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How to Make a Pomegranate Tree Bear Fruit

Question from Karen:
I live in a coastal town in California. My house is about five blocks from the ocean in a canyon that runs east west. Two years ago my then twelve-year-old daughter asked for a pomegranate tree for Christmas. That is all she wanted. We got one and planted it in our back yard. It is now three years old has never born fruit. My daughter is asking when it will bear fruit.

Pomegranates  photo

Answer from Pat:
Pomegranates will grow and bear fruit in Sunset Zone 24 where you probably live but they need full sun. If you live in an east-west canyon your tree is perhaps not getting enough sun to bear flowers. Another possibility is that you did not get a fruiting variety and another is that you planted it in a lawn. There are several fine varieties of pomegranate. ‘Wonderful’ is the best known, but also make sure that you didn’t purchase an ornamental tree or bush grown only for its flowers. If you have a proper fruiting variety but it has not born fruit there are several possible reasons.

First, the pomegranate might be getting too much nitrogen and not enough bloom ingredients.This can happen if it’s growing in a lawn. Secondly, pomegranates are native to hot dry climates and will grow and even thrive with little attention even in alkaline soil but they need a hot spot. Some varieties will get mildew near the coast and if in too much shade. Sometimes people live in a canyon and don’t even notice that their garden may be in shade all winter long or at least for most of the day. When the sun is far south as in winter the sun may be hidden behind the canyon wall to the south of your garden, plus other houses and trees higher on the hill may be casting a shadow on your garden. In summer the shadows may come from trees or houses or fences to the east, west, and north. So pay attention to where the shadows are in your garden when planning where to put a pomegranate. Full sun means six hours of sun a day.

Despite this problem we might be able to find a way to make your pomegranate bloom. First, in January or early February as the tree begins to put out a few new leaves, go all over the tree and prune off the tips. If it has not grown much, just clip off the outer four to six inches or less. Go all over the tree and cut a few inches off each branch to make it put out new wood. But if the tree is vigorous already, then cut back a foot or two all over to make it branch and be bushier. This is because pomegranates only bear on new wood. One really should prune a pomegranate for the first three years of its life to get it to branch and put out new growth. I doubt you have done than in the past, but now by pruning in late winter (late January or early February) just as the plant begins to grow and put out new tip growth you can correct the problem and make it put out new wood. You want it to be bushy.

Secondly, immediately after pruning, feed it with an organic fertilizer high in bloom ingredients and little nitrogen. This means the first number (nitrogen) should be low and the second number (phosphorus) and third number (potassium) should be very high, 2-10-10 is an example. After fertilizing water the fertilizer inot the ground. If your tree is growing well already showing that it is getting plenty of nitrogen, then just fertilize with two cups of bonemeal and half a cup of Sul-Po-Mag at this time of year. Sprinkle these over the roots and use a cultivator to gently till into the soil under the tree so you don’t harm roots, then cover with mulch or compost. After fertilizing and mulching water the fertilizer into the ground. Feed the tree in January with this high bloom formula. In February fertilize again with an organic fertilizer for citrus and avocado, such as 4-6-6. If you can, push the mulch aside, put the fertilizer under the mulch all around the drip line of the tree (under branch tips) and then replace the mulch and water unless rains are adequate. Another option for fertilizing is to get a bag of seabird guano and feed with this. This will take care of all the needs of the plant. Follow package directions and water it into the ground. (When fertilizer is placed on top of mulch you need to use more of it since some will be absorbed by the mulch.)

Thirdly, you didn’t state whether the tree blooms. If the tree bloomed but bore no fruit, there probably were no bees in your garden when it bloomed. If there are no native or domestic bees or other insects the flowers won’t be pollinated and won’t become fruits. So when your the tree blooms in spring, take a sable paint brush and pollinate all the flowers. Just play like a bee and go from flower to flower spreading the pollen from one to another. Sometimes people use a feather duster for this job but a paintbrush is better. You don’t need a second pomegranate tree. Pomegranates are self-fruitful but the blossoms must be pollinated for it to bear fruit. Since the tree belongs to your daughter it will work best to have her do this job so she gets the tree to bloom. If she is part of all these processes: Pruning to stimulate tip growth, fertilizing for high bloom, and pollinating and if all these steps result in fruit, your daughter will have a genuine feeling of accomplishment from the experience. If none of this works the tree must be in too much shade, but I hope it works!

Comments

  1. Thanks for the pom info. My tree was grown from a ucdavis cutting. 3 years old now. I had 5 fruits last year. they were very sweet. I will also take your advise and feed them. I live on the canyon near university of San Diego.

  2. One of the best advice and wonderfully presented. I had this problem with my three trees and no one knew the problem. I gave it more lawn fertilizer which killed the biggest one. I am looking forward to much better result, thanks to your advice. Best,

  3. Saied Zangenehpour

    I have an older Pamegranate that flowers and fruit several hundreds / year. The soil has a lot of phosphate naturally and reduces the nitrogan induced by the lawn fertelizer. I live in Florida with plenty sun.

    Recently, I grow many pamegranate trees from different variety of pamegranete seeds. They are about 2 years old. This year they flowered but the flowers are falling in a few days. There are many bees around the big pamegrante that bears many many fruits yearly, but not around the little ones

    I am going to use sable paint brush to polinate them, hoping they are going to bear fruits.

    Any advise why the bees are not bothering with the little trees?

    Saied

    • Growing fruit trees from seeds is an iffy proposition at best, since you might by a fluke get something great, but usually not. Seed-grown fruit trees will often not bear fruit or not for many years or when they finally do bear fruit, it might be inferior. To give you an example of why you can’t save and plant the seeds of just any random plant, the seeds of any plant—(not just a fruit tree—I am talking vegetables and flowers here)—if these seeds originated from a first-generation hybrid (that is, a cross), then some of the plants are likely to be “mules” or sterile plants. I don’t know why your seed-grown plants are not attracting bees, but it might be that the flowers on the seed-grown plants are sterile and thus have no pollen or honey to attract bees.

  4. Hi I have recently bought a pommegranites tree we are going into winter but autumn has been even warmer than usual – the pommegranite currently in a large potbhas many flowers and a couple of small fruit set but as winter is nearly here and it will be cold temps 5-18 degrees should I pull off these flowers and fruit ie are they the tree reacting to the unusual autumn warmth and getting confused ? My understanding is that pommegranites need summer heat to develop good fruit – is this correct?

    • I do not know where you live. However, I am making a guess that you live in a Mediterranean climate south of the equator, probably South Africa or southwest Australia or perhaps Gisborne, New Zealand. I have no idea, either, what variety of pomegranate you are growing. You mention it will be 5 to 18 degrees but you do not say whether you mean Fahrenheit or Centigrade (Celcius). If you are speaking of Celsius, 5 to 18 degrees you will have no problems since this is not too cold for pomegranate trees, but if you are speaking of Fahrenheit, this is most likely too cold for pomegranate. I am guessing Celcius is what you mean. In general pomegranate trees bear fruit in summer but it ripens in autumn, and by the way full-size trees grow better in the ground than in a pot, but perhaps you have a small variety? Otherwise, I think you have nothing to worry about. Why not leave the flowers and fruit in place and allow the tree to adjust to its current location? Some fruit trees bear year-round in areas where temperatures are different from those in their normal habitat. Some plants may behave differently from normal when grown in a different latitude and longitude from their native habitat.

  5. When we moved into our new home five years ago, we hired a landscape gardener to install trees and plants appropriate for our new location (Tucson AZ). One tree he planted, was a Pomegranate, which has become a magnificent tree and is currently covered in beautiful orange blossoms. I believe now, that he planted an ornamental tree! Is there any way to make it produce fruit?

    • Your landscaper may well have planted an ornamental pomegranate (Punica granata). For example, ‘Noshi Shibori’ (dark red flowers) and ‘Tanyosho’ (apricot-colored double flowers) grow 8 to 10 feet tall and wide and either produce small fruits or none whatsoever, but either one can be grown as a small ornamental tree, excellent as a patio tree. Pomegranates need little or no fertilizer once established and they are self fruitful, so if you have an edible variety, you should get fruit as long as your tree is planted in full sun and also has adequate irrigation. Insects do pollinate pomegranate and cross pollination can make trees more fruitful, but should not be necessary. Most plants are grown from cuttings and seed-grown plants might not bear fruit or if they do bear it, it might not be of good quality. If you are sure you have a good edible variety, such as the variety ‘Wonderful’, and not an ornamental one such as those I mentioned above, I do know a trick that can sometimes make a recalcitrant tree bear fruit but it works best in cases where the tree never even flowers. The trick is to beat the trunk hard in early spring, before it sets flower buds, with a blunt instrument such as a garden hose or an iron rod. (On the humorous side you can let some of your frustrations out against the tree for not producing fruit!) But on the scientific side, by damaging the bark but not girdling it entirely, which would kill the tree, you can perhaps produce the effect of making the tree think it’s going to die. This treatment will sometimes make a recalcitrant tree produce a massive display of flowers and fruit. It’s worth a try next year and let me know results. Perhaps some other gardener has a further thought on your question. Pomegranate trees should grow and bear fruit in your climate.

    • I have now given further thought to your pomegranate and realized that my solution about beating the trunk can (and at times has) made a non-blossom bearing tree produce flowers but it can not make a flower-bearing tree bear fruit. Your tree cannot produce fruit without pollination. Thus I have come up with a better solution which you might be able to put into practice right now, since there are already blossoms on the tree.
      Perhaps in Tucson you do not have the right insects to pollinate your pomegranate tree. As I mentioned before, pomegranate trees are pollinated by insects. This includes bees. Without pollination, your tree cannot produce fruit. What I suggest is that you play bee and pollinate your tree by hand. I would do this job early in the morning while the pollen is fresh and not old and dried out. Purchase a small sable watercolor brush today if you can. If not, use a Q tip, any small watercolor brush, or a thin stick or twig with a small knob of hairy knitting wool wound around one end to pick up the pollen, but a brush works best. Then go out into the garden and look closely at the flowers and you will see many stamens, each one made of a filament with a yellow anther on the end of it covered with pollen. You will see that the anthers have yellow pollen on them and that they are on the tips of the filaments. The anthers and the filaments are the male part of the flower which together are called the stamen. When the pollen drops easily off the anther, then the pollen is ready. Twirl your paint brush on some anthers to pick up this good yellow pollen and you should be able to see it. Then you need to go to another flower and put that pollen onto the sticky central stigma which you will see in the center of the flowers. This is the female part of the flower and down at the base is the immature fruit. Continue to go from flower to flower dabbing or twirling—whichever works better for you—, picking up pollen from one flower and transferring it to another. This is what bees and other insects should be doing for you and evidently are not. Go all over the tree and continue this as long as there are blossoms on the tree and in fall you should get fruit. If you have another pomegranate tree nearby it would be even better to transfer pollen from each tree to the other one, but this is not absolutely necessary. In a few months let me know if you got fruit.

  6. Thank you for your support!

    Last year I essentially discovered a pomegranate tree on the third of an acre I live on and ever since then i have been responding to it. First by clearing most all the overgrowth that surrounded it and largely hid it from view. I did a little pruning earlier in the year. recently I added a layer of my own compost. Now I need to know how to water it. I see that watering in the Summer is not recommended. Summer is one month away and I imagine that watering now could be a good thing. Would watering it once a week over the next four weeks be sufficient?

    The blossoms on it now are the most beautiful! I know the tree does fruit however I have never had the fruit.

    • Apparently not all your message reached me, since what I got was cut off in mid-sentence. Though pomegranate trees are reasonably drought-resistant, they need regular rainfall or irrigation in order to produce the best fruit. Thus here in Southern California where I live we must water pomegranate year round when rains are not adequate. I live in one of the coastal climates of Southern California, which enjoys a mild Mediterranean climate of mild winters, and dry summers with much sunshine and most rainfall confined to fall, winter and spring. Since you mention not watering in summer and living on a quarter acre so heavily overgrown that you did not even know you had a pomegranate tree, it sounds to me as if you might live in Florida, which also has a warm climate but in regard to rainfall it is almost the opposite of ours. Instead of having dry summers and wet winters, Florida has dry winters and humid wet summers. Of course if you live in Florida, this means there is more than ample summer rainfall and thus one would not want to water plants in summer. Hence the best advice I can give you on irrigation is to water when rainfall is insufficient. When the top 4 to 6 inches of soil is dry, that is the time to water deeply until the entire root zone is thoroughly soaked. Watering in this manner once a week during dry weather should be sufficient.

  7. Linda Chaumont

    My pomegranate tree has flowered and born much fruit for over 20 years. The fruit is bitter, however. I have a drip system in my landscape but I wonder if it’s getting enough water. I live in the desert, El Paso, Texas.

  8. Hi there. I just moved into a house in Oxnard, CA with an 80-year-old pomegranate tree in the backyard. The tree is huge and full of fruit, and I arrived just in time for the harvest. Unfortunately, the fruit and juice is way too tart…and rather unpleasant. I’m wondering if there’s anything I can do to get a better sweet-sour balance in the fruit for next year. Appreciate any advice.

    • Unfortunately there is nothing you can do to make your pomegranate any sweeter or tastier. Hotter climates often produce sweeter pomegranates. Additionally varieties can have differing flavors. The best variety is called ‘Wonderful.’ However, you might develop a liking for the fruit you have. To some extent pomegranate is an acquired taste. Some people make jelly of the juice. Others juice the fruit and add sugar.

  9. Do you know why the “berries” inside my pomegranates are pale pink instead of deep red? I live in the San Gabriel Valley in California.

    • The fruit of your pomegranate is sweet and pink (not red) because you have one of the newer varieties. Years ago all pomegranates were red. The variety called ‘Wonderful’ is still the best known and most popular and it is red outside and has red seeds. Nowadays you can also purchase pink varieties and many of them are really good and sweet too. ‘Ambrosia’ is a huge variety with light pink exterior and purple flesh inside. ‘Fleishman’, ‘Granada’ and ‘King’ have pink rind and pink flesh inside. They have pink flowers. I think you must have one of those. The flowers of a variety called ‘Sweet’ are yellow and the flesh inside is pink. There is even one with clear flesh inside—some people call it white. And the name of that variety is ‘White’. Perhaps the person who owned your property before you did was sophisticated about plant varieties. He or she might even have belonged to the Rare Fruit Growers. Members of that society know and grow all the newest and most exotic fruits and fruit varieties.

  10. Thank you for the information! When I moved into my current house 13 years ago, the pomegranate tree put out alot of fruit. Over the years, I have been getting less and less fruit. By reading your posts and replies, I seem to be pruining it wrong. I hope by using your guidelines, I hope for more fruit this year. I have two consistent problems I don’t know how to prevent. First, I get this beetle-type bugs that are probably the leaffooted bug. How can I prevent them? Secondly, I sometimes get this white/black mold on the fruit. What is this, and how do I prevent that? Thank you very much

    • Unfortunately leaf-footed bugs (Leptoglossus zonatus) are attracted to pomegranates. They can pierce the skin of pomegranate fruits and damage the seeds and pulp inside. One organic way to get rid of them is to wear surgical gloves and hand-pick them and throw them into a bucket of soapy water. Another is to spray them with citrus oil. Regarding mold this sounds as if your tree is not growing in full sun. Mold can come from growing pomegranate in a damp or wet climate or from a tree in too much shade. Pomegranates will not bear fruit in shade. Sometimes, trees are planted in full sun and then other trees grow tall and cast shadows on them, or a building is built that casts a shadow where none was before. This can cause a reduction in the amount of fruit one gets from the tree.
      If you are getting fewer fruits the other reason might be lack of bees while the tree is in bloom.

  11. Hi Pat,

    Thank you for the article. Can you recommend a pomegranate variety that would do well in coastal CA?

    • All large-fruited pomegranate trees do better inland. They will bear best in coastal zones if grown in full sun and the warmest, most protected spot in your garden, out of cold wind if possible. If grown in shade I can guarantee you will get no fruit. Two varieties that are reputed to grow well and bear fruit of good quality in cool, coastal California are ‘Sweet’, which has pink, extremely sweet fruit, and ‘Ambrosia’ which bears unusually large fruits.

  12. I bought a bare root pom. tree from a major Home Imp. store. I planted it according to the directions. It looks like dead branches. I live in San Diego. In this city, they flourish, and folks can’t get rid of them.
    Is it dormant or dead? It is about 4 ft. tall. It gets sun, filtered and shade.
    It looks so sad.

    • Your tree may be dead or perhaps not. To find out scratch the bark to see if there is green life inside. Nine times out of ten when folks plant bare root and the plant dies or looks as if it has died, whether it is a tree or a rose, the problem is that they didn’t soak the roots in a bucket of water before planting and/or did not water it enough after planting. Another possibility is they let the plant sit around too long before planting. If you don’t have time to plant bareroot when you purchase the item, then heel it in, which means dig a trench, stick the roots of the plant into it at an angle and cover them with damp earth. The correct way to plant bare root is like this:Unwrap the plant and stick the roots into the bucket of water and leave them to soak overnight. Now go dig the planting hole. Fill the hole with water and refill it and let it drain out at least 3 times. (Check the drainage as described on page 40 of my book.) If drainage is inadequate, build a raised bed or choose a better spot in the garden. In clay soil, dig a coffee can full of gypsum into the bottom of the hole. By filling the hole with water several times the day before planting you make sure that dry soil surrounding your bare root plant does not wick moisture away from the hole. This is a common error and folks often do not notice that a gap can occur on the edge of the plant showing that the surrounding soil is getting all the water and not the plant in the hole. Next day put the bucket of water with the plant in it next to the hole you have dug. Place some fertilizer in the bottom of the hole. (Slow release is best.) Get down on your knees and using the native soil you dug from the hole, build a cone of earth in the middle of the bottom of the hole and pat it down. Now take the plant out of the water and arrange the roots so they are spread out onto the cone with the bottom of the trunk on top of the cone and the roots going down all around it and make sure they are not bent on the bottom of the cone. Also make sure that when you fill the hole the earth will come to the same spot where it was when the plant was growing in the ground. If not correct, lift the plant out and adjust the height of the cone. Once the roots and trunk are arranged at the correct height, cover the roots with soil patting it down with your hands. Fill the hole with the rest of the native soil you took from it and press it down firmly with your hands, not your foot which might compact the soil. Build a watering basin on the edge of the hole. (Later as the tree grows enlarge the watering hole so the drip line of the tree will be watered.) Now lay the hose inside the watering basin and let it fill with water slowly so that roots on the bottom of the hole will be well irrigated. The next day water again, filling the watering basin at least three times and letting it drain out. On the third day water deeply again. For the next two weeks water deeply 3 times a week. For the next month water deeply twice a week. After that water deeply once a month.

  13. Dear Pat: OMG! I am so glad I found your website. I am just sick with worry, that I’ve screwed up my Dwarf Pomegranate tree. I planted it in my backyard of the home when it was about a foot high, that was 3 years ago this June. I knew by the directions on the plant that it would not bare fruit for 3 years, but even though, I have made sure I fertilized it every year with 10-10-2, had mulch around it and talked to it as if it were my own child, it has grown to the height of over 10ft tall and just beautiful as she willows in the wind,she has never once bloomed even a bud of a flower! 🙁 and now after reading, I realize and or found I should of been pruning her which i have not. I just let her be to grow, not knowing that it was required. i live in Central Florida and she gets over 6 hrs of sun a day and plenty of water in both summer and during the winter time. It’s April now and she has fully leafed and green now. So, I am at a lost at now what to do and praying I haven’t ruin her forever and that I am able to save and rectify the situation so she can eventually bear fruit? Please HELP me and tell me what I can do to correct my mistakes. Should I let this season go since she has already has a full tree of leaves and then next Jan, go ahead and prune off several inches of each branch, make the bonemeal fertilizer and the 10-10-2and pray that she Blooms flowers next spring? Any help would be a Godsend and greatly appreciated….thank you. xoxoxox

    • It sounds to me as if your tree is putting on plenty of new growth each spring that should flower and bear fruit. However, it also sounds as if you are feeding the tree with nitrogen. You said you fed with 10-10-2. You need to lower the first number. For a couple of years try this: Fertilize with 0-20-20. In other words, cut out the nitrogen. There is probably plenty in your soil already so withhold all nitrogen and fertilize with phosphorus and potassium only. Additionally, prune out the oldest and weakest wood in winter to shape the tree and encourage new growth. If this does not make the tree bloom and bear fruit, then beat or damage the trunk as I have explained elsewhere, but do not girdle it. Additionally, you live in Florida where summer rains are usually heavy. This is the opposite of what pomegranate prefers since it likes a dry Mediterranean climate with rainfall in winter and none in summer. Nonetheless, pomegranate can set fruit in Florida especially following a colder than usual winter. You did not mention if the tree has born flowers in spring. If it bears flowers in spring but no fruit, make sure there are bees to pollinate. If not, hand pollinate the flowers.

      • Thank you so much. I will surely do all you say. No, unfortunately, she hasn’t once bloomed even one flower! 🙁 It’s such a shame because I love her so much and she’s just a big beautiful tree. Like I said she has grown from a mere foot when I brought her home, to over 10ft now. I do have a Meyers Lemon and Key Lime tree that hasn’t grown half as well as my Pomegranate but they both have at least bloomed and bared fruit, so I know there are bees an there are politicization ability going on. Yes, we do get rain a lot in the summer months and I’ve let nature take it’s course with her, so the rains has been her only watering (I do not hose water her) So, right now I have everything to gain an nothing to lose now, an will let her do her thing this year (found a lovely Mockingbird family building a nest in her yesterday, so at least she’ll make a nice home for the birdies this year while she’s on sabbatical lol):) and will get to it next winter with the new fertilizer mix you suggested, cutting the oldest and weakest wood branches on her an then pruning her branches some, to spark some new growth. If that doesn’t work then, I’ll find your notes on giving her a good whopping. ROFL…i hope I haven’t ruined her, but if she ends up not ever blooming or baring fruit, she’s still beautiful to me and has grown big enough to keep my nosey Glaydis Kravits neighbor from snooping into my windows…LOL Thank you so much for replying an giving me some great things to try to get her back on track from what I’ve done. Sincerely, TM

  14. Dear Pat,

    I live at San Diego, CA, less than one mile from the coast. My home is located at a small canyon, and my backyard gets sunshine for about half of the day. I bought a pomegranate, about 1 foot tall at the time, four years ago, and was told it is of variety “Wonderful”. Now, the pomegranate has grown to about 5 feet, and it has beautiful large red flowers. But it does not bear any fruits. I read from some other website that the hermaphroditic flower is peanut-shaped and the male flower is vase-shaped and considerably narrower at the base. I looked at the flowers on my tree, and all of them appear to be male flowers. Is there a chance that pomegranate wonderful could be sterile and not bear any fruits? Or do you think hand pollination will help? Thank you very much.

    Hugh

    • Unfortunately for you pomegranates need full sun and the variety called ‘Wonderful’ does not bear fruit along the coast, in shade or in a cool location. Half day sun is not sufficient for it, and is likely to be the reason your tree is only producing male flowers. However, the fact that your tree flowers at all is hopeful. Several plants such as melons and squash produce many male flowers at first before producing females—though in this case the flowers you need to have are hermaphroditic flowers that have both male and female parts. Hand pollination won’t do any good until your tree produces some hermaphroditic flowers that it is not producing now due to the fact it is not getting enough warmth and sunshine. Once hermaphroditic flowers are produced, if they are ever produced, then for sure I would try hand pollination unless you see insects such as bees and also hummingbirds visiting the flowers. If you see none of these pollinators, then use a small sable paint brush and go from flower to flower picking up the yellow pollen from the anthers on one flower and putting it onto the sticky stigma you find on another flower. The flowers that will bear fruit should have both male and female parts. One other idea would be to soak the root zone in spring with a solution of 0-10-10 mixed according to package directions. This might produce the hermaphroditic flowers you need in order to have fruit.

  15. Pat’s reply was accurate in all of the possible reasons he stated why your tree isn’t holding fruit. However, he missed one of the most important ones and the most likely reason you are not seeing fruit. Pomogranates take at least 3-5 years to reach maturity and produce fruit. You said your tree is about 3 years old, so it is just now a juvenile plant. It is natural at this point for your flowers to fall off without making fruit. As long as the tree looks healthy and is growing and green, do not be worried. In another 2 years or so it will be making fruit. So the answer to your daughter’s question is: 2 years.

    • Thank you so much for your excellent comment. This is very helpful.

    • Joe is right! I planted a pom tree 4.5 years ago, and it didn’t bare fruit until the 3 yr, and it was sparse. Last year, I had a fairly good crop, and they were huge! Beautiful, sweet and delicious ones. I had enough to give away. This year, I’m believing for a bumper crop to bless others with. I love the tree, the blossoms and the fruit! You just have to be patient and let it mature.

  16. I have two pomagranates planted last year in large pots. this year one of them is growing tall and the other one is growing down with droopy sweeping branches. Both are very green and healthy but look odd flanking my front door growing differnt directions. Could I have been given two differnt varieties or was one of them pruned incorrectly?

  17. Every year when I pick my pomegranates the seeds are white and taste bitter. A friend of mine heard that giving the tree iron will make the seeds red and sweet. If so how much iron should i give my tree. The tree is about 5 ft. high. Also can i give it iron now that it is summer here in Arizona.

  18. I have a pom bush I bought at a farmers market this year(may 2014. I live in north carolina summers are hot and humid winters are mild. I have the bush planted full sun in my yard now it flowers and bares fruit that get as big as a lime and they fall off I see a few insects on the tree I sprayed for those but was unsure if I needed to do anything else. The seller told me they would bare fruit in the fall I get lots of blooms but they all fall off so I dont see that happening. Another question can I leave it outside in winter or should I dig it up and bring inside or leave in a pot.

    • Pomegranates may bear fruit when young but until they are five years old don’t expect a harvest. If fruit grows it may fall off. It is bad for the tree to dig it up and bring indoors. Most likely it will survive in winter where you live but perhaps not. Your climate is not ideal for pomegranate but you might be lucky.

  19. I live in East Bay area, My pomegranate tree bloom alot but produce 6-7 fruit, it more than 5 year old. IS this normal or should I plant another pomegranate to increase cross pollination to improve fruit yield.

    • Next year try hand-pollinating. If that doesn’t work you could try adding another tree. However, perhaps it’s in shade or too cool a location?

  20. I am so glad I found your website.

    I know I am pushing the limits, growing a Wonderful Pom on Southern Vancouver Island. Zone 8B. I bought it for the novelty factor about 5 years ago.

    It lives in a large pot (repotted last year) on my deck year round. It is tall (6 feet) and spindly and I was not aware how to best prune it. In the past I have just pruned away damaged and dead branches, but otherwise let it grow. No flowers yet, I guess I could give it a beating.

    During the winter I push to pot up against the sliding door and pile the deck cushions around it to protect it for the wind and cold. It does take a while to leaf out in the spring, but I checked the other day and there are lots of tight buds. Current temps range from the odd light frost to highs of 14C.

    My deck gets very hot in the summer (up to 42 C) and the Pom is in full sun most the day (SW exposure). I am several miles from the ocean in a valley that is known for its hot dry summers.

    My local nursery suggested feeding it and my citrus, a Tropical fertilizer (9-2-9), which I now know will impede fruit set. I have only given it one feeding of the (9-2-9), should I not worry for this growing season and get a low nitrogen fertilizer for next year?

    I am having fun pushing the limits on what I can grow in this climate. My Calamondin doubled in sixe over the last year and the lower half is covered in fruit. I did bring it inside, but it will be back outside in May.

    My nursery said they are getting in Feijoa plants next month. I am going to see if I can grow one in a pot on my deck too.

    • The most important word you wrote is “fun”. You are having fun pushing the limits and so you should keep right on doing that. I think you need to feed more because you are growing your pomegranate in a tub. If you cannot take it in the house in winter, then try hanging a string of old colored Christmas tree lights on it (look for them in thrift stores.) The lights will keep it warm on winter nights,

      • That is so brilliant! Christmas lights to keep the babies warm.
        I’ve read a lot over the years and by far you are the most informative and grammatically correct author I have read. Thank you for sharing your extensive knowledge. I now have hours of learning ahead of me, but already have my new skills from just this page alone!

  21. I am near the coast in San Diego and have had a Wonderful growing for about 5 years. It gets direct sun almost all day. It puts out tons of flowers, continuing to produce blooms for months. Most of these fall off. A few appear to set fruit for awhile, but always fall off before they are more than maybe an inch across. I’m not sure what I am doing wrong.

    • Unfortunately the variety ‘Wonderful’ does not always succeed well along the coast. It prefers warmer summers. Night and day temperatures might also be a problem. I am not aware if the temperature range for this plant has ever been studied. Try hand-pollinating the blossoms in the morning after dew has dried by going from flower to flower with a dry sable watercolor brush and see if that produces a crop. Do you have plenty of bees or not? If now five years old you have more chance of success.

  22. Forgot to mention in my note above, we have lots and lots of bees. So, fertilization cannot be the problem.

    • A grower once told me that the variety of Pomegranate called ‘Wonderful” does not always do well in Sunset Zone 24, which is where you live. The reason is that the climate along the coast doesn’t have enough chill hours, so he said, and this can cause buds or fruit to drop off later. Many plants are effected by the difference between night and day temperatures and along the coast the swings of temperature are less dramatic, thus making some trees or flowering plants to drop buds, or in the case of fruiting plants drop fruit. Ocean breezes may also cut down on summer heat. Ocean breezes may be too cooling just when a pomegranate yearns for reflected heat and warmth. Nonetheless, I would keep on hoping to get a crop, since pomegranates often don’t start bearing fruit until they are 5 years old anyway. A lot depends on the weather.

      Also avoid giving this tree too much nitrogen when it is flowering and fruiting. Nitrogen can make the tree grow instead of putting energy into flowers and fruit. A certain amount of flower drop is to be expected with pomegranates. Feed with a fertilizer high in phosphorus and potassium and don’t over-fertilize. Some pomegranates react best to benign neglect. Fruit drop may also result from a shock to the roots, such as raking or disturbing the soil around the roots. Growing in a lawn is a negative factor also since the tree then gets too much irrigation and fertilizer.

  23. Dear Pat
    i live in Israel and i have a 5 year old Pomegranate Tree. since i planted it i don’t get any blossom or fruits,it is planted in a middle of a lawn.
    in the last winter i prawned the tree. the tree is very green and looks healthy.
    i fertilize the lawn with lawn fertilizer and gave the tree 20-20-20 fertilizer.
    any more ideas?
    thanks
    Doron

    • Growing pomegranate in a lawn is not the best way since it may be getting too much water and nitrogen fertilizer resulting in all green growth and no flowers or fruit such as you describe. This will just make the tree grow into a big green tree, which is what is happening. Personally I think you are giving your pomegranate far too much nitrogen and water and that is the main problem. Why not plant another one away from the lawn and keep this one as a green tree?

  24. Thank’s you described the situation precisely I will try your suggestion.

  25. My tree blooms with nice size fruit but they all have bugs or worms. What can I do to prevent the insects from ruining all the fruit?

    • Gardeners once thought of pomegranates as being largely immune from pests and diseases, but—alas– today when pomegranates are more popular, that is no longer true. Pomegranates growing in a mixed landscape and far away from other pomegranate trees are still quite likely to be pest free, but those in neighborhoods where there are many pomegranate trees are likely to suffer from pests. This is because Insects like to specialize in specific plants and also because many home owners neglect fruit trees and fail to pick the fruit. The most important controls are to grow the tree in full sun, makes sure drainage is good, do all you can to keep the tree clean and in good health and pick all fruit every year in fall, making sure your neighbors do the same. Also, get rid of all debris under the tree. Clean up all leaves and debris in fall and cover the ground with fresh mulch. If possible get rid of nearby juniper trees, where leaf-footed bugs may over-winter.

      Among the various pests that may be causing problems are the following. After mentioning each pest and disease I will give the organic control:

      Cotton Aphid (Aphis gossypii) and other aphids—(Get rid of ants by mulching the tree at least once a year with an inch or two thick layer of dry, bagged, earthworm castings. Feed and water as usual. Make sure no foliage touches another plant, tree, wall, post or fence. At first sign of aphids squirt them off with water. Also, purchase lady bugs at your local nursery, sprinkle the trunk and foliage of the tree with water, chill the aphids in the refrigerator to lower their metabolism and release them at dusk low on the tree’s trunk and foliage. They will walk upwards depositing eggs that will hatch into larvae destroying pests. Do this several times a year.

      Mealybugs. (Wash trees with horticultural soaps. Spray with summer oils. Release parasites that prey on mealy bugs.)

      Soft scales. (Control ants as described above, release parasites that control scale.)

      Whiteflies. (Release lady bugs as described above, in early spring and several times during the year. Release Encarsia parasites to control greenhouse whiteflies.)

      Leafrollers. These may be the pests which are leaving worms in your fruit. (At the first sign of leaves rolling on tips of foliage, wear disposable gloves and wash the caterpillars out with soapy water, squishing them. Or simply handpick and squish larvae inside leaves. Use Bt sprays such as Spinosad, being very careful not to spray anywhere near flowers or you will kill bees and get no fruit. Scrape and clean the bark of the tree in winter. If you could spray the woody bark only (not the leaves) with dormant oil in winter, this would help a lot to cut down on overwintering pests hidden in cracks and crevasses of the bark.

      Leaf-footed plant bugs. (Keep an eye out for herds of these in early summer. Wear disposable gloves and handpick and squash them. Or try trapping the whole herd under a sheet of plastic wrap and squash them beneath it or use wet paper towels and squash them or spray with Pyrethryn, but it might not work. Remove all fruit before winter so they can’t winter over. Control weeds. I had this pest once in my garden and it arrived on some husk tomato plants. By working quickly and immediately I was able to bag and catch them all and never saw that pest in my garden again.)

  26. Hello Pat, i came across your website with intentions. Seeking incredible hope for a very positive outcome, for my fairly new(3 year old. grafted pomegranite) giant scrubbed tree.

    So I planted the 8 inch stump(1 inch diameter) into the ground with roots and I left her in the ground with touching nor pruning till the day.
    Where i planted her in the soil immediately behind my granmothers house in San diego is in the backyard. which happens to be off the east on the opposite side of the house, where the sun set over the coast. Therefore drastically takingsun time away most of the day.

    So what I have been pulling away from your website and other pommegranite growing information out on the web.
    I can start by say like an idiot even though I did not follow the instruction for grafting. When I bought the tree, was not think of the maturity of the plants viny growth. Which now 3 years later is a 8 foot tree/(vine forest mass) that is getting out of control. So I have been taken care of that mass problem by zip tieing the thicker banches together. to make it look like a christmas tree.

    So the real reason I am contacting you for help. Is I’ve had ove probably 100-150 of those pomegranite buds drop, they grow the beautiful red flower petals. Then the petals drop, soon after the buds….
    I am really think to hand polinate next year for sure. I am very saddened. For the reason i have a fig, rosemary, and two citrus(orange and lemon almost 40 years old).

    -Devin

    • Maybe your pomegranate tree is just not old enough yet to bloom. Sometimes it takes 5 years growth before a pomegranate will produce fruit. Wait 5 years and if it does not bloom then, plant another in full sun.

  27. Sorry didnt finish.

    But for that reason, I know insects know where my tree is.
    All the tree listed bring all the insects around(even the lavender colored flowers my rosemary scrub produces). But the fig bring giant beatles and wasp when the fruit are ripe. The citrus bring the tradional european bee. There are also snails everywhere that like to eat the skin of my lemon. Occasionally well get hummingbird, more when we had the orchids bloom when because they are in pots. Not enough fertilizer.

    Thanks again,
    -Devin

    • Thanks for your comment. I am very glad you have bees. I suggest you get rid of the snails and also control ants because they bring pests and distribute them on plants so they can “milk” them for their honeydew. Spreading bagged earthworm castings on top of soil over roots helps get rid of pests including ants but does not damage bees.

  28. -Devin Again
    I think you may be slightly disappointed, i think I may have found my answer in your comments.

    From specifically your response with Hugh Luo. With Jo Fro follow up response, may have sealed in the answer. But to think my massive loss I am receiving 100-150, seems so suspicious that so many can fall without my intervention to have my plant thrive properly.
    Comes off as the plant telling me I am so close.

    -Devin

  29. M Luz Padilla

    My question is this I have a Pom that’s about 30 yrs old. It has taken a lot of space over the years and now I want to prune it How much can I cut? I don’t know how big it is. But it takes from my patio door to the fence and that’s like 12 or 14 feet? It’s big and beautiful but it doesn’t stop growing! I want to leave one branch. So take out like 90%. Can I do it without damaging the tree? I didn’t know that I had to prune it by the way

    • It would most likely be impossible to remove 90% of any tree without harming it, but no plant is sacrosanct. If you need to prune it, go ahead but always leave a growing tip. That is when you cut it back, don’t leaved any stubs. Make each cut at a point at a joint where another branch or tip remains to grow. You can also cut that tip or branch back to a joint leading to new growth. By cutting a plant back this way one can usually remove quite a bit of unwanted size without damaging the plant.

  30. Virginia P. Foy

    FINALLY!!!! Some thoroughly useful, detailed information on how to get my pomegranate to bloom and fruit! Especially about the pruning, which I have not done(:-(.
    I live just north of Palm Beach, in Jensen Beach, Florida. My bush/tree gets lots of sun, good drainage, no lawn competition but haven’t fertilized and, as noted, haven’t pruned. It appears to be very healthy and thriving in its location. I should mention it was def sold as a variety that was fruit-bearing, tho’ I have forgotten which.
    All that being said, it is early-May, I have once again not observed flowering–is it too late to initiate pruning on this five-year-old tree and if it isn’t, how much should I take off? I’m assuming it IS too late to give it a “trunk-beating”!
    Many thanks again for the wealth of information!
    Virginia, Jensen Beach, Fla.

    • It sounds as if you have already read all the information I have provided in other answers. My advice to you is, first that since your tree is only five years old and has not bloomed, don’t worry too much, there is still time. You may have a variety that does not tend to bear fruit early in life. I think that even though you are late, since the tree has not flowered anyway, I’d begin doing the right things for the tree. That is, go ahead and fertilize with high bloom ingredients as I’ve already described, or with an organic fertilizer that has a ratio of 5-10-10 or and also go all over the tree and pinch back all over the tree, removing one or two terminal buds on each branch tip. This will stimulate the tree to put out fresh growth and branch more and the fresh growth might possibly bloom. As far as bruising the bark on the trunk, you could try that as well or wait for late summer, fall or early spring next year.

  31. Hi,
    Sorry for the rant. My question is, why do you think my tree is blooming flower buds but 100 to 200 are falling before they can bare fruit? They have produced about a half dozen pomegranate fruit this year alone, but the falling buds are concerning. Do you have any tips or remedies for my issue?

    Thank you,
    Devin

    • If your tree is under 5 or 6 years old, this may be why blossoms fall off. If your tree is mature (over 6 years old) but there are no bees, then blossoms are falling off due to lack of pollination. No other tree is needed. Simply hand-pollinate blossoms with a red sable watercolor paintbrush by going from blossom to blossom in the morning after dew has dried, carrying pollen from one flower to another as I have described to other folks above. Changes from soggy soil to dry can also cause blossoms to fall off and so can wild swings of temperature from hot to cold or cold to hot.

  32. I bought a tiny pom sapling 3 years ago and planted it in a pot on my roof terrace. It has turned into a pretty medium sized bonsai tree.
    It has never born flowers.
    I don’t remember what variety it was, but I certainly remember that it was MEANT to be a fruit producing one. I’d really like it to produce fruit, not just to eat the fruit, but because the idea of a tiny tree with fruit on it is so appealing… I’ve seen other people’s pom bonsais with fruit so I know it must be possible…

    I live about 300m from the sea in the South Western Mediterranean in a sub-tropical microclimate, with frost free, very wet winters (torrential rain) and “dry” hot summers (no rain for 3 months). Late summer is EXTREMELY humid however (from August to early September we have close to 100% humidity and 30+ C temperatures) – it resembles a cloud forest some days, with almost no visibility as the sea mist rolls in and wets everything. So even though there is no actual rain, the plants do (in effect) get “watered” by the mist and Levante. The pom gets around 8 hours or more of direct sun in spring /summer, is this too much?

  33. Hi Pat,
    Thanks for the great info! We live in San Jose, zone 15. Our landscaper planted a 15-gal dwarf pomegranate tree in the front lawn (full sun) last August. It had 3 tasty fruits on it that we harvested in the fall. I hadn’t read your post, so I didn’t prune. But it still came back this spring looking very healthy, growing to 5 ft. It has produced a lot of flowers, but they have all fallen on ground. The bottom of the 1.5-inch long fruit seems to be hardening on the way to becoming a fruit before falling. The other day I touched a flower, and it was very loose and immediately fell.

    I didn’t know about the male and hermaphrodite flowers. After reading your posts and looking at pictures online, I checked a few recently-dropped flower. At first I thought they were all male. But looking more closely, I see they have a little stigma sticking out as tall as the stamens. But then I don’t really know what I’m talking about 🙂

    There is only one flower left today. Is this all normal, or should I be worried? My granddaughter loved sucking the juice out of the pomegranates off that tree last year, and I’d hate to disappoint her this year 🙁

    Thanks in advance,
    Reza

    • It may take 5 years before your tree reliably bears flowers and fruit. Flowers often fall off when a pomegranate is young.

  34. Hi Pat

    I have a dwarf pomegranate tree and had lot of flower and now they are fruits (15-20), but the fruit is not getting bigger, the largest is about an inch in diameter for the past month, any idea why?

    • Most dwarf pomegranate trees are ornamentals that do not bear edible fruit or bear fruit that is small and more decorative than tasty. Punica granatum ‘Nana’, a well-known dwarf, bears orange-red single flowers followed by small red fruit that is dry inside.

  35. Hi Pat,
    I have a pomegranate that I bought 4 years from a local nursery. It was only about a foot tall now it is over 6 feet. It produces large baseball size fruit but no seeds. The flower end remains closed and never opens up. It’s in full sun in the Central Valley. Will it ever produce edible fruit? Or, did I buy a non fruiting variety?
    Thanks for your help!

    • Your question seems to be asking me what to do about a pomegranate that bears fruit without seeds. The answer is eat the fruit. I think you must have bought a so-called “seedless” variety. These varieties, though called “seedless”, actually have small seeds that can be eaten. Some of these pomegranates have pink-colored fruit instead of red. It is fine to eat the fruit despite the pink or colorless fruit or apparent lack of seeds. If you prefer a more conventional pomegranate with dark red fruit and black seeds, then purchase and plant another one and be sure to ask for a variety that has red fruit and black seeds. Cross-pollination, which will occur if you have two trees, usually results in more fruit. Plant the new tree at least 8 feet from the one you already have.

  36. Hi Pat,

    One challenge I face every year is that how to know which branch will fruit.
    Peaches, plums. apricot trees, for example, have fruit buds that you can tell it will flower/fruit from those small hairy or spiky buds, but how about pomegranate tree? when I am cutting or pruning a branch, how can I know if that branch is fruiting branch? there is no obvious sign as there is on stone fruits. Please help!

    • Pomegranate trees are not like stone fruits so knowing which branch is a fruiting branch is not usually a factor. For example plums tend to fruit on a specific branch or branches so this makes it necessary to note in spring and summer which branches are bearing and cut little or none off those branches. With pomegranates, they can fruit all over even if you don’t prune them.

      Here is what I suggest: Prune in winter, if you want to prune. If you don’t prune, your tree may be fine anyway. Pomegranates can be grown as a tree shape or as a bush. If you want to create a tree shape, cut off the suckers that sprout from the bottom of the trunk that would turn it into a bush if you left them to grow. However, if you prefer a bush shape, leave the suckers alone and let them grow or remove a few if the tree is too crowded. With either shape, cut out anything dead or diseased. If you tree is too crowded, cut out a few smaller branches to open it up and allow air circulation. Do not over-prune your pomegranate. Fertilize it in spring.

  37. Hi,
    I’ve been trying to research but cannot find a complete answer for my situation: I am buying (hopefully) a pomegranate tree for my daughter who has an apartment in Irvine. I have not yet seen her apartment, but was told by a younger daughter that though she has a balcony, it is shaded by larger trees and has beams over the top and I really don’t know what if any full sunlight it gets. I also know that they really need 6 hours of full sun to produce fruit properly.

    So I guess, as I have found little bits of information here and there, cant remember completely what was about what (like i could have sworn one dwarf variety said it was edible, but either didn’t sound tasty or too many years to produce fruit, can’t remember and have everything mixed up in my mind at this point) and want to know if what I want to do will work:
    Get a pot for a full-sized variety (probably wonderful) so that it can be taken indoors in case they happen to have great lighting near a particular window (not sure, but guessing not likely) or some other place outside that they may not always want to leave it, and/or to use a grow light in or outdoors depending on what works for them, and the tree.
    Is this doable? Assuming it is fertilized correctly, transplanted correctly and as needed, etc. I also was having a hard time figuring out what type of grow-light to get that will help it produce fruit, and be the most economical. I got the idea florescent is cheaper but probably not enough watts. Led of different colors i was thinking is better, I am not sure of that or wattage.
    This is basically a late Christmas present, and didn’t realize how tricky this would end up being.
    Thanks!

    • You are right. This really is not doable. In life I find it’s much better and easier to undertake the projects that have a good chance for success. Wasting time and effort on tasks that are doomed to failure leads to unhappiness. Do the things one can do and let go of the “wants” that cannot currently be fulfilled.

  38. My pomegranate trees (2) are about 5 years old. They’re about 7 1/2 ft tall. I don’t know if they are the fruit producing or not. The package when I bought showed the fruit so I am assuming they are the producing kind. They have yet to bloom. Why?

    • I am sorry but I cannot tell you for sure why your pomegranate trees are not blooming. Your email does not provide me with enough information.

  39. Hello,
    I have a lot of flowers on my pom, but as they fully bloom they become easily detachable and fall off.
    It has been doing that for past 2 years, after one successful season where the fruits at some point start having a black dot of rot that expands but remains edible if picked on time.
    This year I did spray for anti-fungul and trimmed its edges.

    Thanks for all your help.

    • When blossoms fall from pomegranate trees this is usually the result of not having bees. If you spray with pesticides this can kill bees. Be sure sprays you use are not lethal to bees. Also hand pollinate the flowers with a sable watercolor brush.

  40. Hi:

    My wife really, really wanted a pomegranate tree; a friend had one that had that produces good fruit, and had shoots growing out. So, the friend dug out the shoots and we planted them in our garden. The plant has been growing now for several year but is only about three feet tall, looks more like a bush. No fruit or flowers have grown. We do live near the ocean in Silicon Valley, but the plant is in a sheltered location that gets 6-8 hours of sun a day.

    Will this ever flower or produce fruit, or are we better off to dig it out and plant another from the nursery?

    Thank you

    • When planting any fruit tree it is always best to begin by going to a reputable nursery and purchasing the best named variety for your climate zone.

  41. Thanks for all of the helpful info! I have a dwarf pom that is about 18 months old. I pruned it down quite a bit in Feb of this year and it has about trippled in size since. All of the branches are growing beautifully, except for the main center branch. I have not had any fruit or even flowers yet. Did I mess up by trimming the main branch? Did This prevent flowering? Its the only part of the plant not growing. The rest is full, green and lush. Please help! From sunny central FL.

    • I am so sorry but I don’t think I can answer your question because conditions in Florida are totally different from here in Southern California. I suggest you ask your local Farm Advisor or Master Gardeners for the answer to this problem. Don’t ask a nursery person since they usually don’t have the kind of expertise you need.

  42. Please tell me about small & sour pomagranate that are used for making chutney.

    • Sorry I have never heard of a pomegranate used for making chutney. This sounds like a plant they might have in India that is not known here.

  43. Thank you so much for demystifying some of the reasons why my Pomegranate has been so inconsistent. Living in a subtropical environment with very clays soil, with 10inches of top soil only. The tree has at times yielded 30 to 40 flowers at a time, starting in Spring and I’ve manually pollinated them with a paintbrush only to have but one flower result into a fruit. Most seem to have pollinated but over a short period of time they drop off leaving only one fruit. I have watered it regularly, once a day using an irrigation system. While I have checked the pH level of the soil as it varies through the depth I have added Gypsum periodically to break the clay up which is working. But fruiting is where I have the most issues. I was wondering if cincturing or girdling will help bare fruit or that’s something not necessary?
    Also if you had any suggestions how I could help the tree retain the pollinated fruit and stop them from falling?
    Thank you.

    • Most of the problems people are having with fruit trees of all kinds is due to climate change. This is the result of global warming but instead of simply causing hotter temperatures it is wrecking our regular seasons and causing erratic temperature swings at the wrong times of year. Regarding your soil it is too bad you did not plant this tree in a raised bed. A raised bed does not need to be very high. Even 4 inches and then improving the soil with compost and mixing up the soil and then re-filling the bed to the top can help. But in this case the raised bed would need to be very large. Perhaps 8 feet square or more to make room for spreading roots. You may be overwatering your tree. Clay soil retains moisture for a long time.

  44. I have had my pom for about 5 years, the first several years it seemed to have its seasons mixed up, it would begin to fruit a month or so before the ‘winter’ cold set in, and I was not able to harvest any mature fruit. This year we had a good winter (As good as you can get in North Texas). and it bloomed when all my other fruit trees did (peaches, plums, apples, nectarines, pears). but my fruit seems to have stopped growing… they are small, and just seems like its not doing anything more. I will try again NEXT year adding more Nitrogen to my soil…. I have very high alkaline. any additional advice would be appreciated.

    • I doubt that your problem has anything to do with inadequate fertilizer. Most likely it’s all the result of swings in temperatures that are occurring due to climate change. Fruit trees are very much affected by temperatures not only during the day but also at night.

  45. Hi Pat –

    Thanks so much for keeping this thread going all these years. I learned a great deal from your initial response and in reading through many of the comments.

    I’ve lived For about five years now in Hemet, California, which as you know has a hot and dry summer climate. The property contained a mature pomegranate tree which has annually produced maybe 6 to 9 medium cardboard boxes of pomegranates although last year it was down a bit. At sometime in the past someone pruned the central core branches at about a 7 to 8 foot level and since then numerous shoots have sprouted at the ends of those branches and they now shoot 6 to 8 feet straight up most without any smaller off shoots. Have also noticed shoots going straight up from some lower branches too and they also are mostly without smaller branches – Some go straight up 10 feet!

    From reading your comments I’m inclined to prune them all off to one or 2 foot lengths so that they will sprout new growth and make the tree more bushy-like and in a few years those will be fruit bearing if I understand you correctly. But I just wanted to make sure so can you kindly let me know if that is correct? Thanks again, Richie

    • A branch going straight up from one of the scaffold branches of a fruit tree is called a “Water Sprout”. The best thing to do with watersprouts is to remove them as soon as they occur by cutting them off level with the branch usually in August. However, if you are pruning in winter, such as now in January or February and missed this job in August do the task now.

      Water sprouts will bear fruit but never as much as the horizontal branches and unfortunately they will sap the strength of the rest of the tree and take away from its proper shape. So my advice to you is to remove these waterspouts and not to retain them and cut them back as you were intending to do. This treatment can result in the undesirable look of “a tree within a tree”.

  46. Hello Pat – 5 years ago I planted a Parfianka pomegranate in my garden which is in one of the warmer parts of San Francisco. It’s in a sunny sheltered spot which gets about 6-8 hours of sun a day in the summer and I’m growing it in a rough fan shape against a fence (I’m trying to squeeze in as many fruit trees as possible in to my small garden). It’s growing well – over 6 ft tall and wide and would be taller if I didn’t prune it – but last year was the first year it had any flowers. Only one flower opened and it dropped off soon after. The other buds didn’t even open before falling off. This year, there were three buds about two months after the first leaves appeared but they dropped off before opening as well. I don’t see any more forming.

    Do you think it’s not warm enough for that variety here in SF? Or do you think it might be my attempts to prune it into a rough fan shape that could be the culprit? I try to do most of my pruning in the winter, but did do some over the growing season last year to keep it to shape.

    • In general it is best to follow the rules of pruning and not try to fit trees into small spaces. My recommendation is to follow all the rules
      for best success. Crowded plants seldom do well.

  47. I have two pomegranate trees planted side by side which I planted at the same time. One flowers and fruits and the other does neither. Aside from the possibility that one is an ornamental, is there any reason why it has not flowered? They receive the same irrigation and fertilizer and both are healthy.
    thanks
    Ron

    • If one tree receives more sunlight than the other, that might be the clue. Another possible reason: One tree is older than the other. A third reason: One tree gets a cold breeze or other reason for difference in temperature.

      Wail a couple of years and maybe both will bear fruit.

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