Topic: Repot Lemon Tree

[Bugloss2009]

4 ft lemon tree needs repotting, and I don't want to buy special compost. I was going to use Ericaceous John Innes mixed with normal compost. Is this OK? ie lemons like acid soil, but not too acid?

[goodlife]

I use mix of ericaceous compost, sterilized topsoil, extra grit + bit of fish,blood and bone...
Yes, you are right..soil on acid side, but ericaceous is bit too much..

Ready made citrus composts are too light for my liking..when you see citrus growing in ground abroad..it is never fluffy stuff and the ground is often baked hard..
After I switched off from commercial stuff and made my own more loamy stuff my lemons have done really well..
..and they get well diluted wee too 8) ;)

[Digeroo]

bit of fish,blood and bone...

I am really interested in this becuase I thought it would be too alkaline.  Lemon fertilizers are sooooo expensive.  Mind you the wee should be acid.  Mine likes coffee too.

[goodlife]

..or you can use hoof and horn..I have never had any problems with it...I always treat fish, blood and bone as "neutral", it is the soil/compost and what you do in long term that really does have the most effect..
I have used multipurpose mix with ericaceous (did not have enough for the job) and it did not have effect for the plants...little bit of lime does not hurt...
As long as the growing medium as whole is in acid side...!!!!

[goodlife]

..I just had a look in my citrus book...
"work organic fertilizer(quano, horn etc.)into compost at the beginning of growth phase..."
"treat plants that are unwilling to flower with pure phosphorous fertilizer (bonemeal), twice at intervals of three weeks...)
Yep...it is OK.. ;D

[Bugloss2009]

thanks for that goodlife and Digeroo. I'll use a mix of ericaceous and topsoil. Don't have any BF&B but I do have some proper citrus feed, though it is rather old

[Bugloss2009]

I suppose tough I haven't looked, that there will be lots of scale bugs on it. I usually use a cotton bud dipped in meths, but it's very time consuming, and I always miss loads. Is there a spray I wonder?

[Digeroo]

treat plants that are unwilling to flower

Much to my great surprise mine produced 5 flowers and now has five little lemonlets.    I just have to hope that they decided to swell.

[goodlife]

If your lemonlets do decide to swell and they all grow in cluster it is a good idea to thin them out...otherwise you will end up 5 little ones with hardly any flesh in them...

[Bugloss2009]

I have 3 full size lemons that are green. There were more

[Sexki11en]

My hubby bought me a lemon tree for a wedding present last August (i've always wanted one)  It had 2 little green lemons on it and they are still the same size now.  Any ideas why? 

It had a lot of leaf drop over the winter, but I think i've established that this was because it wasn't getting enough light.  Moved it and fed it and now it has huge green leaves, but the 2 lemons are still the same size  ???

It's flowering now and I think 2 more fruit are setting but how do I get them to ripen?

SK x

[Bugloss2009]

lemons take ages to grow and ripen. At least you got them through the winter without them dropping off

If you can put it outside in a shady spot during the day that should help stop you getting leaves growing too big. They do that if you keep them in low light when they start actively growing

[Sexki11en]

Ahhhh, thank you. 

It's been in the living room over the winter, but I was going to put it into the conservatory later today, lots of light and it's quite warm in there at the moment.  It was about 8 degrees over night so I figured that wouldn't be too cold? 

Am also feeding it now once a month

Thanks for the advice.

SK x

[Bugloss2009]

it's the only thing wrong with citrus plants (apart from the bugs) - they start growing  strongly before it's safe to put them outside