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I brought my Meyer Lemon in this weekend. There were about 6-8 yellow leaves that I pulled off. It currently has 5 green lemons the size of walnuts on it. Though it was outside when in blossom, only a few got pollinated because it rained the whole time the blossoms were on it.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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I bought it in a 5 gallon container in summer 2014, so have had it 4 years. Last year it produced over 30 lemons. Currently it's about 3' above the top of the pot, maybe 30" diameter.
I bought a small lemon tree at an excellent local commercial greenhouse about a month ago, and immediately moved it into my own small attached greenhouse, placing it at the sunnier end on a stand to elevate it. It has about ten lemons and seems to be doing well - one lemon is starting to turn yellow, though they are all rock-hard.
I have done nothing else other than to water when the soil seems dry - so far, so good!
Maybe I'll have a nice little crop of ripe lemons by Christmas or New Year's.
My Meyer lemon pretty much just sat there all summer, but in the last couple of weeks it has really started putting on new growth. It concerns me a bit since it’s starting to turn colder. It has three lemons on it that are still mostly green.
I hated to do it, but I had to spray it with BT to kill the swallowtail caterpillars, they were all over it. I have a Hop tree that they are still able to feed on, so I didn’t totally wipe them out.
My lemon and orange tree is still dropping green leaves every day. I have them under a plant growing light.
I had lime & lemon trees overwinter in the garage. I’ve found they will eventually drop all their “outdoor “ leaves but will grow new leaves adjusting to the new indoor much lower light condition. Similarly in the spring when I moved them outdoors, they will drop leaves again adjusting to the new outdoor light.
Overall they survived OK in the garage overwinter. The only “pain” I found was aphids. I had to “hunt” those aphids every couples of days and willed them off with moist paper towels. They tend to hide under leaves so I use a flashlight and turned over every leaf to check aphids to seek & destroy.
Yes citrus blooms in the winter time so you have to hand-pollinate them. I use a Q-tip dipped in water and just rub each flowers to pollinate them.
Depending on where you live, you may find insulating your garage doors help to maintain temperature inside. But even then you may need to turn on heat on occasional nights just to keep the inside temperature up. I believe citrus “stop” growing when the temperature is below certain temperature (don’ Remember the number).
I had lime & lemon trees overwinter in the garage. I’ve found they will eventually drop all their “outdoor “ leaves but will grow new leaves adjusting to the new indoor much lower light condition. Similarly in the spring when I moved them outdoors, they will drop leaves again adjusting to the new outdoor light.
Overall they survived OK in the garage overwinter. The only “pain” I found was aphids. I had to “hunt” those aphids every couples of days and willed them off with moist paper towels. They tend to hide under leaves so I use a flashlight and turned over every leaf to check aphids to seek & destroy.
Yes citrus blooms in the winter time so you have to hand-pollinate them. I use a Q-tip dipped in water and just rub each flowers to pollinate them.
Depending on where you live, you may find insulating your garage doors help to maintain temperature inside. But even then you may need to turn on heat on occasional nights just to keep the inside temperature up. I believe citrus “stop” growing when the temperature is below certain temperature (don’ Remember the number).
The lemon tree has always been indoors under the artificial light. The rate of leaf drop has slowed down to one a day. The temperature inside is between 68 and 70 F
The orange tree was outside and I brought it indoors. It's dropping many leaves a day.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
44,176 posts, read 80,329,413 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KayAnn246
The lemon tree has always been indoors under the artificial light. The rate of leaf drop has slowed down to one a day. The temperature inside is between 68 and 70 F
The orange tree was outside and I brought it indoors. It's dropping many leaves a day.
Leaf drop when first moving inside is normal. My Meyer lemon lost a lot of leaves when I brought it in, but the 5 lemons are still there and growing, and now it has 7 sets of blossoms about to open. I'll have to pollinate by hand, but the aroma is going to be great inside the house.
Some citrus, especially lemons can be quite cold hardy. I had a meyer lemon and blood orange (dwarfs) for years living on my patio. I live in CA, but it's not citrus country. Night time temps here in winter can get into the upper teens.
I had my citrus in very large ceramic pots. I put heavy duty coasters on the bottom of the pots so I could wheel them around. They were actually moving dollies. Those pots with soil and trees were very heavy.
On cold nights, into the mid to lower 20s, I would move them under the covered patio and up against the house. They survived every winter outdoors this way and I had fruit every year. The trees did suffer some cold damage occasionally and would drop their leaves but they got over it when the weather warmed up and always came back in spring with lots of new growth and flowers. On a couple of very cold winters, I did go to what I consider extreme measures to keep them alive. I strung lights around them like you would a Christmas tree and covered them with plastic creating a mini greenhouse for them.
The trees, even though dwarf did grow to a height of about 5 ft and almost as wide. They were much too large and much too heavy to bring inside, even on coasters.
Overall though, temps in the 30s are not a huge problem for most citrus. They can tolerate that easily.
Last edited by marino760; 10-29-2018 at 06:38 PM..
My Meyer lemon pretty much just sat there all summer, but in the last couple of weeks it has really started putting on new growth. It concerns me a bit since it’s starting to turn colder. It has three lemons on it that are still mostly green.
I hated to do it, but I had to spray it with BT to kill the swallowtail caterpillars, they were all over it. I have a Hop tree that they are still able to feed on, so I didn’t totally wipe them out.
Oh, dear, I would have kept the butterflies and replaced the lemon tree. There aren't as many butterflies out there as there used to be, sadly...and lemon trees are hardly endangered.
I wish you could have just picked the caterpillars off and put them somewhere else, so they'd have had a chance....
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