fruits. Now oranges believe it or not are actually native to southeast Asia. So citrus trees or orange trees or citrus sinensis are beautiful trees that get up to 25 feet tall and they grow naturally on all parts of southeast Asia from Vietnam, Thailand, down to Malaysia. And so when growing them yourself, try to give them similar conditions. So oranges like climates that are zones 9 to 11 so they can't handle heavy freezes at all. So they don't do really well in northwest climates unless they're in a greenhouse in the winter but in places like California, Arizona into Florida, they thrive. They love really warm climates with really mild winters. They like very well drained slightly acidic soil and they need full hot sun all day and lots of water. They want to just really soak and let them dry out a little bit in between and never let them stand right in water either. And only prune them when they're done producing fruit and then cut out all of the dead or diseased or brown branches. So you can buy trees growing in the spring generally and start them in a full hot sunny spot and make sure never to let them dry out that first summer because if they dry out you'll lose them. And most starts are actually grafted so it's hard to start them by yourself or from seed because it takes a lot of years. But if you're patient and you put them in a full sunny spot you can enjoy oranges in your garden as well.