Meyer Lemon

Ponderosa Lemon

Variegated Pink Lemon

A very nice collection there Stephen!!

Stephen, how do you care for them? Do you summer them outside? How much sun do you supply them all year? Do you set them in sunny windows? What temps do you get all year long? What Zone are you in?

It would be nice to hear a little bit about you and your growing habits/conditions for your babies...It would be great to see how they respond to the environment you provide for them..

Nice to meet you)

Hi Mike, nice to meet you also!

I only have a small balcony (I live in a split level townhouse), which I use for vegetables in the summer. So my citrus are solely indoor plants. I purchased them from various sources throughout Canada (it's becoming quite the addiction).

My Location

Toronto, Canada

Position and Lighting

In front of a large west-southwest facing window. Direct sun comes in some or all of the window from 1:30PM until 5PM after which it becomes blocked or filtered by a large deciduous tree. Each tree receives about 4 hours of direct sunlight, and filtered sun for an additional two hours. To maximize lighting I utilize Mylar reflective film on the walls (or something of the sorts).

In the fall and winter I will be placing the trees under an LED grow light and will likely forgo sunlight altogether. From experimentation with small cuttings, LED light seems very effective for vegetative growth (fruiting is yet to be determined) of citrus trees without abnormal or mutated growth (not so for a Croton). In addition, any growth has been very vigorous.

Environmental Control

I try to avoid rapid temperature fluctuations, however when the sun beams through the window it's effect is similar to a greenhouse, therefore I will often run air conditioning. The cold air does not blow anywhere near the plants. The temperature commonly exceeds 86F (30C) and occasionally exceeds 90F (32F) in the plant area (it's been a hot summer). Being inside, the nighttime temperature rarely falls below 65F (18C). I have an oscillating fan running whenever the LED lights are on, during the night I let it go calm. Humidity is high during the night (50%-60%), occasionally it's been as high as 80% if I kept the balcony door open on a warm, humid night. During the winter I expect the amount of plants in the partially enclosed area will generate a micro-climate keeping humidity at reasonable levels. If not, I will run a humidifier. During the day, in high heat, the relative humidity can drop below 30%, but it doesn't affect the plants provided it rebounds to acceptable levels during the night.

Soil/Potting

A lot of my citrus remain to be repotted. Some I have repotted in a 1/3 compost, 1/3 perlite and 1/3 vermiculite mixture, inside terracotta pots (too large I believe in a couple cases). I will repot any new citrus inside smaller terracotta pots, using the same mix half and half with Repti Bark.

Feeding/Fertilizer

I feed with organic citrus tone (I ordered and was using this before finding this forum). I feed them one tablespoon of citrus tone per gallon pot size. I sprinkle it around the edge of the tree and water it in slowly to avoid it running off. I do this bi-weekly (tri-weekly if I forget). I also supplement with Foilage Pro monthly to ensure all trace minerals are supplied.

Watering

I am currently watering every 2-3 days if the pot is a one gallon, and every 5-7 for the five or larger gallon pots. I let my tap water sit out overnight in a bucket to let some of the chlorine evaporate (you can smell in the tap water, so it's definitely volatile enough to evaporate). Letting the water sit out drops the PH from 6.5-7.0 down to 5.5-6.0.

Let me know if you have anymore questions!

Wow, such a great description of what you do. I wish many others would do that. It would help us to help them more if they did...

I am curious...How many winters have you grown your trees this way? Have you ever had a time where you got lot's of flowers and fruit on any of them? How often do you re pot? Have you ever had any issues? Does your mix compact, and is that why you are turning to bark? Do you really believe that the Citrus Tone is working or are you still waiting to see how they react down the road?

If you are getting good growth and using lights, then that would help many here..If this is your first winter, it would be good for you to keep us updated on your results..

I am very excited to see others like you put so much effort into caring for their trees..Bravo..To think that you take the time to even let you water sit out...

Great collection Stefan , its doing really well considering all year round all the citrus stay indoors . Its so difficult to get the right balance of lights , temp , watering inside.

Believe me when I see even if you were at the edge , being active in this forum makes u citrus nut pretty soon .

Hi Stefan, nice collection, looks like you are well on your way!

The key lime/limequat you mentioned being confused by is a Lakeland limequat, a few of us have the same tree and I know the tag is misleading. I called the grower and it is a limequat.

Your variegated lemon is a really nice specimen, actually the nicest I have seen from record buck, good buy! Your finger lime is also very nice, from flora exotica right? I have the same one.

Interesting that you got such small cuttings from flora, all my trees ordered from there were huge, some of my biggest trees. But I did choose the largest size available so did you request the small ones? Just curious.

I'm a bit concerned with your plans for lighting, if you want honest advice. If you get a powerful LED like dev's Mars II then that could work but forget about the window light in winter, it won't be enough. Will your trees fit in a 3X3 space? That's what the light covers, right dev?

Hobby - I think Stefan mentioned in another thread he has Mars Reflector series LED lights and was looking to upgrade with Mars II . The one I got has an optimal coverage of 3.5 * 3.5ft .In my case the actual area where plants will be is 7 * 5 ft, but I will be using in conjunction with my 600w HPS + the basement has wall to wall south facing windows as well .

Very nice collection of trees Stefan!

Cory

Thanks everyone for the kind comments!

Hi Mike,

I have not overwintered anything yet! But I've tried growing plants under only simulated light (using LED grow lights, specifically the Mars Reflector series). I will be upgrading soon to a Mars II model as Dev as recently done. Most of my citrus are flowering for their first time since I've owned them. I have Red Navel Oranges (it only produced two flowers and both turned into fruit) and Meyer Lemons fruiting currently. It will be interesting to see if I can get fruit in a simulated/limited sunlight regime.

I have not had any compaction issues yet. The water drains very well with my present mix and I have not had any root rot issues. I use terracotta pot which have a wicking effect (since they are not sealed). Adding the repti bark will hopefully lighten the mix in the 12-inch terracotta pots making watering a little less difficult. I will also avoid any compaction issues if they do indeed develop over time.

Hi Laura,

I just received Dyna-Gro Pro-TeKt from Amazon. I will use it right away, and will let you know If i see any differences after its use. I will do a little more research on the citrus tone too. I think next summer I'll put some of them outside and see how they do!

Hi Hobby,

Thank you so much for clarifying the key lime/limequat issue. This seems like the most difficult citrus I have. When I brought it home, it dropped 20 leaves. Recently it had flowered and there were over a hundred flowers ... but now all the flowers have fallen off without any fruit in their wake. Every other citrus that has flowered has some kind of fruit developing, so it's odd the Lakeland limequat is having such a hard time.

Yep the Finger Lime is from Flora Exotica. Perry sells many different plant sizes and I believe cuttings can be purchased for most citrus. My first purchase with Perry was for all small 0.5 - 1 feet tall citrus in 4-5 inch pots as shown on his website. He did not have any in stock however, so in their place he offered me smaller plants in 2-3 inch pots. They ended being cuttings which were recently rooted.

As for LED grow lights, I will use as many as I need to get the correct footprint for all my plants. Hopefully this doesn't become obsessive...

Stefan, good luck with the lights AND with it not becoming an obsession...you may need more luck with the latter...;-)

Nice to see your collection Stefan. I like your variegated Pink Lemon i think that might be my next purchase, oh and a Key Lime. Just where will i put it though??? Hmmmm.... Citrus addict problems LOL!

Troy, the variegated pink lemon I have is probably my least favorite of my trees. If I had to pick one to give away, it would be that one. It does have lovely foliage, but has been slow to grow and not a hint of blossoms. Those that have them say the fruits often fall off. If you are interested in fruit, then it is a lovely bush, but I want fruits. I would go with the key lime any day. Think of all those key lime pies you can make ;-)

Laura, you are so right! Variegated certain plants are usually a weaker strain of the original and can be hard to maintain or keep happy/...

You are talking to the king of variegated plants, and I can tell you that to get a flower on a variegated gardenia is almost impossible..To keep the white portion of the white on most plants can be difficult without turning brown. And any thing I have with mostly white variegate can be hard to keep strong and alive, pest free...But, I still love them.lol

Laura and Troy, I agree that the variegated pink lemon is much harder to grow in a container but it can be a beautiful....and sometimes a straggley one if it is not getting the conditions it likes. Every year I get several lemons on mine and I like to watch the striped fruit grow bigger and finally turn yellow and lose most of the stripes. Some of the stripes on my fruit are raised. The new leaves are a very pretty pinkish purple too which is very nice. But, I do find it very hard to keep it nice over the winter, mostly toward the very end, just before it can go outside again. Mine is smaller right now after several winters of twig die back in late spring and last spring's greenhouse overheat. But it is much busher and not as lanky as it was when it was larger. I think I will try to keep it that way by keeping it pruned back. It has several lemons now if the critter hasn't gotten them. I am afraid though if it gets twig die back again next spring it might get very small! It seems to grow well outside though.

Cory

Cory, I would love to get fruit...they seem very interesting. My plant sprouted early this spring when I got it and then just stopped...nothing. Perhaps this winter it will pick back up...

Cory, that's a beautiful plant! For some reason, when I saw your comment earlier, the pics did not show. Lovely! How do the lemons taste??

Cory - Beautiful plant indeed , do you actually get mature lemons off it . Mine does well ,flowers n fruitlets all year round but all fruit fall off, max size i got is 3 inches . Never really get any mature fruit . I treat it purely as an ornamental .

Thanks Laura and Dev. Yes, it produces mature lemons that stay on the tree. The stripes mostly disappear on mine and turns all yellow. The raised stripes remain though. It is a regular lemon taste, not a sweet lemon. It is not a very strong tree as you say. Mine goes through spurts of growth and gets pretty large, but also goes through periods of die back, usually at the end of winter, and it can lose half it's size, and recovers again.

Cory

Nice to hear that there is hope for lemons someday!!

I like your plant Cory! The idea of Pink Lemons is very appealing. It's cool to have oddities like this if you have the space. I already have two Lemons (Meyer & Eureka) which produce more than i use so one more might be a bit wasteful. I'll put it on my "maybe" list.

Wow guys I had no idea they were even finicky to flower for some. Luckily I get lots of flowers but never any fruit! Cory lovely plant the leaves and fruit are gorgeous. Looks like true camouflage close up.

Maybe I have a reject...lol...it is on strike!