Oh that sucks!

Lemons are one of the least cold hardy plants. Whoever told you it was, they lied. Meyers are the most finicky as well.

Oh no!!!! I’m sorry!

Overall I would say that Meyers are probably the most cold hardy citrus fruit that is typically identified as a lemon (it of course is only part lemon). Unfortunately Meyers are also generally moody, don't like change in lighting, etc. and are generally harder to grow than many other types of both more and less cold hardy citrus.

I keep my Meyer's in a room much warmer than your climate and they do horrible. Lack of sunlight and cold are their demise...Mine get warm sunnier rooms or none at all.

Meyer lemons are advertised all over the internet as being the perfect beginner lemon because they're easy to grow and cold hardy.... Plus apparently they taste sweet. Anyways, my opinion of meyers is negative. They suck. I would not recommend them to anyone. Gourmet lemon my ass. The amount of work they take, you might as well get any other type of citrus and baby them as much as is required with meyers.

False advertisement for any of us north of the equator..lol

You guys made me laugh. Sorry to laugh at your pain Niceguy, but after reading your text then looking at the pic, I had to giggle. I am sorry though.

Laura, I'm sill laughing..lololol

I too am sorry though. Poor tree

We are working hard at getting a license to export Meyer lemons to Japan; but it is a nightmare.

Mr. Nice

Just bringing this to the top so people thinking about buying a Meyer lemon for their first citrus tree can see that the Meyer is the worst choice for starting out with for citrus.

Steve

Lmao I cracked up at all the things you guys said about the Meyer too. Mine is starting to look like yours niceguy. Now I know I shouldn't pay full price for a Meyer as a beginner! I still want another Meyer for its lemons though

Not trying to necro a thread. but out of ~30 citrus tress I have that spend winter indoors, the meyer lemon is a constant pain in the rear and never happy. It looks more unhappy than the tangerine I just hacked down to the ground after failing a bunch of grafts on...seriously.

I should probably include a recommendation for beginners that is actually likely to succeed and inspire confidence...I have had really good results with my calamondin and the kumquat family in general

Let me tell you. If John in Guatemala had a sitting service fir all of our lemon Meyer trees, he might make a few bucks for all our suffering babies. Lol

I’m not even sure if I have one left .

Mike

I really don't know why anyone would want a potted Meyer lemon tree. They are so difficult.

I have 4. Two on volk, one on mac, and one on the dreaded cuban shaddock. I've planted 3 more at friends yards ..on c35, carrizo, and trifoliate. They have struggled a bit with freezes to 18 when young years ago, but are all kicking butt producing terrific fruit now.

A small stick of a meyer is not cold hardy. A mature tree with a 3"+ trunk is.

Cuban Shaddock My Meyer lemon I got from a friend produced a lemon 9 inches diameter with a peal 1.25 inches thick. It actually tasted pretty good for lemonade. I let the tree die over my 0F winters. Not worth keeping.

Steve

Steve,

The fruit you describe was a Cuban Shaddock (type of pomelo) from the rootstock. In all my experience I have never seen a Meyer even close to that.

Sorry that your lemon tree (twig?) died, theniceguy. What are those other trees?

johnmerr: Have you been able to ship your lemons to the east coast yet (USA)? I'd like to try them. All the ones I see in stores here this fall look so small. Mine are twice the size.

Those are nice recommendations katiebeth. Anyone new to citrus reading this, definitely consider those picks the calamondin or kumquat. At least they’re cold hardy enough to withstand outdoors temps incase new growers don’t know when to bring it in.

My potted Meyer didn’t immediately throw a tantum when I brought it in this time. No leaves had dropped for a month and it looked pretty happy. Checked it today and found about 4 dried leaves had fallen from the tree. Still a record for the Meyer considering I don’t have it under any supplementals lights this time. I may add a supplemental fluorescent bulb though. There were 2 dried up mushrooms that had grown out of the soil..lol. Need some UV to kill the spores. Btw I brought it in when day/night temps were about 60ish/50ish

I think the problem here is people confuse cold hardiness with easy to grow. Out of my 9 in ground citrus trees, my Meyers is the one that I have to pamper the most, always needing careful feeding, most prone to leaf drop, etc. It is also my slowest growing citrus tree.

Kvetch. good thinking bringing it in before it got really cold. And yes, zap those spores..lol

Ike, exactly. Too, many see how nice they are doing in greenhouses which can fool them. I know many that have great success with Lemon Meyer growing in greenhouses..ha

Haha, Meyer Lemons are cold hardy for a lemon, but then regular lemons are not that cold hardy to begin with.

The designation "cold hardy" can be kind of relative.

Maybe it's fair to say that Meyer lemon and kumquat are the hardiest of the commonly sold citrus varieties. But there are some other less well known citrus varieties that are able to survive much more cold than those.

I'd consider Meyer "sort of" cold hardy.

I found it kind of amusing you said it was "difficult to find and expensive". Even in the Pacific Northwest, Meyer lemons can very often be found in nurseries (sometimes only seasonally in the big box stores).

In Southern California it seems like 1 out of every 12 houses or so has a Meyer lemon tree planted in their yard, and it's hard to find a nursery that doesn't carry them.

Also keep in mind that citrus has to have some time to grow a little bit before it can survive much cold. A small twig tree just planted in the ground is not automatically going to be able to survive what a more mature tree would later. This both has to do with diameter of the trunk providing some insulation, and availability of energy in the plant to send out new growth and recover.

My Meyer easily survived several hours at 22 degrees. There was some damage of the peripheral most branches, but the tree wasn’t in any danger of completely dying. It was a well established 5 foot tall tree which clearly made a difference in its cold hardiness. The same weather killed my Santa Theresa Femminello.

-Brett