Let’s start with the basics. When you walk into a nursery or order a citrus plant online, you’ll likely see two kinds of plants being sold:
- Citrus Trees: one strong central trunk, trained upright, with branches that form a canopy above
- Citrus Bushes: multiple thin shoots coming out near the base, lower to the ground, often untrained
Here’s the difference:
- A tree is usually grafted and trained to grow tall with a single dominant trunk. It’s stronger, longer-lived, and easier to shape as it grows.
- A bush is often grown on its own roots or from cuttings. It might be cheaper or look fuller in a pot, but it can be weaker over time and slower to fruit.
Most true citrus trees sold for fruit production are grafted. That means they were created by combining two parts:
- The rootstock (for strong roots and disease resistance),
- The scion (for fruit quality and variety).
This combination gives you the best of both worlds: reliable fruit and a healthier plant.
So if you bought a young citrus tree—not just a leafy bush—it’s almost guaranteed to be grafted. And that grafted structure matters for how you care for it, especially when it comes to feeding.
