A lifelong experience. How to Grow a Fruiting Lemon Tree at Home

"It might seem like an ordinary plant, requiring no special conditions, but it can take years to produce results. However, growing a lemon tree indoors is quite easy if you start with the right approach.

Lemon has long been, and deservedly so, considered the most common citrus tree in indoor cultivation. It is relatively easy to grow, quickly begins fruiting, and, most importantly, can grow even in low light conditions. This evergreen tree easily tolerates partial shade and limited potting soil, and when blooming, it fills the room with a subtle, recognizable fragrance. Its delicate white flowers look especially touching against the dense, dark green foliage.

Lemon fruits are primarily formed on short fruiting branches located on shoots no lower than the fourth order of branching. This is why crown formation is crucial. However, there are exceptions. For example, my Ponderosa lemon tree It bloomed almost immediately after the cutting took root. The ripe fruit can remain on the plant for up to two years, gradually changing color from rich green to warm golden yellow.

 

Choosing a Variety

Among the varieties most suitable for indoor growing, the clear leaders are Ponderosa, Pavlovsky, Meyer lemon, Genoa, and Lisbon. These varieties have stood the test of time and thousands of amateur collections.

Almost everyone has tried at least once to grow a lemon from the seed of a store-bought fruit. The resulting tree can indeed turn out beautiful, with a dense crown. However, fruiting is almost always a problem. Such plants either fail to bloom at all, or produce sparse, tasteless, or downright bitter fruit. Neither pinching nor careful pruning can improve the situation.

For a lemon tree to become a full-fledged and consistently fruiting one, it must be initially grown from a cutting. A cultivar, or re-grafting a seedling grown from a seed with a proven indoor variety.

Occasionally, of course, seedlings do begin to bear fruit. But, as a rule, this happens in one seedling out of hundreds, and after many years, the quality of the fruit is far from satisfactory. The reason lies in the biology of the plant: lemon, like most citrus fruits, is a complex interspecific hybrid. When propagated by seed, traits are split, and a significant portion of the plants produce an abundance of inedible fruit—bitter, thick-skinned.

From personal experience: for decades, my friends and I grew lemons from store-bought seeds—not a single plant ever bore fruit.

 

Proper Care

Caring for grafted and rooted lemons is fundamentally the same. During the first three years, plants are annually transplanted (replanted with a lump of soil) into more spacious containers. At the age of 3 to For 6 years, repotting is done every 2-3 years, and older specimens are disturbed even less frequently—every 5-10 years. Even in a small container, a varietal lemon will bloom and produce fruit, but grow slowly.

Lemons love the sun, so they do best near south-facing windows or close to glass on the east and west sides. If there is insufficient light, the temperature should be lowered. In winter, around 8°C is optimal. In summer, it is beneficial to move the lemon tree to the balcony or garden, avoiding sudden changes in light (place it in partial shade under trees) and temperature.

Particular attention should be paid to humidity. Lemons are native to humid subtropics, and dry air from radiators is harmful to them. Without sufficient moisture, the plant will drop buds and leaves. Regular misting is only partially effective, so in dry conditions, the best solution is to create a mini-greenhouse made from a transparent bag placed on top of the pot, slightly open for ventilation. My grandfather's lemon tree grew on The veranda, where the air is already humid, had no heating pipe nearby, so a mini-greenhouse was not necessary.

Watering is done with soft, room-temperature water—filtered, boiled, or aquarium water.

 

Crown Formation

A properly formed crown should be compact, rounded, with 3–4 well-spaced first-order skeletal branches. To achieve this, one main shoot is left on the cutting and pinched at a height of 15–20 cm. Subsequent shoots are also shortened as they grow.

It is important to remember: fruit is left only after the fourth-order branches have formed. Premature fruiting inhibits plant development. Plant growth also stops or slows significantly while the plant is bearing fruit.

Fertilizers

Any complex mineral fertilizers based on humates are suitable for fertilizing. They are applied less frequently in winter and more frequently in spring and summer. A convenient method is weak but regular application. Fertilizers: ¼ of the recommended dose with every second watering. This helps avoid overfeeding and maintain stable growth.

Simple homemade infusions are also acceptable—for example, banana peel infusions steeped in water for 7–10 days.

 

Methods for propagating lemon

From a seed with regrafting

To ensure a fully developed and consistently fruitful lemon tree, it is necessary to either re-graft a seedling obtained from a seed or initially grow it from a cutting of a cultivar.

Let's consider the first option—from a seed followed by re-grafting. For this, select fresh, fully ripe lemons. The seeds are removed and immediately sown in a loose soil mixture to a depth of about 1 cm. Lemon seeds quickly lose viability when exposed to moisture, so planting should not be delayed.

Keep the soil moist regularly, preventing it from drying out. Seedlings will emerge in about a month. When the seedlings have developed 2-3 true leaves, they are transplanted into individual pots, selecting the strongest and most developed specimens.

When the shoots reach approximately 5 mm in thickness, the plant is ready for the next step—grafting. Cuttings taken from cultivar lemons are used for grafting. All leaves are removed, leaving only the top two. The rootstock (the plant onto which the graft is being made) is cut back to a height of 5-7 cm, after which a split approximately 2 cm deep is made in the stump. A wedge-shaped cut of the same length is made on the grafted scion, and the tissues are carefully aligned so that the bark of the rootstock and scion are flush on at least one side.

The grafting site is firmly secured with elastic tape. The success of the operation directly depends on the quality of this connection.

The plant is then covered with a plastic bag or glass jar, creating a mini-greenhouse, and placed in the shade. After about a month, growth of the scion will become noticeable.

 

Rooting the Cutting

For those unsure of their grafting skills, rooting the cutting is recommended. For this, take lemon shoots from the current year, 4-5 mm thick, with fully formed leaves. The lower leaves are removed, and the upper leaves are shortened by half.

The cuttings are planted in a loose mixture of garden soil, rotted compost, and sand. The lower end is buried 3 cm into the sand layer and covered with a transparent cap. At temperatures of 18 to 25°C and regular moisture, roots will form in 1.5 to 2 months. After this, the plant is repotted into a pot approximately 15 cm in diameter.”