Grow Citrus ANYWHERE Potting Tips MicoClimate Hardiness Zones Organic Sun Block Protection

I'm Charles Malki, biologist and plant expert with Ivory Organics, 3-in-1 Tree Guard Paint, and we've got an exciting video today that's inspired by two plant enthusiasts, such as myself, who have actually shared a couple of ideas that they'd like to know more about. And the two people I wanna give credits to is Al Wilcoxon, I just wanna make sure I'm reading his name right, in Canton, Illinois, and the second being Mr. Nguyen, based out of Livermore, California, up in Northern California. And the two topics we're gonna discuss today is preparing your soil mix for planting your fruit trees, and specifically, we're gonna talk about citrus, and the second thing we're gonna talk about is microclimate. Being that microclimate is such an easy topic, I'm gonna quickly cover that here. And what microclimate is defined as, by most people, is the climate of a very small or restricted area, especially when this differs from the climate of the surrounding area. Microclimate is, some of us are familiar with actually seeing a picture such as this on the back of your seed packets if you go to buy your seeds, and you'll see something that's, this is a picture of the state of California, just to quickly point out, Los Angeles is here, San Diego down there, Sacramento up here, and you'll notice that there's different colors, mostly green and yellows in this area, and blues, and this is more characterized over here by red and oranges, and what this actually is sharing with you is it's telling you your plant hardiness zone map, which basically shares, and I'll actually put the link down below in the comments so that you can view it and actually go and find your own state and see what your plant hardiness zone is for your area, but even within an area such as Los Angeles, which is where we're at, and we're fortunate enough to have a planning zone 10B, specifically with where we're at, and that basically says your nighttime low temperatures and the coldest nights of winter are only between 35 and 40 degrees, so we don't fall below freezing, and that allows us to grow all the same plants that you can otherwise grow in Hawaii. The only difference between Los Angeles and Hawaii is water. As long as you add water, you can grow the same tropicals, and I'll share a few here in the garden as well in just a minute. So microclimate, you gotta find out what is your growing zone, what grows in your area, and make sure that you plant the plants that are specific to that area, and those are the plants you can plant outdoors in your garden. If it is not within the right hardiness zone, then you may need to consider putting your plant in a pot and then bringing the pot in over the winter during the coldest, your freezing temperature, weeks and months, and then bring it back into your garden where they'll enjoy the maximum amount of sun. So what I wanna share with you is even in your own garden, we're actually here in the Hollywood Hills today in the county of Los Angeles, and even in the county of Los Angeles, there's huge variation in regards to microclimate. If you're up in the hills, you can be enjoying a 10 degree cooler day than the temperatures down in the valley. Another variation is the coastal. If you're down in Malibu or Santa Monica Beach, there could be a 20 degree difference between the coastal climate there and living more inland. So huge variation even within a 10 to 20 mile difference in regards to climate, and that's something that you should do your research on and find out exactly where you're at and how things are affected. And even in my own backyard, I'm gonna share something with you right now, and I've got over here this house, and I'm gonna demonstrate a couple of things. This here is a birdhouse my six-year-old daughter designed this last week, and we're gonna use this for demonstration purposes. And what I wanna share with you here is I prepared this grid, and what we've done is we put the directions of north, east, south, and west on the paper, and what I wanna share with you is the north part of my garden is in this direction. So I'm gonna set this down in the direction that the sun actually travels. So we're here is east, so the sun rises to my right. The sun sets to my left. The north part I'm actually facing, and the south part is behind me in that wall that you see behind me. And we're gonna discuss the house for the next demonstration, but let me show you the difference, actually, with what's going on over here. If you come and follow me here, I'm standing here now next to our Valencia orange tree, and the reason we installed the Valencia orange tree is because this plant actually fruits and bears fruit between the months of March and all the way through October, and this is an area that in the winter between the months of mid-November all the way through February is otherwise in the shade. Take a look here. You can actually see now that we're in September, actually, we're in August, you can actually see the shade that's against the floor. Between, and let me actually point it out here. You can take a look. So the shade line is right there. About a month ago, the shade line was closer to the wall, but right now we're here in August. By September it'll be here. By October, November, December, this entire section of a garden, all of these bananas, if this banana doesn't grow a little bit taller, will not be receiving light for the months, again, between December and February. So we need to get this plant to grow at least a couple more feet so it can get that morning warmth as it goes through those cold winter nights, even though, again, we don't go below freezing. These plants do take a beating when they get no light at all. Take a look at this other banana as well. So this one over here is my ice cream banana plant. You can see that it's towering up and above. It sometimes takes anywhere from two to three years for them to finally go into bloom. But this plant, even though it's on the shaded south end of my garden, will still receive plenty of light as the plant is now tall enough that it'll be capturing the light at the time of sunrise. Let's continue. So this end of my garden is now the north end. This part of my garden gets sun from the morning until sunset. It's always in the sun. So this is the south end of your garden. The part of your garden that gets the most light would be this corner over here, which is your southwest corner. As soon as the sun comes up in the morning, it's already warming up and receiving that solar radiation, warming up its branches and trunks. It's actually warming up its roots. It's giving it the best chance of life, whereas the worst corner would be now the south east corner of your garden. That would be the coolest, dampest corner of your garden. And be considerate of that when you're actually deciding on what part of your garden to be growing your plants. Let's continue. So the reason I've now got the house here is when we actually bring our potted plant in, and even though we haven't started it yet, but once we actually bring the plant in in the winter months, we gotta decide what part of our house are we gonna put the plant? Are we gonna put it on the north end of the house, south end of the house, the east end of the house, or the west end of the house? Some people would think, oh, the sun rises in the east, so we should actually position, if we can consider this the window where the plant's gonna be in. If we position the plant on this window facing east, it's gonna get light in the morning, and then that'll be it. As the sun works its way up in the sky, now it'll be in the shade, and it won't get the required four to six hour minimum amount of light to get it through winter. The best position to actually put your window will actually be facing south, which is in this direction. It'll get the morning light in the morning, and the afternoon light as the sun sets on the west side. So the south end window will actually provide your citrus tree with the most amount of light, and the worst window you can go in is your window's facing north. So it's kind of just the opposite. Once you're inside the house, it's the opposite of what's happening outside your house, and that's the reason I've got this map. So again, if I can put this birdhouse, I would actually be positioning it. Here's the window to your house. I'm actually gonna be positioning it away from you, the viewers, if you wanna come and take a look so you can actually see this in the right position. So this is south. The window's gonna be on the south window, and you're gonna position your plant right inside, on the inside of the window on this end of the house. I hope that helps and that makes sense. And now we'll continue on to potting the plant. So this addresses Mr. Nguyen's interest, microclimate. Now we're gonna go to Mr. Wilcoxon and preparing soil mixes that'll actually prevent root rot and actually give your citrus the best chance at life. Let's continue. So now we've gotta decide, what citrus tree are we gonna plant in the ground? I've got behind me limes, grapefruits, oranges, and lemons, and we've gotta decide which one are we gonna plant? Which one do we want? What are the characteristics between them all? And they're actually all not the same, aside from the fact that they taste different, they all have different cold-hardiness abilities. Some of them can actually tolerate frost, and some of them can't even get close to freezing. And let me share with you this chart over here that I prepared that basically shows your most cold-hardy citrus to your least cold-hardy citrus. And we'll start off at the top with kumquats, they're actually very cold-hardy. They can actually tolerate below freezing temperatures quite well. Satsuma oranges, sweet oranges, navel oranges, mandarin oranges, grapefruit are, now we're getting more towards the middle in regards to their ability to handle frost, but grapefruit, tangerines, tangelos, lemons are actually very sensitive now to frost, with the exception of, we just talked about the Meyer lemon being one that it can actually withstand once established, temperatures as low as the low 20s. And then we've got limes that are the least cold-hardy. This is actually prepared by, I wanna give credit to the CitrusTreesKnowLA.com. And then the other thing that was also prepared by that same website, the CitrusTreesKnowLA.com, they said, you think your area is too cold to grow citrus? Try these super cold-hardy selection. Here are some more choices. One is being the Kalamondin, I've seen the Maiwa kumquat, the Nagami kumquat, I've actually got growing in a pot in my front yard. Another one that's popular is the Yuzu lemon. I've seen those actually for sale in nurseries as well. And some of these can go as low as, over here this tangerine can go as low as eight degrees Fahrenheit, which is remarkable. Another one here, 10 degrees, 10 degrees, 12 degrees, and 10 degrees. That's very, very cold-hardy citrus. So there's quite a few choices that you've got that can actually allow you to grow citrus even below freezing temperatures. And those freezing temperatures we're talking about are your nighttime lowest low temperatures where hopefully the afternoon temperatures come back out of freezing so the plant can continue to thrive. So now we gotta decide. So which citrus are we gonna plant? And if you don't know me already, there's one type of citrus that I love more than the rest, and that is lemons. And there's a reason for it. Aside from the fact you can make lemonade, and make teas, and make your own homemade salad dressings, and use them to marinate your chicken and fish, the list is endless in regards to the uses. And there's not a day that goes by where we don't use at least one lemon here in our family. And it's for that reason that we've planted at least nine lemon trees. We've got one container, and now we're gonna prepare another one, which is gonna be part of our giveaway. So more that I wanna share with you in regards to why lemons. We all know that citrus have vitamin C, and that's great for protecting your immune system against illnesses such as colds and flus. But let me share with you another handful of ideas and benefits of lemons. Lemons are rich in vitamin C and flavonoids, which help protect your health against infections like the flu and colds. It's an antioxidant. The antioxidant properties help neutralize free radicals, which are linked to aging and most types of diseases, including cancer. The lemon peel contains compounds proven to be effective relief for some types of brain disorders, such as Parkinson's. Destroys parasitic intestinal worms. Lemons have powerful antibacterial properties. Experiments have found the juice to destroy bacteria, malaria, cholera, diphtheria, typhoid, and other deadly diseases. Your blood vessels are strengthened by a vitamin P, one of the bi-flavonoids in the lemon, and helps prevent internal hemorrhaging. Also useful in treating high blood pressure. And lemons contain 22 anti-cancer compounds, including naturally occurring, and I'm not gonna go into all those. So the point is, lemons are super healthy for your body. Use them, plant them, grow them, and once you actually grow them and you grow them organically, it's gonna be a superior fruit than that fruit that's been sitting at your grocery store for a month, two months, three months, or longer. And who knows how they were grown and what chemicals are actually in those lemons, compared to when you grow them organically, you know that you're getting something that's pesticide-free and derived from organic sources and not chemical sources when it comes to fertilizers, which we'll discuss momentarily. So what we're gonna pick here is this guy over here. We're gonna pick what's called the improved Meyer lemon. And if you take a look here at the plant, you can see that it's already carrying a few small fruit, which we're gonna remove, actually, once we plant it. And here's another one right here as well. So you can see that it's fruiting. The Meyer lemon, as we saw in our garden, it's always fruiting, flowering, and growing. It's one of the most active citrus. And if you were to do a cutting off of this plant, it's a naturally compact plant. It rarely grows between more than six to 10 feet, whereas other citrus varieties can grow anywhere from 25 to 30 feet on its own rootstock. So it's a naturally more of a dwarf-type citrus tree. And if you actually grow them actually on dwarf rootstock, as I've found one here, you can actually have a plant as small as this and bearing fruit. So take a look at that. Some people talk about the idea of actually planting seeds and growing a citrus from seeds. And the risk is you could be waiting as long as 10 years and maybe you plant a lemon seed and it ends up being more like an orange or maybe the fruit's too small or a whole variety of things. But you're taking a chance when you plant the seed. Just like children, they're all different. The seeds of a fruit will result in a variety of different fruits, which could have cross-pollinated with any other citrus varieties in the area. So this here is a Meyer lemon on a dwarf rootstock. And you can see that it's a compact plant, no more than a foot tall. And I've already got a couple of fruit on this tree. So this is dwarf. This one here is on a semi-dwarf rootstock. So we can see here that the rootstock is over here. This here was the continuation of the rootstock. We're gonna prune that and clean that up a little bit better. And then this here is the grafted. This is here is what's creating the flavor of the Meyer lemon. So the rootstock controls the height and gives it the disease resistance and gives it the drought tolerance and the frost tolerance. So we're using a good rootstock for that. And then the Meyer lemon is the variety and the selected fruit that we're gonna want to enjoy. It's read on here, improved Meyer lemon. And the reason it says improved is it's actually a virus-free Meyer lemon. There's another type of Meyer lemon, which it wouldn't have the word improved in front of it that was grown, I think, five or 10 years ago. And that one actually suffered from diseases that made it less ideal. So this is now the improved virus-free lemon variety. So here we are now. I've got my pruners. We said we're gonna clean this up. We don't want this additional wood protruding as this is ultimately gonna die and be a potential entryway for wood-boring insects to get into the heart of the tree. So we're just gonna cut that off so as the plant continues to expand, this is gonna heal and basically go back within the tree. This here also can be cleaned up as well. All of these, what were once small branches. So here we go. Our first step is to select a pot. And over here, we've got three varieties to choose from. I've got this plastic container which has got a built-in saucer. Let's see if I can pull this out. So the idea of this is we're gonna plant. We're gonna plant our plant in here. The water's gonna come and pass through the holes, get collected into this pan, and basically return any excess water back into the pot. I do like using saucers to help contain the water and when I'm fertilizing, I want the fertilizers to stay. But the bad part about a system like this is the water that gets trapped underneath here, you could potentially rot and smell and actually be a breeding zone for anaerobic bacteria and other diseases. And we wanna make sure that the roots are actually always aerated, exposed to oxygen, and not trapped in what's gonna end up being a smelly, rotting zone with our organic materials. So this is not the preferred pot to be using. And plastic also, I'm gonna show you another superior product in a minute. So this is one idea. Here's a second idea. If you do decide, these are actually both inexpensive. I think this one here was $5 and this one here was six. But this here is another plastic container, beautifully decorated and colored. But the bottom of it here has no holes in it. So if you were to use this container, I would recommend that you put some holes. But again, this is not the preferred pot to be using as well. So we get those out of the way. The preferred pot to use is something more like this. And this is a clay pot. It doesn't have any tar that's been painted on the inside. As I've noticed, some in the nursery were coated with tar. And it doesn't have any glazes on the outside of it as well. And what this does for your plants is, and let me see if I can find my spray bottle here. And so what using a clay pot does for your plant is, when you're actually watering your plant, the clay actually absorbs the water and it actually retains some of the water. And as the plant needs more water, it can actually draw off of the water that's in the pot. And on the outside, again, when you go to water the pot, it's actually absorbing the water again, and it's actually making a cooler pot than what a hot plastic container would otherwise do for the root ball. So it's actually keeping the plant cooler, it's retaining water, providing water when needed, and it's also adding oxygen. This is actually a porous pot, and there's an exchange of gases actually between the outside and the inside. And that actually will allow for a better root system on the inside. So consider using a ceramic pot such as this when potting your plants. Our next step is, and if you can come around here, I've actually got what's gonna be the bottom of our container. So now we gotta decide what medium are we gonna put at the bottom of the pot. You don't wanna put your potting soil in the bottom of the pot without first putting something to actually filter your growing medium and actually also help pull the water down and out of the pot as fast as possible. And what I've got here in front of me is, I've got some rocks, which I've collected from my front yard. I've got over here some wood chips, and then I've got over here a cracked pot as well, a clay pot. So we've gotta decide what's the best choice. And your best choices are actually using either the rocks or the clay pot, but do not use the wood chips. So the reason for not putting wood chips at the very bottom of your container is that once you put the wood chips down here and put your potting soil on top of it, these wood chips are now gonna rob, for one, the nutrients that are in the soil, particularly nitrogen, will actually be taken out of the soil. And secondly, you're actually causing what may potentially start rotting inside of your container. This wood needs to be exposed to oxygen, and by putting it at the very bottom of your container, you're actually robbing it of oxygen, and it's ultimately gonna suck the other oxygen out of the soil mixture and potentially harm your plant. So you do not put wood chips at the bottom of it. I've seen some growers actually doing. The best option to be doing is to be putting your rocks, as we're doing here. And the goal is, again, to just basically block the hole that's at the bottom. You can see the holes there. So we just wanna close that up like so. And we can also use our clay pot over here. And I've got my hammer here so I can break it down a little bit further. And we can use these pieces as well to basically help encourage the water to quickly drain out of the soil mixture, which will allow the roots to be exposed to more oxygen. It needs to not be drowning while it's in this pot, and also not rotting. So this is gonna help pull the water out and create for a drier plant. So we're gonna place that, position that here. We've got our saucer. Our saucer is gonna trap or actually collect any excess water. We're gonna be enriching this with a really good soil mixture. And we wanna make sure that any excess water that comes out remains here while the plant continues to pull it. But we're gonna make sure that the water does not sit here for more than a day. If it does, you gotta make sure you drain that out. Because again, you don't want the roots to be waterlogged. And now let's go on to the next step. So here we go now. To make your own potting mix, you need three things. The first is, we've got is our sphagnum peat moss, which is indicated down here. I just made my first pile. The second product is vermiculite. You can see over here. That's indicated by this product over here. And the third is perlite and indicated by this white snow. What I'm gonna do first is I'm gonna actually dampen it. And then I'm gonna explain some details about all of these ingredients. I'm just gonna wet those down a little bit. And I'll explain in just a minute why I'm doing this. So I wanna share with you, and I'm actually gonna read my notes because I wanna make sure I don't miss any of these things. A lot of people confuse vermiculite and perlite as being non-organic. And when I think about what is organic, usually you think about organic things are derived from living things, such as this sphagnum peat moss. It actually comes from the bogs. And if you take a look real closely here, if you take a look real closely here, you can see that it's derived from plants. And when you actually add water to it, what happens is the plant cells absorb the water and it can expand to anywhere from, I've seen research saying 5% to as high as I think 30%. But the goal is when it gets wet, is it actually expands and will actually hold the water and then provide it to the plant that's in your pot as the plant needs it. So sphagnum peat moss. And again, the other great part about it is being organic, it will ultimately break down and continuously feed your plant over the course of anywhere from two to four years, at which point you're gonna need to add some more compost to your soil. So the benefits. Vermiculite is the first one I wanna talk about, which is this bag over here. And I wanna share with you down here as well. It says that it's OMRI listed. So we know that it's an organic product. So I'm kind of giving you the head start before I start. But vermiculite is a naturally occurring mineral and it's mined and processed into a puffy, lightweight, granule mixed with soil to help improve aeration and drainage. And this is what it looks like. I'm gonna try to get some of the dry part. But this here is the vermiculite. We'll actually read some of the label as well over here. And it says improves moisture and nutrient retention, aids in fast seed germination, prevents soil compaction and increases aeration. Here are my notes. I wrote improves aerations, it loosens the soil so roots can more easily reach down and grow through the soil. It enhances drainage. Vermiculite soaks up water like a sponge and then releases it to the plant so the plant needs it. And then it also adds a permanent soil conditioner. And the reason it's permanent is it doesn't break down. Once you actually put in the soil, it'll stay there forever and indefinitely. So that's something to keep in mind. Perlite, on the other hand, which is this product over here, also OMRI listed, organic product, help prevent soil compaction, promote strong roots and development, and excellent for starting cuttings. And what perlite again looks like, I'll take a handful, is this. It looks like styrofoam, but it's not styrofoam. It actually comes from a natural source. Actually comes from volcanic rock. Specifically, so perlite is derived from a form of obsidian. Obsidian is a volcanic glass, and the glass is heated to such high temperatures. We're talking about 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit, high temperatures. And when it's heated that high, it actually pops like popcorn and creates this material. And what it's great for is it actually also absorbs water. But more than anything, it actually adds air to the soil as well, which is also important. And then on the sphagnum peat moss. The sphagnum peat moss is a decay-dried moss and has the same name as peat or peat moss. This is used as a soil conditioner, which increases the soil capacity to hold water and nutrients. So these are the three ingredients that we're gonna actually be putting in the soil. Again, just to recap, this here is gonna break down over time. We're talking about two to four years. This here will not break down, and the vermiculite will not break down, and the perlite will not break down. But what is being offered is all of them absorb water. Rather than using soil from your garden or any other, just putting in compost without adding these ingredients will basically result in a potting mix that just does not retain water enough to support a potted plant. So these are the critical ingredients that go into making potting mixes. What we're gonna do here now is we're gonna mix equal parts of vermiculite with perlite and moss. But what we're gonna do differently, being that the goal is to increase drainage in your pot, is we're gonna add more perlite at both top and bottom of the soil mixture. So this here is what we're gonna start off with. And again, the reason I added water right at the beginning is hopefully it starts absorbing the water before I put it in the pot, and then we're just gonna add that. If you wanna come a little closer so you can see how this is gonna go in. And we're just gonna add this mix. So it's perlite, vermiculite, and moss, but mostly perlite. We added a couple extra handfuls of perlite. We're just gonna mix that down in here. The next step we're gonna do is take a product such as this. And this here is an organic fertilizer. We're gonna talk about fertilizers in a minute, but this here is an organic fertilizer. There's chemical and organic fertilizers to choose from. I'll actually go over that in, again, just a minute. The ratios on this are 4% nitrogen, 5% phosphorus, and 4% potassium. These are the macronutrients, and then there's also some micronutrients in there as well that plants need as well to grow well. We're just gonna add a little bit of this to the base of the plant as well. And that'll be it. And now we're just gonna continue forward. So we're gonna make now our next mixture of perlite, vermiculite, and moss. We're gonna mix those together, and then repeat, we're gonna come back over here. But now, we're right at the height of the plant, so we can now bring this back in. Make sure we've got the improved Mara Lemon. And we're just gonna squeeze the container a little bit around the root ball. We're gonna tap on the bottom. You can see over here are the roots. So we're gonna push that through. And then, you can see that these roots have become a little root ball, so you're gonna wanna kind of pull them apart to tell the plant that you're no longer bound, and they can start filling in the container. And we're just gonna put that in there like so. And now we can continue filling it in with some more soil. And we're gonna have to repeat the process a couple more times. So let's go back here again. I'm gonna add a little more perlite here. So now we're at the last step. Take a look at the plant one more time here. You can see we've got about a couple more inches to go to cover the root. And we're now gonna wanna actually make a mixture that's more concentrated in the perlite. So let's come back over here again. So we're gonna add our moss. We're gonna add some vermiculite. So we did one and one. And now we're gonna do two handfuls, or twice as much perlite for the top part. And the logic here is we're trying to prevent this root from rotting. If there's actually too much moisture around the root ball, it'll actually cause the plant to rot. Another, some people in the plant business call it the plant getting wet feet. So we wanna make sure that it actually has dry roots. Remember, the perlite does absorb water, but it also aerates the root system as well. And then we're just gonna put a little bit more of this organic fertilizer at the top. We'll scatter that around the top and mix that in. So we've just potted the Meyer lemon into its clay pot. And come and take a look here. If we actually pull back on the soil, you'll notice that the roots are just under the soil level. We didn't cover it by more than a quarter of an inch, if that. So the roots are right near the surface. Make sure you do not cover them, because again, that'll contribute to root rot. And again, we've added more perlite, at least two handfuls for every one handful of vermiculite and one handful of the moss. For two handfuls of the perlite and just those top couple of inches, just as we did on the bottom couple of inches as well, to help facilitate drainage and to prevent root rot from happening to the tree. The next thing we're gonna do is actually give it something to prevent shock. And this here, it says vitamin B1. Another product that also has vitamin B1 in it is Super Thrive. But we'll just put about a teaspoon of the product in some water. And now water your plant thoroughly. We've got the plant in a saucer here on the bottom to help absorb any of the water. Especially on this first day, it's gonna take a while for this soil mixture to absorb all the water. You can actually see that it's still like, the moss is actually still floating. It's still dry on the inside. It's gonna take a while, like probably an hour for it to fully absorb the water and to keep this plant hydrated. So we're gonna soak it well and we're gonna try to get some water to also fill in the saucer near the bottom as well. And keep it that way just for today. If there's any water remaining around the plant through tomorrow, then we're gonna have to drain that additional water. So again, it doesn't allow the soil to actually rot. But again, while there's water in the bottom saucer, the lower vermiculite, the lower moss will actually wick the water out and continue hydrating this entire plant during these summer months and actually throughout the year. What we're gonna do next is actually remove these ties. These ties are actually bound at the nursery. They're usually on too tight and actually will restrict and constrict the flow of water and sugars up and down the plant. So the next thing we're gonna do is actually remove these ties. So we'll take that off. And we can see the plant just moved a little bit. If we wanna support it again, this is what we're gonna do. Watch this. So what we're gonna do here is just take some twine. When you actually tie a knot, make sure you do not tie your knot onto the tree. You're gonna tie it onto the stake, like so. And then we're gonna loosely support the plant. You're gonna wanna make sure there's at least an inch of space between your stake and the tie. And if you take a look in here real quick, let me just cut off the excess string so you can see what I've just done. You'll notice this is about an inch of space. And then again, there's no knot around it. So the tree continues to grow. There'll be space between the tree and the stake. And that'll actually provide all the needed support that it'll need. And now the next step we're gonna do is coat the plant with Ivory Organics 3-in-1 Tree Guard Paint. So here we are now. Now we're gonna add Ivory Organics 3-in-1 Tree Guard Paint. It's the all-natural tree trunk and branch barrier protection against damaging. Let me read this with you guys. Protection against damaging sunburn in insects and rodents for uses on roses, fruit, and nut trees, ornamental trees, and shrubs. And it's an organic, environmentally safe, and non-toxic product. And again, you can see it's a member of the Organic Trade Association. And I know there's some more certifications coming out for the company soon. But what we're gonna do is just open this here. And the product comes with a powder of white organic paint, as well as a oil vial. We'll take off this bubble wrap here. And it's got this oil vial. And the oil vial actually contains the oils that actually repel the insects and the rodents from affecting your plant. So what we're gonna do is add organic paint to the can. And then we're gonna get our water here. Instructions require that you only fill the can up halfway. And then stir it. And the goal being that by the time you add the oil, hopefully it's not gonna get clumped up into the paint. And instead, it'll get mixed into the entire contents. And then we'll stir that up a little bit more. And then add some more water. And now you can fill it up to the top. If you actually fill it up halfway, it'll have the consistency of paint. But by actually doing it with twice as much paint, it'll be a dilute product. And we'll be able to at least cover at least a dozen trees. So like all the plants behind me can be covered with this can of paint. There should still be quite a bit of product left over. What we're gonna do today is, so what we're gonna do today is we're gonna actually coat the plant trunk. So we're actually gonna take this product here and just apply it like so. And we basically wanna go as low as we can to near the root ball. And then work your way up. I should have done this actually before I applied the stake. Because now I'm painting the stake as well. And we're just gonna go to the lowest branch. And here we go. Okay. And then the next step we're gonna do is apply the product as a foliar spray. So what we're gonna do is bring our spray bottle here. So we've got a spray bottle here. And what we're gonna do is just take about a teaspoon or two and apply it to our spray bottle. Set that down. Add your top. Shake it. And now we can create a foliar spray. And now we've just created an organic sunblock for plants. Come and take a look at the leaf. You can actually see how light the leaf has already become. You can see there's like a white film that's now on it. This will actually keep your plants. And look at the most sensitive leaves on the top. You can see that it's got a very dilute organic white spray to help keep the plant cool as the roots get reestablished in this pot. The last step we're gonna do now, we're not gonna let these wood chips go to waste. We're gonna go and take these and add them like so all around the plant. And what this will do is it'll actually help the plant retain more water and it'll also add additional nutrients. When we go to water these wood chips, the wood chips will continuously break down and continue to enrich the soil as well. So the added benefit is added nutrients naturally to your soil. Make sure you keep the wood chips away from the tree trunk. So we're gonna push those back and along the edges as you don't want the wood chips also contribute toward root rot or even the trunk rot. If these wood chips actually come into contact with the bark, it could actually offer too much moisture to the plant. So you wanna make sure that those wood chips are away from the tree trunk. And again, the benefit again, is it's gonna help it retain water, especially we're here in the middle of August now and it's just too hot. So this will help keep the plant cool in case we miss a watering day, it'll help it better retain water. And again, this sunblock will help protect it as well. So I hope you've enjoyed this episode with Ivory Organics 3-in-1 Tree Guard Paint. I hope you've learned a lot of valuable lessons here. And again, thanks for watching and happy gardening.