I have just acquired a potted lemon tree. It has more fruits than there are leaves and many more flowers are blossoming! Should I start removing some of the fruits so as not to burden the plant too much? What should I do to encourage more leaves to form to support the blooms and maturing fruits??
Here's the latest photo. Notice the numerous new flowers coming out. I have just removed about 2o of the smaller fruits to lighten the burden of the plant.... At my last count, the plant has 50 fruits on it.
It doesn't look nearly as dire as I was led to believe. In fact there is a nice complement of leaves. Some of the fruit on citrus trees will be dropped naturally before they reach full maturity. However if there are too many remaining you may want to thin it out further. The size of the tree can't be seen in the photo but if it is small I would consider removing some of the fruit. I would keep the flowers so that their fragrance can be enjoyed. The resulting fruitlets, if they remain on the tree, could be thinned as well or removed altogether. Don't forget to feed your tree regularly using a high nitrogen fertilizer. The leaves aren't as green as they should be.
Thanks for the reassurance, Junglekepeer. Your comments and advice are very useful. Do you think supplying my plant with compost tea would be sufficient to provide my plants nitrogen needs? Otherwise, what would you recommend? BTW, my lemon plant is just about 1 foot tall.
I suggest you use a water-soluble fertilizer containing micronutrients. Two that are available in our area are Miracle-Gro 24-8-16 and Plant-Prod 30-10-10. As this is a small tree I would thin the fruit. Give the tree a gentle shake to dislodge the ones that are about to be shed anyway, likely the smaller ones, then thin those remaining.
