How to Grow Meyer Lemons in Containers Pt. 1

What's up everyone? Kevin here. We've done it again. We have another fruit tree. This time we're growing it in a container. We have the rare, the prized, the delicate Meyer lemon. In fact, it's an improved Meyer lemon. So this variety of lemon, it's prized amongst chefs, it's prized amongst gardeners, mostly because it's not often sold at a grocery. It's hard to find. So if you can grow it, all the better. Now the thing about it is when it first came about, it was really susceptible to a certain type of citrus virus, which has since been bred out in this improved version. This one came to me from my friends over at Fast Growing Trees. And I mean, to be able to ship a Meyer lemon that looks this beautiful, it's a feat in and of itself. So thanks to them for sending it out. Today, let's go ahead and talk about how to grow it in a container. So if you're growing a Meyer lemon in a container, you have to get even more particular about the soil. So the thing that citrus really does not prefer is what you'll call wet feet. So it doesn't want to have the soil be overly moist for too long a period of time. And so actually a cactus and succulent mix can be a really good option when mixed with a little bit of potting soil and we'll of course add a little bit of fertilizer as well. So it's, it's surprising that that would be the mix because you think a tree, you put cactus mix, doesn't make a lot of sense, but citrus really seems to perform well with it and it's recommended all the time. And it's something that I'm just definitely going to experiment with. So I have the cactus and succulent mix. I have a little bit of potting mix. And let's talk container. The container, you want a container that is deeper than it is wide because if left to its own devices, if you put it in a really big container, it's a tree. It's going to get massive. And so I've selected this kind of funky little container here. I actually grew a Chinese five color pepper in this a few years back and it was beautiful. And now it's going to get repurposed for our lemon tree. Now it does not have drainage holes, so I have to be very careful about watering it. But it's a beautiful container and it fits the purposes of the Meyer lemon. So we're going to go ahead and mix in our cactus and succulent mix. Boom. That's probably quite a bit already because what we want to do when we are potting it up is we are going to take it out of its pot and make sure that it lines up well. Now when I say lines up well, what I mean is that you want the surface of the soil in the pot to be right about an inch or so below. So we already have a little too much in here, at least in the center. But before we do that, let's go ahead and inspect our root system. So we don't want any root circling. It looks like on this plant we're in a pretty good spot. You can see the bottom here. It's really not that bad at all. In fact, I would say this may have been shipped out at the exact right time because you're starting to see a little bit of circling around the bottom, but it's really not that bad. So I'm just going to lightly, just loosen this up a little bit, tease it open. And I think a lot of people get very, very sensitive about messing with their plant's root system. But for some reason we're okay pruning the top of our plants, but not the bottom, right? And it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. Yes, are there plants that are more sensitive on their roots? Obviously, right? There's a wide range of plant tolerances out there, but it's really a good idea, especially when growing in a container, especially when growing a plant that's sensitive to having wet feet. So we're just going to get this going a little bit and we may have to do a little excavation. And honestly, the roots, roots have a unique smell compared to most roots. That's probably weird for me to go down and smell them, but honestly it smells cool and they have a bit of a yellowish color to them. Okay. So we've teased the root ball open a little bit. Now what we're going to do is just make way for our mire. And placement in a pot is important because that's where it is. Once it's there, that's where it is. So we're going to do this and we'll scoop this back in in a second. But if we were to do it right there, that's actually looking like a really good position for it. So that is absolutely perfect. And let's go ahead and fill it in. Now before I actually backfill, I'm going to lightly fertilize. So this is a custom mix of fertilizer that I've made. It's got bone meal, blood meal, chicken droppings, chicken manure, as well as a little bit of kelp meal in there. So I'm doing a light fertilization, especially into this right around the planting hole. You don't have to worry so much about fertilizing and sort of training the plant to get used to that area around the root zone because it's a container. This is the only place it's going to grow. If you're putting it in the ground, I might be a little more wary about over fertilizing the hole, the planting hole. But we're in a good spot here, giving it a little bit of light fertilizer for its future life. Okay, now we go ahead and backfill. And as far as the soil and planting conditions, we're in a good spot. And then we get to talk now about all the other parts of Meyer Lemon Tree Care. Okay, we're potted up. It's looking really good. As we water it in here, taking care not to overwater. Let's talk about the other parts of its care. Now when you're growing in a container, that means that if you're in a colder zone, you can actually grow it indoors. So if you're growing it indoors, then you're going to want to put it right up next to a south facing window as close as you possibly can because outdoors, in zones eight to 10, it still wants eight plus hours of sunlight, right? I'm here in San Diego in zone 10b. We are a citrus growing zone and even a citrus growing city. So it's going to be perfect outdoors here. Now what I will say is the best time to plant is going to be in the beginning of spring. So late winter, early spring, as soon as temperatures start to warm up, that's a good time to get it started, especially if you're planting it in ground. I'm doing containers, but it would be the same principle here. So as I water this in, we need to just make sure that we talk a little bit about the pruning. Pruning is especially important when growing in containers because you want to really manicure and sculpt the shape of your Meyer lemon. Now again, this came from fast growing trees, so I can already see some nice pruning and shaping cuts here. But there are a few general rules of thumb when you're cleaning up your tree that you want to keep in mind. Tip number one for pruning is to remove any branches that are non-fruiting that are growing straight up. Obviously there aren't any right now, and I can't even tell because it's not even flowering. So I don't know which ones aren't fruiting yet. But as that starts to happen, I can go ahead and make a scan. Your second pruning tip is going to be to remove any branches that are crossing the plant. So let's say this one ended up growing inwards like that. You're going to want to remove that or just growing inwards in general. Let's say I have this offshoot and it was to send another one out right here and kind of go out in this direction. I may want to remove that. And that's to keep the interior of the plant nice and airy. Don't want little pockets of crazy humidity that's breeding ground for disease and rot and things like that. Our third pruning tip for the shape of the plant is if you want to grow it in a tree-esque fashion rather than more of like a shrubby type of thing, what you'll want to do is remove all the growth that starts to shoot out as the seasons roll on from lower down on the trunk. So you can just clip that off. I do that with my loquat tree out in the front yard as well because it wants to throw those low lying shoots out. Just take those off and it still looks nice and manicured, especially if you're growing it in a container. And you know what? This is even a plant that you can use in a spolier style pruning technique. So you can actually flatten this plant and put it up next against like a south-facing window or on a flat trellis. And you can actually do it that way. It looks amazing, takes a lot of time, but it does look amazing. Now the final tip is actually when it starts to fruit, a pruning technique that you can use. What you can do is you can prune each fruit cluster to either one or two fruits. Now it kind of seems like a shame as it starts to throw out fruit. You're really excited. You have your first Meyer lemons and maybe there's three or something on there. Then it seems like a shame to take one off. But what you're doing there, it's very similar to other principles in gardening. You're allowing the plant to put more energy into less fruit so that the resulting fruit is going to be larger, higher quality, the flavors improve, et cetera. So hurts, but it is a good tip. All right, let's talk about a couple of problems that you're probably wondering about. So number one, it's not flowering or producing fruit. Almost always, that's a symptom of not enough light, right? A lot of us try to grow our citrus indoors. The sad truth is unless you're providing some kind of grow light, it's really going to be hard to get a lot of fruit off of that. So if that's the case, you really should consider moving into a place with more sun. Yellowing leaves. That is going to be underwatering, overwatering, or not enough nitrogen. So you really have to troubleshoot and figure out which one of those three problems it is. Unfortunately, under and overwatering kind of present the same way in many plants. It's kind of an annoying thing. And the reason for that is because underwatering, we know why. There's not enough water in the soil and it starts to struggle. But overwatering, weirdly enough, causes the same thing. So it actually suffocates the roots and then they're unable to transport water. So the leaves are actually still getting underwatered despite the soil being overwatered. And that's kind of what's going on there. Your next problem is going to be wilting leaves. Again, that's an overwatering almost always issue. They're going to sort of sag and get a little bit yellow, get a little bit sickly. So really the best way to do that is the soil test. Stick your finger down a couple inches. You want to make sure it's nice and dry. I wouldn't water this until the soil is dry, especially in a container, especially a container without drainage holes, from wait until the soil is maybe three inches dry or so, three, four inches, and then you can give it a nice little drink. Meyer lemons are an amazing variety of citrus to grow. Highly encourage you to do it. Again, this one came from fast growing trees and it should probably bear fruit maybe not this season. It might need some time to establish. I might get lucky, but definitely next season. And again, one of the best lemons that you will ever, ever taste. This is part one in the Meyer lemon growing series. So subscribe, like, comment and follow along because all the different plants I grow here on Epic Gardening, I do continual updates on. We did it with our dragon fruit. That was a five part series. Potatoes are coming up. There's a lot of things going on right now. Pineapple is another one that we're doing a series on. So you have to subscribe to know when the next one's coming and it's plants guys. The next one might be months away. You never know. It might be next year. So you definitely have to subscribe. Good luck in the garden and keep on growing.