I have 12 citrus trees in a very sunny open area in my yard in Fairhope, AL (hardiness zone 8b). I have a mix of lemon, grapefruit and owari satsumas. Nearly all of them died back during the ice storm of January, 2014. They all eventually came back in shoots from the base of the tree. Now I have very leafy, thorny, bushy trees with no buds and no fruit. I planted one additional tree last year and it is now budding. I have aspirations to bring the flowering back by grafting with the buds from the new tree. I have never grafted before, but I am pretty fearless. What is the worst that can happen?
Here are my main questions - Do I need to cut the many shoots back from my revived trees to establish one "trunk"? The advantage that I see here is that I will have one place to make my new graft with flowers from my new tree.
Can I make a graft above the existing location for the old graft?
And then timing, should I prune now and allow the tree to "recover" for a month of so before making the graft?
Thanks so much for this forum and I look forward to any responses.
John
