Interesting that you brought this up.... I bought myself a stronger LED for Christmas and I noticed my Meyer started dropping leaves again.... I have them inside my warm house which is about 64F constantly and humidity never drops below 40%

Sabine: Congratulations on hitting the right balance of light and temperature.

• How old is the oldest tree?
• Have any that were grown from seed produced blossoms or fruit?

Dave: You might want to decrease the amount of light or increase the root temp. to 70 F.

Hi Vladimir, the Meyer lemon must be 6 years old I think as I bought it just over 4 years ago and it was flowering then. The key lime tree i planted from seed is about 4 years old, it produced over 50 key limes this year and a single one last year! One of the Meyers grown from a cutting has produced about eight lemons - still has two on it now. The other three are all flowering at the moment. No fruit from the baby key limes from cuttings (18 months old I think) or the mandarines from seed (2-3 years old).

I think it is very doable. I overwintered my citrus without lights for about four years without much trouble. I have too many now and they all cannot be near the prime window light so I use artificial lights. Congratulations on your trees and especially that seed grown key lime. I’d love to see a pic of it!

I should have mentioned that I, too, over wintered citrus - a calamondin and two key limes, without supplemental lights in south facing windows with temps between 65 to 70. The calamondin and one of the key limes were kept that way for about 25 and 30 years, respectively. The other key lime, kept under the same conditions, died after about 20 years. The calamondin would lose some leaves but kept most of its leaves. The key limes were always problematic losing most of their leaves. I now keep them in my greenhouse where that darned key lime is starting to lose leaves but I know it will bounce back again in the spring.

Thanks for your replies.

Laura, I enclose a couple of photos of my key lime tree - one outside (in august) and one inside (today). It's quite lanky - it was attacked by scale this summer which took a lot of neem treatments and hand scrubbing to get rid of! The tree to the left is a tangerine from seed that's doing well. I've enclosed another photo of two of the key limes from its cuttings, and one of key limes and meyer lemons on our dining room table (who uses their dining table anyway?!), just to illustrate how they are dotted around the house.

It is getting a little crowded in here this winter!

Wow, Sabine! Beautiful trees. You know how to take care of them.

How do you root your cuttings? Come spring time, I want to attempt to root cuttings after I prune my key lime, ST, and NZ Lemonade.

Yes, your trees are gorgeous!! That key lime is loaded. Great job!

Alanna, the cuttings are about 6-8” long. I remove all the leaves except the top 2 or 3. I use plastic pots which are 3” diameter by 5” tall, which gives me room to put about 2 - 3” of the stem down into the soil.

I cut the end at 45 degrees and scrape the side of the stem about an inch up, then I dip the cutting into rooting powder (including the scraped bit). I wet regular potting soil and poke a 2-3” deep hole with a chopstick, then put the end of the cutting down into the hole and squish the soil around it.

Then I cover with a zip lock bag partially taped to the pot leaving a gap so there can be a little air circulation. If the bag doesn’t support itself, I’ll use three bamboo skewers pushed into the edges of the soil before putting the bag over, so that the plastic bag doesn’t touch the leaves.

I put them in a tray on my sunny windowsill and water the tray every few days to keep moist. I think it takes about two months before it roots.