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Lemon trees in the UK

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Nimrod103
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Lemon trees in the UK

#263147

Postby Nimrod103 » November 9th, 2019, 8:20 am

I have bought a couple of small lemon trees to grow in my unheated conservatory. The minimum temperature in winter gets down to about 5 deg C on particularly cold nights, but never freezing. Mostly the winter night time temperature is about 8-10.

Does anyone have experience of growing lemons? I thought they could withstand these temperatures (from seeing them in the gardens while living in Western Australia long ago), but I have read online the temperature should never go below 10.

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Re: Lemon trees in the UK

#263155

Postby bungeejumper » November 9th, 2019, 9:02 am

I keep mine in the greenhouse from May to October, but bring it into my office (where else? :D ) during the winters. I've heard the 10 degrees story as well, but I am consoled by the fact that Europe's lemon growing culture originated in Israel, where it can also get pretty parky in winter.

Ah yes, you might say, survival is one thing, but would you actually get lemons in Britain under those sub-10 conditions? Well, I don't, for a start. :lol: Because, although they can flower three or even four times a year, the fruit isn't likely to set when it's cold.

Mine hasn't flowered much in the last couple of years, but that's probably because I'm getting the rules about winter feeding and watering wrong. Must try harder. It's a good job it's a pleasant plant!

My citrina (Meyer lemon), however, has thrived under the same conditions since I was given it last year, and it's currently developing about ten plum-sized fruits. It seems to be tougher than the lemon. Maybe because it originated in China?

BJ

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Re: Lemon trees in the UK

#263192

Postby 6Tricia » November 9th, 2019, 11:39 am

My potted lemon tree defies the seasons! It flowers and sets fruit throughout the summer, a lot of which fall off, leaving a dozen or so in various stages of maturity. It gets summer and winter feeds and remains on my patio all year round. The temperature dropped to 0.2C last night and although frosts are rarely severe here in Torbay my lemon tree is still going strong after more than 10 years, so I don't think you need worry about 5C!

Tricia

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Re: Lemon trees in the UK

#263253

Postby Breelander » November 9th, 2019, 4:46 pm

Nimrod103 wrote:...Does anyone have experience of growing lemons? I thought they could withstand these temperatures (from seeing them in the gardens while living in Western Australia long ago), but I have read online the temperature should never go below 10.


Online advice varies as to the absolute minimum temperature but the all agree that lemons are hardier than oranges, particularly sensitive to the cold is the ornamental calomondin orange that I have. This is perhaps the most optimistic advice I've seen. I can vouch that my 25 year old calomondin has survived waiting until the night temperature was as low as 5C before bringing it inside.

Citrus trees fall into 3 main categories for hardiness:-

Non-hardy Calamondins, Sweet Oranges, Kumquats, Tahiti Limes, Grapefruits and Mandarins should be kept above 5C and it's best to move them inside before the night time temperature drops much below this and wait until late Spring before they go back outside...

Nearly hardy Lemon trees, Chinottos and Kaffir limes will be fine in temperatures right down to zero and will even tolerate -1C or -2C for short periods....

Hardy Yuzus and Finger Limes can withstand temperatures down to -15C. It's still best to keep these in a pot as they will suffer if they become too waterlogged, but these hardy varieties are grown on Poncirus trifoliate stock and should withstand all that a British winter can throw at them.
https://plants4presents.co.uk/winter-citrus-care

6Tricia wrote:My potted lemon tree defies the seasons!...


That is one of the joys of growing any citrus. They tend to keep their fruit on the branch for as long as it takes to ripen, even if that takes years. You can, with care and luck, end up with all stages of development at once, buds, flowers, immature and ripe fruit. The main cause of fruit drop is too dry air in winter. A centrally heated room is not ideal for over-wintering, if that's all you have then keep well away from radiators and mist the plant regularly.

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Re: Lemon trees in the UK

#263280

Postby bungeejumper » November 9th, 2019, 6:31 pm

"Non-hardy Calamondins, Sweet Oranges, Kumquats, Tahiti Limes, Grapefruits and Mandarins should be kept above 5C and it's best to move them inside before the night time temperature drops much below this and wait until late Spring before they go back outside..."

I don't think I'll ever forget the thousands of orange trees in Seville, which line every road in the city and which can survive night-time temperatures of minus 5 and still produce both fruit and blossom on the same branches. They're "marmalade" oranges, of course, which are bitter and very thick-skinned, and the Spanish find that a sharp frost doesn't matter so much if the following day is mild enough to allow a prompt recovery. That's a trick that will work if you're close to Africa, but it might not go so well in Leeds. :(

I am also reminded of the time in the 1980s when a series of harsh frosts in Brazil caused a worldwide shortage of orange juice. The problem was not so much that the ripening oranges were being killed by the cold weather. It was that dozens of farm estate workers had been killed or injured by frozen-solid oranges falling from the upper branches of the trees. And that the entire workforce had walked off the job. The man from Del Monte, 'e speechless with 'elpless rage. :lol:

BJ

Should have added, BTW, that a great many of the orange and lemon trees in the garden centres have been grown in Spain or Portugal. Poor things - can you imagine the culture shock when they get sold this far north?

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Re: Lemon trees in the UK

#296573

Postby Nimrod103 » April 1st, 2020, 2:47 pm

Continuing this thread. my two lemon trees have come through the winter fine, in my conservatory. They are putting out robust healthy looking growth, covered in buds. Four of the buds have now opened, but looking closely, there is little or no pollen on the stamen although the stigmas are well developed. Any idea why this might be? Will later blooms have thick layers of pollen on the stamen? Might they have different male and female flowers? I realize I have to pollinate with a paintbrush.

Both bushes had several lemons on when I bought them, so fertilization must be possible.

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Re: Lemon trees in the UK

#296600

Postby ReformedCharacter » April 1st, 2020, 3:54 pm

The citrus family are one of nature's great gifts, health-giving from its vitamin C, pleasing to the eye, the nose and the tongue. Native to a region encompassing India, China and Australia and cultivated by the Chinese for over 4000 years. Some that turn yellow when 'ripe', such as the lemon actually need a sufficiently low temperature for the colour changing chemistry to work and may be ripe but still green. I seem to remember that night-time temperatures need to fall to 10C or below for the pigment to change. Not likely to be a problem in the UK :)

RC

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Re: Lemon trees in the UK

#296611

Postby Breelander » April 1st, 2020, 4:09 pm

Nimrod103 wrote:... looking closely, there is little or no pollen on the stamen although the stigmas are well developed...


I have another citrus, a Calamondin orange (citrus mitus). I've never seen much pollen either, despite that fertilising with a soft brush works just fine.

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Re: Lemon trees in the UK

#320092

Postby Breelander » June 20th, 2020, 6:45 pm

Breelander wrote:
Nimrod103 wrote:... looking closely, there is little or no pollen on the stamen although the stigmas are well developed...


I have another citrus, a Calamondin orange (citrus mitus). I've never seen much pollen either, despite that fertilising with a soft brush works just fine.



I've been a busy little bee today (quite literally) pollinating my orange. Despite the apparent lack of pollen my brush was quite yellow by the time I had finished.

Image

Nimrod103
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Re: Lemon trees in the UK

#320119

Postby Nimrod103 » June 20th, 2020, 8:55 pm

Good picture. I will take one of mine during daylight tomorrow and try to upload it.

I also did a lot of pollinating with a paintbrush, but I saw no visible pollen at all. However, there must have been a lot of invisible pollen because a very large number of fruits have set, and are enlarging well.

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Re: Lemon trees in the UK

#320314

Postby Nimrod103 » June 21st, 2020, 6:46 pm

Image

Lots of lemons.

PS sorry the picture is so large. I'm not sure how to make it smaller at present.

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Re: Lemon trees in the UK

#320328

Postby Breelander » June 21st, 2020, 8:02 pm

Nimrod103 wrote:Lots of lemons.


That's a remarkably heavy crop, and nice health green leave too. Citrus can be all too prone to yellowing leaves. What do you feed it with?

PS sorry the picture is so large. I'm not sure how to make it smaller at present.


I cropped and resized mine and saved as a new file before posting, even MS Paint can do that for you.

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Re: Lemon trees in the UK

#320330

Postby Breelander » June 21st, 2020, 8:20 pm

I still have the fruit from last year, though three was all it produced that time. Seems to like to take 'rest years'...

Image

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Re: Lemon trees in the UK

#320344

Postby Nimrod103 » June 21st, 2020, 9:45 pm

I add a bit of Miracle Gro to the water about once a week, though I never measure it out accurately, just make sure it is very dilute. I always try to use rainwater.

This year for the first time because of the lockdown, I have made my own compost to pot them on with. I don't know why I have never tried it before, since I have abundant leaf mould from my neighbours overhanging oak trees. Leaf mould, bonfire ash and soil, in about equal proportions. I have a couple of boxes of potash from Wilko so I will add a little to the water in future.

The new growth this year started out with big leaves, but on the yellow side. You can see them at the top of the picture. But they have become more green as they have aged. The plants are now in the largest (plastic) pots I can easily lift to go back into the conservatory for winter. So I presume next year I will have to prune the bushes back a bit, so they fit, and don't become too top heavy.

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Re: Lemon trees in the UK

#320355

Postby Breelander » June 21st, 2020, 11:53 pm

Nimrod103 wrote:I add a bit of Miracle Gro to the water about once a week, though I never measure it out accurately, just make sure it is very dilute. I always try to use rainwater.


Ditto to both (rainwater and Miracle Gro) but mine is the Miracle Gro for azaleas, it's said that an azalea fertiliser good for citrus too.

Mine was grown from a pip. If I'd known then what I know now I might not have started, apparently they take 15-20 years before they're mature enough to flower :D

The small ones you see in garden centres are usually mature wood grafted to a root stock to get them to flower early.

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Re: Lemon trees in the UK

#320989

Postby GrahamPlatt » June 24th, 2020, 11:03 am


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Re: Lemon trees in the UK

#321005

Postby bungeejumper » June 24th, 2020, 11:40 am

GrahamPlatt wrote:https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/24/ive-decided-what-to-do-with-the-rest-of-my-life-grow-a-lemon-tree

Nice link, thanks. And there was I thinking that the only use Adrian Chiles might have for a lemon would be to liven up his G&T.

Yes, most of the citrus plants you buy are grafted onto a vigorous rootstock, which is usually some kind of a sour orange (Seville orange, etc.) It saves a decade or two while you're waiting for the fruit. Main disadvantage is that these rootstocks often come with vicious thorns, but you can't have everything. ;)

My indoor lemon tree has hardly flowered in years, but I still love it because of the colour and the smell. My dwarf citrina (Meyer lemon, https://www.citrina-plants.com/en/) rarely disappoints, however.

BJ

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Re: Lemon trees in the UK

#321102

Postby Breelander » June 24th, 2020, 2:36 pm

From GrahamPlatt's article link....

"...This puzzled our panel of experts, who said a healthy tree should have produced fruit in a mere 20 years..."

I can confirm that. My calamondin orange pip took 25 years before its first flower appeared. :D

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Re: Lemon trees in the UK

#321244

Postby UncleEbenezer » June 25th, 2020, 6:46 am

Data point from having lived several years on the edge of natural citrus country: central Italy, near Rome.

I saw a fair number of orange trees: they grow well at sea level in gardens there, though not in the hills. But there's no commercial growing that far north. The classic-med crops that surrounded me were olives and vines.

The northern end of commercial citrus is south of Naples - most famously centred on Sorrento - where they make it into booze, notably limoncello. Commercially viable, but only in a high-value product. Italy's large-scale citrus area is Sicily, where citrus in the market or juice in the supermarket would pretty-much always come from.

Just a bit of context for where the climate is right!

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Re: Lemon trees in the UK

#372212

Postby redbluerhino » January 1st, 2021, 10:17 pm

Hi All, hope everyone is well.

I recently purchased a Meyer lemon tree. I have one south facing window (porch) but the night time temperature drops to 3.5-6.5 degrees Celsius. The north facing windows get hardly any direct sunlight but the temperature remains around a more comfortable 15 degrees Celsius. The tree is currently healthy, a few lemons and a few bud clusters.

To date I have been moving the tree to the porch when it's been sunny and then to the north facing window when it gets cold - based on everyone's knowledge/experience would this cause significant distress to the tree?

Thank you in advance for any thoughts!


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