What to do and how to make a lemon bloom, the best methods to improve fruiting

Indoor lemon has long ceased to be an overseas curiosity, but even experienced gardeners do not always decide to add citrus to their phytocommunity: it is too whimsical. In order for the plant to always have a beautiful, healthy appearance and bear fruit, it is necessary to comply with a number of requirements, including the correct selection of soil mixture, location, lighting, temperature, and air humidity. In addition, it is important to provide a set of care measures: replanting, pruning, regular watering and fertilizing. We'll tell you how to feed lemons at home in this article.

An indoor tree's root system area is 30 times smaller than in its natural environment, so the issue of constant feeding is one of the most pressing.

Botanical certificate

Lemon belongs to the Citrus genus of the Rutaceae family. Its homeland is India, China, and the Pacific Islands. In nature, the evergreen tree reaches 5-8 m in height; at home, the famous Pavlovsk lemons grow up to 1.5 m; they can be grown for 30 years.

Young shoots are green, perennial shoots are covered with gray bark. They have thorns on them.

The leaves are leathery, glossy, up to 15 cm long, up to 8 cm wide, entire, petiolate, with a lemon scent

The flowers are single or paired, located in the axils of the leaves. The corolla is 5-petalled, 2-3 cm in diameter, white, cream, pinkish in color. Flowers exude a delicate aroma.

The fruit is a hesperidium, called, like the plant itself, a lemon.

A tree grown from a seed will not bloom or set ovaries. Only grafted seedlings bear fruit, which are best purchased from a nursery, as well as plants obtained by cuttings from fruit-bearing trees.

How to grow a lemon from a seed - step-by-step instructions

You can grow a lemon on a windowsill from a seed taken from a ripe fruit, or from a cutting cut from an adult fruit-bearing tree. The second way is more reliable: during vegetative propagation, varietal characteristics are completely preserved. However, often amateur gardeners who want to work with plants all year round sow the seeds of the lemon they like in the hope of getting their harvest in a few years. A tree will definitely grow, although not from every seed, but you won’t be able to taste the fruits soon. Even if vaccination is done on time, more than five years will pass from sowing to the first fruits.

Soil preparation

Indoor lemons grow best in loose, slightly acidic (pH 5.5-6.5) soils enriched with phosphorus. In flower shops you can purchase a special mixture intended for citrus crops. If this fails, a universal soil for indoor flowers is suitable, to which almost the same amount of peat is added. It is not difficult to prepare the mixture yourself. For example, you can mix and grind through a sieve with 3-4 mm cells turf soil, peat and humus, taken equally. If the mixture seems too dense, you can add river sand as a leavening agent.

To prevent infectious diseases, crushed charcoal is sometimes added to the prepared mixture, but in any case, the soil is disinfected before planting. The easiest way is to bake it in the oven.

Flower pots made of ceramics or plastic are suitable as planting containers; for sowing seeds they can be small. A drainage layer of 1.5-2 cm is placed on the bottom (preferably expanded clay balls or vermiculite). The soil mixture is poured almost to the top.

Planting a seed

Experts recommend starting planting work at the very end of winter. Any ripe, fleshy fruit without signs of rot, purchased in a store, is suitable for seed selection. To be on the safe side, take seeds from several lemons. After cutting, select large seeds, without damage, evenly colored. There is no need to peel them from the shell. The seeds can be planted immediately, then they do not need to be processed. If they have been left for a while and have dried out, you will have to soak them in a growth stimulator (for example, Epin-Extra or Zircon) according to the instructions for it.

Even prepared seeds have a low germination rate, so it’s worth planting at least a dozen. Depth – up to 2 cm, the distance between them is the same. The container is covered with glass or film until germination. The soil is maintained in a moderately moist state, the temperature is not lower than 18 ° C, preferably about 24 ° C. In such conditions, it takes 2-3 weeks for the first shoots to appear. If they turn out to be frequent, the weakest ones are soon removed.

At the stage of 3-4 true leaves, the best seedlings are carefully planted in separate pots. This operation is performed extremely carefully: the seedlings are transferred with a ball of earth so as not to damage the delicate roots. The next transplant is planned for the time when the plants reach a height of 15-17 cm.

Signs of mineral deficiency

Homemade lemon, like other citrus fruits, needs a well-known triad of the most important chemical macroelements: nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and calcium. Of the microelements required for normal development: zinc, manganese, iron, copper, boron.

By the appearance of the plant you can determine which element it is missing:

The table shows that absolutely all macro- and microelements are important for the normal development, flowering, and fruiting of citrus.

A deficiency of essential nutrients primarily affects the condition of the foliage.

Lemons need to be fertilized year-round. It is important to observe regularity, precise dosages and application times, depending on the period of plant life.

Tip 2: How to grow lemon

• - cuttings,
• - pots,
• - root growth stimulator,
• - sand,
• - film or can,
• - spray bottle,
• - a container of water to humidify the air,
• - slurry,
• - sawdust,
• - ash,
• - mineral supplements,
• - polystyrene foam or thermal insulation material.

Lemons do not like drafts, being moved from one place to another and excessive watering in winter.

If you frequently move the lemon pot during flowering and fruit formation, the tree will shed both leaves and ovaries.

Fertilizers for growth

The period of active fertilizing occurs from February to September . At the end of winter the plant begins to grow. This means that we need a building material that ensures the growth of green mass, and, consequently, preparation for future fruiting. This is nitrogen. In a city apartment, urea, saltpeter, and complex fertilizers labeled “Spring” are used, which are characterized by a high content of this element.

There is a lot of nitrogen in organic matter. If, having your own garden, you add organic matter in the spring and summer to enrich the soil for vegetable crops, feed the lemon as well.

Horse manure, mullein, bird droppings (chicken, pigeon) must first be infused. Fill half the container (bucket, tank) with manure and top up with water. Close with a lid. Leave to ferment for 2-4 weeks. The mass is stirred periodically. Before watering, the concentrate is diluted with water depending on the type of organic matter: horse manure 1:8, mullein 1:10, bird droppings 1:25. You need to feed it 2 times a month.

Manure and bird droppings are pre-infused; the fermented infusion must be diluted with water

Humus (rotted manure) and compost (rotted plant matter) can be poured directly into the pot on top of the soil or lightly mounded. Lemon loves this kind of mulching.

It is recommended to alternate fertilizing with organic and mineral fertilizers. For example, add organic matter on the 1st, minerals on the 10th, organic matter again on the 20th, and so on.

Why lemons don’t bloom - a description of the main reasons and ways to solve the problem

Growing a lemon tree is not that difficult. Moreover, this plant grows well both outdoors and indoors.

Lemons are more sensitive to cold than all other citrus trees. Because of this sensitivity, lemon trees should be planted on the south side of the house (if outdoors) or placed under a south-facing window (if indoors). In this article we will look at the situation why your lemon does not bloom. But initially remember: these fruits love light and sun.

While lemon trees can grow in a range of soils, including sandstones, most species prefer well-drained, slightly acidic soil. The plant requires deep watering, at least once a week. Pruning is done as necessary to maintain shape, height and fruit control.

Lemons can be an excellent decoration as a houseplant; they grow well in pots, and at the same time they also bloom and bear fruit. It is enough to organize good drainage and choose the right location. With proper care, a full-fledged fruiting tree can grow up to 2-3 meters indoors, bloom profusely and decorate the interior.

lemon blossom

Lemon trees bloom in a normal temperature range: around 21°C during the day, and 13°C at night. Keep in mind that they usually go dormant when temperatures drop below 13°C. Why doesn't your lemon bloom at such low temperatures? This is the specificity of the plant: it originally comes from a country with a warmer climate. For normal flowering, the tree requires a lot of light. Therefore, it may need additional fluorescent lights if grown indoors.

Lemon trees can also be placed outdoors during warm periods, which is also recommended to increase the number of fruits. When you grow your lemon tree indoors, bees and other insects will not be able to pollinate it. Therefore, you should place them outdoors periodically during the summer.

Why does a lemon not bloom under normal home conditions if it is transplanted? The reason here is clearly not the transplant. We'll talk more about the reasons for the lack of flowers a little later in this article. Lemon trees are excellent at propagating from cuttings and seeds.

But nevertheless, if you want tasty and juicy fruits, follow the standard measures for planting/transplanting a plant: the seeds must be well dried for 1-2 weeks. Plant to a depth of no more than 5-10 cm in good, fertilized soil. Cover the soil with a plastic lid or clear bag. This will speed up growth. Place the pot in a sunny location and wait until the seedling is 10-15cm tall before transplanting it outdoors or into another pot.

Problems with lemon blossoms

If the lemon does not bloom, then what to do in this case? For example, you bought a lemon tree to use the fruits for tea drinking, or you simply dreamed of a small fruit-bearing tree in your apartment for interior decoration. But a long time passes, and there are still no flowers.

Flowering and fruiting period

In general, lemons always require nutrients in combination, but during the flowering period and at the stage of ovary formation, phosphorus and potassium are especially necessary. Nitrogen should be temporarily excluded, otherwise the ovaries will fall off.

Phosphorus accelerates fruiting, improves the quality of fruits, increasing their content of sugars and vitamins. Potassium accelerates ripening and increases yield.

Phosphates and potassium sulfate are added. Complexes with copper, manganese, and boron are also welcome. Wood ash, which is high in phosphorus, potassium and calcium, is a good natural alternative. It is also pre-infused (1 tablespoon per 10 liters of water), and then used for watering plants.

Nitrogen begins to be introduced when the fruits set and reach 1.5 cm.

All fertilizing is completed three weeks before harvest.

Where can I get material for vaccinations?

Whether you do the grafting yourself, or invite a skilled person to do this, you will need cuttings or scion buds. It has already been said that they need to be taken from a fruit-bearing lemon. Where can I get it?

There may be several answers. Most often, varietal lemons grown by friends, relatives, and acquaintances are used as donors. Often the owner of such a lemon can be found on the Internet, communicating on flower growing forums.

Interesting! Not everyone knows that cuttings of varietal citrus fruits, including lemons, can be sent by mail. How to do this is usually known to the owners of such plants. The cutting will survive a short trip without any problems and will be suitable as a scion.

By the way, this fact opens up wide opportunities for you! Using the Internet, you can find not just cuttings of a varietal lemon, but a plant of a certain variety. After all, there are a great many varieties of lemons!

Preparing for the rest period

Starting from August, the application of nitrogen fertilizers is completely stopped, potassium and phosphorus are fed, which will strengthen the plant and prepare it for the dormant period (this is their second, no less important function). Root feeding should be alternated with foliar feeding (foliar spraying). For each method, the concentrations of the solutions are different. How to prepare them correctly is detailed in the instructions for the drug.

Some gardeners believe that it is in the last month of summer that closer attention should be paid to the prevention of fungal diseases by adding manganese, while others recommend watering and spraying lemons with a faint pink solution of potassium permanganate every month.

It is important that mineral complexes contain the necessary trace elements. When buying ready-made mixtures, you should carefully study their composition

Vaccination at home

There is evidence that people performed the first vaccinations several thousand years ago, in ancient China. Whether this is true is not for us to judge, but the obvious fact is that gardeners have been using plant grafting for centuries. During this time, enormous experience has been accumulated, and dozens of different vaccination methods have been invented. The lion's share of these methods is used in gardening, and not in home floriculture, and, of course, it is not at all necessary to know them all.

As a rule, three types of grafting are used in indoor citrus growing:

– budding with an eye; – grafting into cleft; – grafting by copulation.

The first grafting method is used if only one scion bud is grafted onto the rootstock. The last two methods are when cuttings are grafted. The most common method is grafting into clefts. Any gardener can easily master it.

Now we will not describe these vaccination methods in detail. Firstly, this would require a separate article, preferably supplemented with drawings. And secondly, there are many such step-by-step instructions on vaccinations on the Internet. To really learn how to vaccinate, you need to read at least one such article and watch a video. And after that, you may not get vaccinated right away. You need to train your hand a little, sharpen your eyes, and gain confidence.

We advise, after familiarizing yourself with the “theoretical literature,” to try grafting on cuttings of any trees. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a garden resident or a forest tree. The main thing is that you train your hand: get even cuts, quickly apply the binding, use garden varnish.

Attention! In any grafting, the most important thing is to tightly connect the cambial layers of the scion and rootstock. Let's remember biology lessons! The cambium is a thin layer between the bark and the wood itself. It is in the cambium layer that the fusion of two different plants occurs.

Rest period

Lemon “rests” from October to January . It is believed that if special conditions for winter dormancy are created for the plant at this time (lower temperature to +12 ℃, no lighting), then the need for fertilizers disappears. As a rule, this is not possible in standard houses and apartments; the tree overwinters indoors, which means the amount of fertilizing is reduced to once a month. For this purpose, ready-made complexes for citrus fruits are used.

Such products as “Agricola”, “Citrus”, “Fasco”, “Zdraven” and “Effect” have proven themselves well.

The range of ready-made fertilizers is quite wide

lemon blossom

Lemon is essentially an evergreen plant that blooms several times a year. The flowers have a very pleasant smell, and the number of petals is limited to 5 pieces. Bright yellow fruits appear mainly on branches that are not lower than the fourth level. The fruits appear on short branches - fruitlets.

The ripe fruit can remain on the branches of the plant for two years, first changing color to green, then again to yellow-golden. Indoor lemon trees, unlike ground ones, have thin skins. Despite the fact that these lemons have fewer seeds, they are much more flavorful. With proper care, indoor lemon trees will bloom and delight you with a harvest just like the trees in your garden.

Folk remedies

There are many folk recipes that can also be tried in practice. Lemon loves river water and silt (they cover the surface of the earth in a pot with it), aquarium water with the remains of fish, and herbal infusions that many summer residents prepare for watering garden crops.

Herbal infusion

It’s easy to prepare the herbal solution: after weeding, the weeds, as well as nettles and quinoa, are placed in a container, filled with water, covered with a lid and left in the sun to ferment for 10 days, remembering to stir periodically. The solution is filtered through cheesecloth. Before watering, dilute: add 0.5 liters of green fertilizer to a bucket of water.

It is important that the infusion does not contain weed seeds, which remain viable even after fermentation.

Eggshell

Eggshells are used as an additional source of calcium. It is crushed, filled with water, left for several days and poured over the lemon.

Sugar

Once a week, you can feed the plant with a sweet solution at a concentration of 1 teaspoon of sugar per glass of water. Glucose is a real energy source that stimulates the growth of new shoots.

Banana peel

Feeding indoor flowers with infusion or powder from dried banana peels is a fairly popular, economical way. It is quite suitable for citrus fruits, as it contains potassium, calcium, phosphorus, and amino acids. The infusion is prepared quickly. Place two banana skins at the bottom of a three-liter jar, fill with warm water, and place in a dark place. After a couple of days you can water it, after diluting it with water (1:1).

To prepare dry fertilizer, the washed peel is cut, dried in an oven or dehydrator, and crushed using a coffee grinder or blender.

Pests and diseases of indoor lemon

The disadvantage of citrus trees is their susceptibility to a large number of diseases, some of which are useless to fight.

Sometimes the reason for a plant’s poor health lies in an attack by pests.

To prevent the lemon tree from being infected by parasites and diseases, you need to maintain the temperature regime, maintain indoor air humidity at the required level, systematically fertilize the soil and avoid excessive or too little watering.

Fertilizing rules

There are a few more points to pay attention to:

1. You cannot feed the tree immediately after purchasing, replanting, or pruning. We need to give him at least a month to adapt.
2. Do not mix organic and mineral fertilizers at one time.
3. The soil must be moist before fertilizing.
4. To prepare solutions, as well as for irrigation, you cannot use tap water directly from the tap. It is necessary to take only settled, room temperature.
5. It is important not to exceed the permissible concentrations of fertilizers.
6. It is better to carry out the feeding procedure in the morning or evening.

Vaccination: what is its essence?

Actually, if you paid attention in high school biology classes, it will be easy for you to understand the principle of any grafting on plants. First, you need to understand that vaccinations involve two “actors”: the rootstock and the scion.

– The rootstock is always the plant onto which the graft is made. In our particular case, the rootstock is a wild lemon seedling.

– A scion is a part of a varietal, already fruit-bearing plant. By the word “part” we mean either a stalk or a separate eye (bud).

The essence of any grafting is to fuse the rootstock with the scion. As a result, we will get a plant that has the roots of the rootstock, but the crown of the scion. Accordingly, the new tree will bloom and bear fruit in the same way as the cultivated plant from which the cuttings were taken for grafting did. By grafting, we seem to deceive nature, forcing the seedling to bloom.