Good morning everyone, I ran across this website hunting down information about Lemon Meyer plants and I'm very glad I did. I have learned a pretty good amount but by all means know I don't know enough lol and in fact I have questions generated by reading all these posts! Just some history Last year I purchased a Lemon Meyer plant from Home Depot and it looks like a shrub. It has a lots of branches coming from the ground. It also has lots of thorns. This year I purchased an Improved Lemon Meyer from Lowes and it looks like a small tree , and no thorns. I had the one from Home Depot in a pot for a year and it lost it leaves because I had to move indoors and outdoors a few times. I purchased a house in November and last week I planted both the Lemon Meyer plants outdoors. I live right outside of Austin , Texas which is zone 8 so my husband and I know next year when there is a chance for freezing we are going to install some ground spot lights next to the trees to provide warmth. We never have a hard freeze last more than a few days here so if we cover them up with something and turn on the lights I THINK they should be good. Right now we are past any chance of freezing. The Homedepot Lemon tree is doing better now and new leaves are coming up. I had read on the internet about using rose food to fertilize it so I used some of my orchid food (19 -31 - 17) which was similar to rose food to do so. Not sure if that had helped or if it just needed to be fed period. So here are my two questions. I'm wondering should I start pruning the Lemon Meyer plant from Home Depot to train it to look more like a tree? The one from Lowes has stronger branches which I would like to accomplish with the one from Home Depot. From what I gathered about pruning it seems like it's ok to do so if the tree is in growing in the ground (per Mr. Shep, topic id 47725) but how long should a Lemon Meyer tree be growing in ground before this is safe? Also regarding feeding my plants. I have been feeding each time I watered with a homemade fertilizer. I stew egg shells, bananas, greens, wood ash, coffee grounds and coffee in water for an hour and a half, stir, let sit and do it again for about three days. Afterwards when cool the concoction I seaweed and Epsom salt (not a lot of Epsom salt) to the mix. I then strain the liquid and use it while watering my trees. In other words I don't add it full strength to the trees. Of course I haven't had my trees for a long time so I'm thinking of adding to my routine a good feeding with a citrus fertilizer three or four times a year. I bought a citrus fertilizer called Citrus - tone ( 5-2-6) and it has 2% calcium , 2.0% sulfur and 0.5% magnesium. I read on the package that one of the feeding times is January/February so I want to use it the next time I water. Do you think I am over feeding if I do this? Maybe cut out my homemade brew and use this instead? I do compost everything I cooked afterwards but I like thinking my homemade concoction contains just a little bit of nutrients with a lot of water which results in my trees being fed a little each time I water. I of course have tons more but I don't want to subject you all to them in one post. Also I'm very grateful to receive any help on this and I know no one knows me here yet but I hope to get to know all of you! Thank you!!! Thanks for your help!!
I would suspect that the bushy Meyer Lemon is grown on its own roots and the one that looks like a tree has a different rootstock. Do you know if there was a tag on them when you purchased them telling you what rootstock was used?
No I don't remember if there was :( it's been a long while since I bought the bushy one but the one that looks like a tree has it's tags still so would it say if it was grafted??
