Blooms

100% not beans! ;)

So is it indeed a lemon tree?

Thank you dnedd!!

It is citrus, given the purplish color of the blooms my guess is Meyers Lemon. Having said that due to its lack of leaves it does not appear to be a happy lemon tree. You say you kept it on the southside of the house (I assume outdoors), thankfully Texas had a very mild winter this year, otherwise in most of zone 8 in a typical year I suspect it would be a dead lemon tree. It is possible to grow Meyers in the southern edge of zone 8b, but even that requires active freeze protection most years, and most people would say that if growing outdoors they central 9a is much safer. Assuming it is a Meyers lemon (the most cold hardy variety of lemon), any temperatures much below freezing has will cause leaf loss, and temperatures below about 22-25 degrees F will cause dieback / death (depending on degree of cold acclimation, sudden freezes after warm weather is more damaging to citrus than freezes after several weeks of cold weather).

Having said all that Meyers Lemons are very prone to shedding their leaves when stressed, if you move them to different temperatures / lighting levels too fast they loose their leaves, etc. They are also very heavy nitrogen feeders, much heavier than other types of citrus.

I second it being a meyers with the purplelish bloom. The long cane is still green so I would let it be for now and it will probably grow in the spring. Get it some fertilizer (non organic for potted plants) closest to 5-1-3 as you can and I would expect a full recovery......May want to repot it as well, if not atleast weed out whatever else is growing in the pot so the tree isnt competing for nutrients.

Thank you again! I agree. There is very little soil in that container to begin with. It needs a repotting, for sure. It survived a couple of freezes. It must want to live :)

If you plan to keep it in a pot read up on making 5-1-1 mix for citrus