growing a lemon tree

[random horn]

I have a bunch of lemons I bought at the store. I figured it'd be cool to use the seeds to grown my own tree(s). Have any of y'all ever grown a lemon trees from the seeds before?

 

[TexasEd]

No, but I bought a lemon tree at Lowes and want to hear how to take care of it.

 

[Jellydonuts]

Lemons are extremely cold sensitive. Unless you live down in the valley, you will either need to plant it in a container, so you can move indoors during the winter, or cover it well during cold snaps. Growing from seed will take a long time, as they propogate slowly.

Make sure that you plant your tree relatively high so water does not funnel down to and sit on the trunk. Lemons can get foot rot fairly easily, which will slowly kill them (there is no cure that I know of). Accordingly if you mulch, make sure it is at least a foot away from the trunk. Lemons can grow in relatively crappy soil, so you don't have to do a lot of amending.

 

[random horn]

slow growing sounds ok since i'm living in an apt right now. that also makes it easy to bring it in and out. i need to check into it getting enough light though since i face north and not south.

 

[RoundRobin]

If you do plant one make sure you watch it or those little shits from Shelbyville will steal it.

 

[tallgrant]

In reply to:

---

---

 

[The Bandit]

buy a meyer lemon tree. They're not as sensitive to the cold

 

[LazyEngineer]

Also, you probably don't want to grow it from a seed that you get from a lemon from the grocery store. It is most likely a hybrid and the seeds will grow a tree that is most likely inferior to the one that grew the original lemon. You would be better off buying some seeds of a variety suited to your needs or a very small tree.

 

[Uninformed]

We had an awesome one in California. But that was California where freezes are rare and the soil has less clay.

 

[jmrob93]

My neighbor has a meyer lemon-- grafted it onto a hollywood orange--good root system--huge lemons---he aslo has several orange trees-- according to him daily watering is the key

 

[Mrmyke709]

Ditto on the meyer's. They're kind of cold tolerant.

 

[NCbevo]

I met a guy who wrapped his lemon tree with cristmas lights in the winter to prevent it from freezing.