Potted Citrus indoor trees

[Mrs Dobby]

Hi Gang,

After a visit to Wyevale a week ago Mr D spotted some half priced indoor miniature Lemon, Orange and Lime trees, which fruit all year round, and were in both fruit and flower at the moment, well needless to say after a lot of persuading from him we went back today and got a lemon and orange tree (they had sold out of the limes unfortunately). The Lemon has 3 fruits on it, fairly sizeable and one is almost ripe, and also has many flowers on it, the Orange has about 7 small fruit and quite a few flowers on it too! The flowers smell really citrussy, a nice natural air freshener and who knows, we may well have fresh citrus fruit once in a while from them!

Anyhows, we've definitely no experience with citrus trees, and the 'instructions' only tell us to keep them indoors, keep the compost moist, feed every 2 weeks from March to September and water regularly, so any other advice would be most welcome indeed!

[Alice]

Have checked with the good DR H Houseplant expert, and apart fro the instructions you have he says, keep them in good light - a sunny spot, mist occasionally, especially when flower buds are opening, put outdoors in summer, keep cool in winter (but not less than 50*). And that's it. Hope they do great for you. Any chance of a pic.

[Mrs Dobby]

Thanks Alice! Guess who's going to be adding the Dr H Houseplant book to her yule prezzie list!

I'll sort out some piccies of them as soon as I can find the AAA batteries for the camera, I forgot to switch it off last time I used it and it went flat whilst connected to the puter! D'oh!

[rustylady]

My friend has a fantastic lemon tree in a pot - she's had it for years. It bears flowers and fruit most of the year. It's kept in the greenhouse over winter, kept fairly dry, and goes outside during the summer.

[Mrs Dobby]

Indoor Citrus Piccies

As requested a couple of piccies of the indoor citrus trees we got about a month ago! They are both doing well, both flowering and havent lost any leaves at all! The lemon has one really big fruit that is almost ripe and a couple of smaller green ones (plus about 10 set fruit from the flowers) and the orange has 2 small fruit that are just about ripe and lots of set fruit from the flowers.

A question if anyone can help, should we remove some of the set fruit so as to allow the others to grow quicker / to maturity and or encourage flowering, or is it best to leave it to its own devices and let nature take her course?

[Sue]

Rustylady
Was that a heated greenhouse? Love to have a lemon tree, seen some super large well priced specimens at the Farmer's Market but can't see myself lugging one backwards and forwards on the bus. No garden at home and no heated greenhouse on allotment.
Sue

[Shiraz]

Hello Mrs. Dobby,

I have a couple of Calamondin plant that I have recently purchased and also 2 Meyer Lemon trees which are always kept indoors, predominantly for ornamental and fragrance purposes.
My top tips include....
Self pollinate the flowers with a cotton bud or paint brush to maximise fruit
Leave about 6 inches in between each lemon fruit (these do get heavy when they reach maturity -too heavy for the branches).
Get a good mist spray to keep the humidity up as british homes can get very dry, alternatively a window in the bathroom will definitely do the job.
water once a week.....over-watering these will definitely kill them off...

Best of luck and I look forward to more pictures of your progress

[Marcher]

So how have your citrus trees done Mrs Dobby? I'm interested in growing Citrus myself. And Alice - no less than 50f - can't they go below that for brief periods so long as they're kept above freezing?