Joana Soares

I was reading a bit on the suggested Ceroplastes sinensis and it says they’re quite common innovative trees. It could make sense because around our building there are a lot of uncared for orange trees.
I was also reading I shouldn’t be too worried with them unless there’s a huge invasion. What do you think?

It has been a very dry year altogether. Not extremely hot considering what it could be around here, but quite warm and dry. They first showed up on the pomegranate leaves during the summer.
On the first picture you can see my thumb, for size. I would say 1mm.
The pomegranate is on a balcony and those leaves get sun everyday.

Tiny red/brown with white leg like structures, though they don’t seem to move. Any idea what they are?
I caught them on pomegranate and red oak leaves.

Hi everyone!
We have a pomegranate whose stems are packed full with these egg like structures.
Any idea what pest we’re dealing with?

Philippe Elskens wrote:Looks great!
We are starting a similar project (2 ha food forest) close to Lisbon soon.

Which cover crops would you recommend?

Where around Lisbon?
I just fell in love with trees and we are buying 5ha of land at Arruda dos Vinhos where I plan to plant a lot of them.
Still finding my way around all of this.

I almost feel embarrassed for such a bad looking tree....
I forgot to say I also removed the root suckers.

Hi Marco,

So many thanks for your reply. You can't imagine how happy and relieved I was to read it!

I really, really appreciate all your advice.

1) I fell in love with this one because it seems to be well trained as a tree. However I did notice a few suckers coming from the roots. Actually, they were sprouting from the compost around the base. If I prune them to the "ground" (which I assume will be some distance to the actual root) does it do any effect?

2) What do you mean by: "The new fruit is easy enough to snap off the branches". That it will be heavy and break the branches?

5) Very interesting that you mention this (=ants). Here I go on my story (I'll try to make it brief).
We have been rebuilding a house with a backyard (it will be our first one). I was never good with plants but always loved the feeling of being in a forest. As this house has two outdoor spaces, we bought a few trees but were ill advised by the architect (who said trees will adapt to a space... and there I was, buying 7 trees, one of them a Liquidambar, for a 35 sqm and a 49 sqm place). When I started reading (clever of me, to do it only after that emotional purchase)
I realised we wouldn't be able to plant them safely and started daydreaming about having a farm. And here we are, almost finishing construction works, having decided we're selling that house and buying a huge land instead. That'll lead me to other stories, for which I'll also need advice. But trying not to get lost, let's get back to the ants.
For the first house, we bought an old (and quite expensive) pomegranate tree in a container. This was before I did any reading at all. I started reading because once it arrived at the house I noticed there were a few (too many!) problems.
The most evident, apart from terrible, terrible!, pruning, was a family of happy red ants. It was fascinating finding out how they herd aphids around.
So, here are my questions:
- We transplanted the tree in late january. However, it's been really warm and dry in Portugal. Trees were blossoming everywhere, as early as february. The tree needs some serious pruning, but since the transplant is recent, should i leave it be for next year? I already cut dead and broken branches.
- What about the ants? I don't think it's so much as preventing them going on the tree as they actually already live there (because they came from the nursery with it). Any thoughts on what I should do?
- When we bought the tree (october) it had 3/4 fruits. Very small ones... Could this be because of the terrible pruning and it being in a container?

I'm also curious about some kind of tunnel on the tree's bark. Could it be some kind of catterpillar?
I'm attaching the pictures in the following reply.

Thanks!

Hi everyone!

I’m fairly new to trees, and learning more by the day.
I just bought a pomegranate tree and only found out after buying that its bark is peeling of in some places. In those areas where it scales off there’s a kind of silky web...
Any ideia on what it could be and what I should do?

Many thanks!