Growing Lemons At Home

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Basic rules for planting and growing citrus plants

How to plant lemons - by seed or cuttings?

Interest in lemons and other citrus fruits that can be grown on windowsills or in winter gardens is growing every year.

Sometimes plant lovers will plant seeds in pots they find in store-bought fruits. Then they ask: when can we expect the harvest from the obtained seedlings? Alas, in this case, they will have to wait a long time for the fruits!

Seed lemons are, in fact, wild - they do not repeat the properties of their parents - an adult cultivated plant. What will eventually grow from a seed, for example, a lemon, is difficult to predict, and this applies not only to lemons. It happens that noteworthy plants grow from such seeds, but this is rather an exception. Usually lemons grown from seeds begin to bear fruit after 20 or even 25 years.

True, there are secrets on how to make lemon bear fruit much faster.

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The first is pruning. Every year lemon gives a new growth, sometimes more than one, it happens in different ways in different varieties. If you cut the twig, it will develop from the side buds. It’s already one year has passed. Slightly trimmed branches will overgrow, and you trim new ones. And so in one year you can "live" 5-6 years.

The second method is ringing: the trunk or one or two main branches at the very base are tightly pulled - they are “ringed” with copper wire so that it is slightly pressed into the bark. Very quickly, an influx and deformation of the bark forms at this place, which causes the accumulation of substances that stimulate the formation of fruit buds. Six months later, in order to avoid the constriction of the branches and the threat of breaking off, the ring is carefully removed, and the place of operation is covered with garden var.

The third way is vaccination. To plant a cultivated plant, and it may not only be a lemon. But this method requires skill, although we all did it for the first time.

In our nursery, we propagate plants by cuttings. We cut off a twig from a cultivated good, large lemon and plant it in specially prepared soil. And in a greenhouse, after a while, this twig grows roots, and a new plant develops. This is a vegetative way of reproduction. Small plants obtained in this way repeat the properties of an adult plant by 100 percent - they begin to bear fruit in the third or fourth year. And we do not plant lemons as there is no need for this, we completely manage in a vegetative way.

By the way, I can tell novice gardeners how to distinguish a lemon grown from seeds from a lemon from a cutting. You can tell by the roots! If a lemon is obtained from a seed, then you can see one more developed root, and small roots already extend from it, and a large root is in the middle, below. If a lemon is grown from a cuttings, then the roots grow from the sides - from the bark.

Now let's deal with issues such as a closed and open root system. Often people don't quite understand what this means. A closed root system is when a plant rooted and grew in a separate pot, and not among their total mass in a greenhouse, and then it was transplanted. We have all the seedlings with a closed root system in our nursery, since we root them separately in peat pots, and then we put them in permanent pots in them.

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And we usually send seedlings with a small clod of earth in wet moss or sawdust. We pack securely. We were already convinced that they can reach it well this way, even over long distances. And then flower growers place the resulting seedling in their pot. Now they sell a lot of grafted seedlings that come from Holland, Georgia. But here you need to be careful, alas, such seedlings rarely survive or live only two years.

These lemons are grafted, as a rule, on a tripoliate - a plant that is in a state of deep dormancy in winter. For the open ground of the southern coast, where there are light frosts, this is good, but for closed soil, especially room culture, the tripolyate stock is unsuitable, since, entering the dormant stage in winter, grafted citrus fruits shed their leaf cover at high room temperature and die. And the shade tolerance of such seedlings is weak, because they grew up in conditions where there is an abundance of moisture and sun.

Very often you have to read on various forums that grafted seedlings are cool! Let's figure it out.

What is a grafted plant? Wildlife is grown, and then a cultivated plant is grafted onto it. The graft site is the weak point of the seedling. And grafting makes sense only when the plant reproduces poorly in a vegetative way, for example, oranges do not root well, and it makes sense to graft them.

So plants from cuttings are self-rooted plants, they are more reliable.

Even in stores, they sometimes sell seedlings, and sometimes even small beautiful citrus trees, which should also alert you. The pots there are filled with a kind of substrate, sometimes not even earth, but something that resembles a sponge. All this is processed with preservatives. And as soon as this substance ends up in the pot, the plant dies. Such a plant also dies if you transplant it into your pot. So the choice of a citrus seedling is a serious and responsible business.

Planting citrus

What to do after you have received a parcel with seedlings or purchased them, for example, in a store? We need to plant them faster. And for this you need a pot and soil.

What kind of pot for planting citrus seedlings to choose? A good pot is one that allows air to pass through and serves as a humidity regulator. Clay is best suited, but in our country most of the inhabitants grow lemons in wooden tubs. Pot size matters.

Often, this is where the first mistake of beginner citrus growers lies. The owner of the seedling wants his pet to live well, at ease, and therefore buys a large, beautiful pot. But in fact, he is destroying the plant. The size of the pot during the first transplanting of the seedling should not exceed 10-15 cm (the diameter of its upper part). But then once a year you need to transplant the plant into a larger pot. It is better to do this in February, before the growth of new shoots.

The size of the dishes should correspond to the age of the plants:

• for one-year-olds - 10-15 cm;
• for two-year-olds - 15-20 cm.

And then gradually add about 5 cm in diameter.

Adult plants (5-7 years old) can no longer be transplanted, but left to live in a pot with a diameter of up to 50 cm, a height of up to 40 cm, but once a year it is advisable to partially replace the earth, remove its top layer and fill up a new one.

Drainage is placed on the bottom of the pot, do not forget to also make holes in the bottom of the pot. The best drainage is expanded clay, if it is not there, various pebbles, shells, slag, crushed stone or charcoal will do.

You can buy special earth mixes for citrus plants. Or you can prepare an earthen mixture yourself. For this purpose, go to a forest or park where fallen leaves are not removed. Desirable away from the motorway. There, collect land under old linden trees or any deciduous plants except oak. Take the humus-rich top layer with rotted leaves and twigs. Add to this earth sand, preferably river, a little ash. If you did not manage to immediately find the necessary land, then use any garden soil, adding to two glasses of such soil, if possible, all of the above components. Six months later, when you transplant the lemon into a slightly larger pot (5 cm in diameter), prepare already good soil.

Houseplants suffer from a dense earthen potted coma. The roots stop growing and rot. In nature, this does not happen, since worms loosen the soil. It is not advisable to run worms in a pot with lemon or flowers, since there are no fallen leaves in it, and the worms will feed on the roots of our favorite flowers. It is not so much the nutritional value of the soil that is important (this can be regulated by top dressing), as its air and water permeability. You need to add river sand (up to a third of the volume). Citrus fruits do not like acidic soil, so there should not be any peat, it has an acidic reaction.

The seedling is planted correctly when the root collar (the place where the roots emerge) is buried in the soil by no more than 5 mm, and the soil itself is not poured to the edge of the pot by 10 mm. This is done so that the root collar does not get wet and rot during watering, and the soil is not poured so that it does not wash off along the outer wall of the pot.

All buds in the year of planting must be torn off. Flowering requires a lot of energy and nutrients, and an immature tree does not always withstand such a load and may die. For the first three to four years, the plants need crown formation.

Avoid uncontrolled growth and extension of shoots. Try to give the crown of the tree bushiness and proportionality. Turn the pot sometimes, but not more than 30 degrees per month. Eliminate the appearance of individual vertically located branches inside the crown. Horizontal branches and those that you don't like direction can be aligned a little. At a young age, when lignification has not yet occurred, reject them as you wish and fix them in this position. You can additionally stick in a stick and tie a naughty branch with twine.

Prune long shoots. The more the tree bushes, the faster it will bloom, and it will just be more beautiful.

1. Do you grow indoor lemon?

   1. Yes
   2. Not
   3. Going to grow

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