Can anyone identify this variety?

[susie8662]

Hi all,

I am completely new to pomegranate growing, but I have wanted one for a while now and bought this one from someone moving house who had no idea what variety it is. It's around 80cm tall from the soil (not including pot). As you can see it's quite sparse with quite small leaves but multiple "trunks" - it's more like a bush/shrub - I'm not sure if this is normal for some varieties?

I think it also needs a bit of love as some of the leaves are a brown/yellowish at the edges as you can see from the pictures.

If anyone can identify this variety - or provide some advice on how best to revive that would be great.

FYI - I live in Melbourne Australia and at the moment the Pomegranate is probably getting 6 hours of sun.

Thanks in advance!
Susie

[pombazaar]

Welcome Susie!

It is near impossible to determine a pomegranate variety without seeing the fruit. Even then it can be tricky not knowing its true origin, so you have to look at all the characteristics like taste, aril size, aril color, hull size, hull color, seed hardness, etc. Since you're in Melbourne, I would guess that this is likely a Wondeful or Mollar De Elche. These are both very common varieties in Aussie, but when you do get fruit, post a picture and we'll get a better idea.

As for care I noticed a few things in your picture...

First your soil looks very dry. While poms don't need tons of water it is important that the roots don't dry out. The first thing I would do is pull your tree out of that pot...let's see if the roots are dried out or actually getting water. I had a similar problem to yours last year and it turned out I wasn't watering enough. You'll also want to fertilize this with something water soluble. I've seen exponential results with a simple 1-5-1 solution.

The second thing I would do is locate the widest and center most trunk and prune all the other ones off. This will help with fruit production. Cut off all suckers that will continue to shoot out from the base.

The third thing I notice from your picture is leaf curl. Sometimes this can be due to a pest like whiteflies, aphids, scales, or mites. I don't have any of these issues among my trees but still get a small amount of leaf curl. Check for bugs and spray with neem oil during growing season or a copper fungicide once the tree goes dormant in the winter. These three things should help you immensely!

[susie8662]

Hi,

Thanks very much for all your advice - I will send a photo of the roots and will definitely give it a prune.

Just wondering what kind of soil I should re-pot into? I'm not sure what it's currently in but I also have potting mix, perlite and gardening soil bought from the shop so these are all options if you think it would be better than just repotting into what it's currently in?

Thanks in advance,

Susie

[pombazaar]

For my favorite trees I go premium, although it's absolutely not essential but I can personally vet for Fox Farm Happy Frog being excellent. I also make my own mix out of Pro-Mix HP Mycorrhizae and garden mulch from leaves and grass clippings. This is usually really dry at first so I let it sit in a huge pot and soak in rain water for a good month.

You can probably keep what you have but add some soil to the bottom of that pot so the roots can go a few inches deeper. Just be sure to prune and fertilize well all throughout the growing season. If you're extra careful you may be able to cut that tree in half right down the root ball and end up with two trees.

[alanmercieca]

That pomegranate bush is planted way too shallow in the pot, which means that there is way too little soil, and the roots dry out much faster that way.

[susie8662]

Thanks alanmercieca I will make sure I fill the soil up to the top.

The soil at the bottom seems to be adequately moist but not soaked and I can't see any rot - although I'm not sure I'd recognise this! When would give it a good drink of water some starts coming out of the bottom of the pot so I'm assuming the drainage is okay.

Below are pictures of the roots, they seem quite tight at the bottom - should I tease them apart? (I'm a complete novice gardener not just novice to pomegranates so I'm not really sure to what extent i should separate roots before re-potting!)

It could be difficult to work out which branches to prune if I don't separate more. And notice there seems to be almost a standalone newer green branch off to the right - do you think this could start a new branch?

Thanks!
Susie

[alanmercieca]

Center growth is always not good to keep, anything growing in to the center of the bush should be cut, any growth that can grow in to another part of the bush and cause a part of the bush to be damaged, one of the growths that could be in the way needs to be cut, which ever one makes the most sense to cut. Any part that is trying to grow around another part needs to be cut. There needs to be an airflow between the trunks as well.

Every time I change the pot, I loosen the roots to make sure that they are not tangled, I always trim the roots at least a little bit when re-potting, usually the more tangled they are the more I cut them if they are twisting around each other, tangled roots are not good for pomegranate bushes. I myself would up-pot to a bigger size, I use bigger pots faster than most people that way they grow faster and the roots tangle less, yet technically you may be able to get away with just raising the plant, and pruning the roots a little, or just going up one size of pot if you don't want to go up too fast. I myself always up-pot in the spring if I can. Since it's late summer where you live, you could leave it in the same pot with more dirt at the bottom, and then up pot in the spring right after last chance of frost, if you have frost in the part of Australia where you live.

Are you planning to eventually plant it in the ground? Because if it is to be kept in a pot it's even more important to limit the trunks, 4 at the most in a pot. In the ground more trunks can mean more fruit if you were to let it grow big enough, yet that delays high production until each trunk is a decent size. I myself would never have only one trunk, it's good to have backup trunks in case one or two trunks gets damaged. I myself prefer to have 4 to 6 trunks, yet 4 is a good amount, one in each direction/3 back-up trunks.

[susie8662]

I was planning on keeping it potted since I have more control and I'm not sure it would like the garden soil which doesn't seem to have good drainage.

If I'm leaving it potted it sounds like from all the advice that I should just leave one main trunk so it has energy directed in one spot?

There seem to be two main trunks veering in different directions, no clear winner, so if it will stay potted should I just cut from the soil level leaving one - so cutting the other main trunk and smalker trunks at the soil? Just wondering if one of the other trunks can become it's own plant but then you will have to cut the roots a lot I'm guessing?

Also I think I need to google trimming roots, there are a lot of them very compacted and it sounds like it's needed to free then up!

Thanks again!

[alanmercieca]

Two trunks in a pot bare minimum, yet I prefer a minimum of 4. I am willing to wait longer for the fruit, and have the backup trunks, trunks can rot, they can accidentally get damaged by people, oh and sometimes animals/pests can damage them. You don't have to worry about frost damage. Some people rather have just one trunk and get fruit faster, yet I have had many pomegranates loose two trunks unexpectedly, and they never die because of the 4 minimum trunks that I prefer having.

I know nothing about the soil in Australia, yet it does sound like it would be best if you keep it in a pot.

I find root trimming easy, usually tangled roots can be pulled apart, and if they cant then use scissors or pruners, the important thing is to not pull the roots in a way that pulls at where the roots connect to the plant. Sometimes I tear the roots with my hands if they are not too hard/thick to do that. If they are too hard to cut with scissors or with pruners, then you can use a knife, if so be careful with a sharp knife.