We have had a meyer lemon tree (Monrovia) for several years in a huge pot on our deck. It has always done quite well in winter due to the normally temperate climate on the Southern tip of Vancouver Island. Of course, this past December brought us arctic air and about 2.5 feet of snow which lingered for several weeks. We did tent the tree (which is located right against the house) but it seems to be dying. It had about 25 lemons and some additional blooms just before the weather hit. Of course, the fruit is now dead but the leaves have turned mostly a sickly yellow tone. We are quite worried that this winter may have killed our tree. Any suggestions? Thanks
Keep the plant protected from further frost damage. You may have to wait until the growing season, (months away?) before the results are known. Bring the plant to the garage if necessary, but I would wait it out. The temperatures were equally brutal in Port Moody, however, the sub zero arctic winds were likely the reason for your Lemon tree's demise. I dug mine up on Dec. 16th. and now it sits potted in the garage, with no ill effects.
Thanks so much. My husband and I decided just to keep it as protected as possible if we get another round of rough weather but it is currently around 10C here so... I think you are correct and that we will just have to wait and see.
Hi I'm living in the greater Victoria area as well. I also have a Meyer lemon tree but it is in the ground under the eaves by a south facing house wall. The plant has only been in the ground since last April ('08). During that blast of cold we had in December I had the tree covered with some 7Watt Christmas lights wrapped around it -- so it fared just fine. It sounds like you've had your citrus tree much longer than I have. I am curious to know when you've seen damage to the fruit or leaves or branches during past cold snaps. Has it remained basically intact at -1C? -2C? I think I am babying my tree .... Keep us posted on your tree, I am very curious to know how extensive (or not) the cold-damage is come warmer weather. Thanks ose
Hi I think our poor tree is dead but will wait for Spring, hard prune and see if we get any new life. It has always been outside in winter so I think it can handle the temps as long as they are our normals of -1 or -2 but that 2 weeks of "arctic cold" just did it in even with the cover. I think that it would probably have done a bit better if it had been in the ground but we live on a mountain of mostly rock so that is rarely possible. Enjoy your tree and the Christmas lights are a great idea that I'll try if this poor thing survives. Cheers
Never ever ever ever prune citrus. Read around this forum and you will see how it does more harm than good. Fingers crossed for your tree.
That's the first I have heard of this.... I always prune my citrus, with no ill effect... I prune before the signs of new growth occurs.
Almost every thread on this forum has the advice somewhere of 'don't prune citrus' lol. It sets back the fruiting progress, can be a problem on seedlings, cuttings and grafted trees.
I will stop pruning! Really! In fact, I should do otherwise, if the citrus looks deformed in shape and size, pruning will be the appropriate course of action, depending on the season....
Not every thread in this forum advises people not to prune their Citrus. There are instances in a plants development through a weakening that may require a hard pruning and overall freeze damage to the wood is one of those times when we may be forced to hard prune a tree. We wait to see what damage there is and how extensive the wood has been hurt before we prune the tree hard or not. I've seen Black scale damage so extensive in the center of the tree that a hard prune and shaping of the tree later was mandatory just to keep the tree alive. If left alone this tree would have died out the following year. We can prune all kinds and forms of Citrus but we do better for the tree if these trees are grown outdoors, not solely grown indoors in a home using artificial light as our means to provide enough light to carry out some photosynthesis. Well lighted greenhouses with ambient light is another story altogether, so is whether the trees are grown in ground in a greenhouse as opposed to trees grown in containers in a greenhouse. The latter in comparison might make a tree stunt when pruned, whereas the tree grown in ground in a greenhouse may and usually does withstand some pruning a whole lot better. I am not one whom believes that a Citrus tree has to have a set number of growth laterals to bloom and set fruit to begin with. It is true that some seedling forms of Citrus do require nodal count to be proficient at setting flowers and yield resultant fruit but it is not a requirement, nor it is across the board true for several standard forms of seedling Citrus. The pruning factor, what we may endure for a loss in time and in development is more relevant for several but not all dwarf form Citrus than it is for many of the semi-dwarf forms as well. We simply have more vigor in the plant in our semi-dwarf and standard trees than we have in our dwarf forms. We can pinch back growth more frequently and see results sooner on semi-dwarf form Citrus than we can for several but not all dwarf form Citrus. A lot depends on which dwarf Citrus and which is the dwarfing rootstock. I can pinch and prune a five year old dwarf Mexican Lime any time I want in the Spring and Summer but I'd not do the same for a Meyer Lemon on the same rootstock as the Mexican Lime. I can pinch and prune a Cara Cara Orange on the same rootstock as the two Citrus above but I would be rather hesitant to pinch and prune a Cocktail Grapefruit the same. I can prune a dwarf Rio Red Grapefruit budded onto the same rootstock as all the above the same way and same time as the Mexican Lime but no way will I do the same for a Page or Owari Satsuma Mandarin but can pinch and prune a Seedless Kishu Mandarin the same timing and method as the Mexican Lime and not be hurt by it (all trees are grown outdoors in containers I might add). Once we learn when we can prune the dwarf forms and which ones can be pruned it is not a big deal to prune them to achieve a more compact, fuller, shape to these trees and not get hurt by it but for some of the dwarf forms we can get hurt which is why it is advised not to prune these trees until we are better acquainted with the tree, the form and the variety of it to know what our limitations are or will be once we do prune them. Jim
Thanks for sharing your expertise in pruning, Jim. I wouldn't mind getting your thoughts on pruning for size control but not here as I don't want to hijack the thread.
I try to avoid having my container Citrus go pot bound or worse yet go root bound while in a container. This is precisely what I am guarding against when I take standard and semi-dwarf form five gallon sized plants and place them in fifteen gallon containers soon after we get them. For some dwarf five gallon forms I will place them in seven gallon or ten gallon sized containers to hold them over until we get adequate root system to go to the fifteens. Eventually the container trees we have on hand in two locations are to go into the ground someday, probably in the next five years at my location in the Northern end of the Central Valley. I never have said in this forum that we should prune indoor container grown Citrus to others as advice. We have to be very cautious as to which form of Citrus and how much do we want to prune off. If indoor, in the home, container growers want to prune their trees, it has to be known to them that there is a price to pay and that price is less blooms that they will see for up to two to three years, which usually does correspond to less fruit that they will have on the tree - unless they compensate for the loss of wood that was taken off. We can trigger these trees to grow rather fine soon after a pruning indoors but in most instances it will require additional nutrients in a well aerated soil medium to help things along. What Millet has recommended in this forum over an over (the way I see it and know it to be sacrosanct for Citrus), what he has called for many times over without reservation, we can apply this knowledge to pruning these trees indoors. If we prune the trees hard we want to get some new growth rather soon to replace the growth we took off. We need to give these trees a boost in order to trigger the trees to at first get over the shock of being hurt, give the tree time to send a distress signal to the roots forcing them to grow and expand and then we will get to see a flush of new growth. As we are seeing this flush of new top growth or right before we see some expansion of the new emerging new growth, it is a good idea to fertilize our trees. You see with a timed release fertilizer we should have ample nutrients in our soil ready to help out right after a pruning. What Millet has said about his use of maintaining nutrient levels in his plants will help us when we want to prune or lightly trim our trees. We have the components already in place to help us with the aerated soil and the nutrients ready to go to work but most people that want to prune their indoor container trees do not have a good, well aerated soil, do not have residual nutrients already in place to help compensate for their pruning of the tree. They have little to go on other than they want to prune their tree and let it go "cold turkey" on its own without aid of nutrients to help push out new growth. Millet can prune his greenhouse grown container trees anytime he wants but he cannot recommend to others that they can also follow suit and do like him. He knows that several trees have succumbed to others overpruning, taking too much wood off all at once and had no backup plan in place to help them help the tree out. They choose not to give the tree a boost with a liquid form, not a granular crystalline form, of a balanced fertilizer soon after they pruned the tree. You do not have to apply a liquid fertilizer if and when you already have adequate residual and available nutrients already in your soil at pruning time. I know of one grower that is shearing landscape Citrus trees for wholesale. Shear the trees, give them ample fertilizer and in two years these Fukushu Kumquats are ready for resale and ready to go into the ground. I bought two large fifteen gallon trees to go into a cousins yard as focal point trees for her entryway. They sure do look good there and have not skipped a beat with their growth, flowering and fruit production. Jim
Back to topic. Once a tree has been subjected to being placed in a root restrictive pot for a number of years, it is prudent to lightly trim back the top of the tree at planting time. This is done to encourage root growth prior to seeing new top growth. Much of the time in cooler areas that can and sometimes do get a sudden freeze it is how well the root system has developed that will help stave off the effects of the cold - I learned this the hard way back in 1990-1991. It was not that the sustained freeze killed some of the dwarf Mandarins outright, of which the cold did not immediately kill the trees, it was more of a matter that I had no real root growth and development once the trees were planted in ground. It did not matter that I saw adequate to good top growth, I just was not getting good root growth from trees I bought as five gallons and held them over in fifteen gallons for three years and then planted them. Then again none of these trees were ever subjected to 6 degree weather for a low and a high of 28 for seven days either. Funny thing that the Citrus collection that was on my blacktop driveway did not have nearly the same outcome as the dwarf Mandarins did, of which some of the Mandarins in containers were the same as the ones that perished. I attribute the blacktop as providing some bottom heat for these trees at a time when they surely could have used some help. Even some especially cold sensitive trees in containers made it through the cold but for some of them it took another four to five years to see them snap out of their cold damaged and weakened states and start initiating flowering again. Should you see any splits in the wood, such as main branches showing a peeling of the outer bark, then these areas should come off the tree at the lowest point where the split is visible. When you to attempt to remove the damaged wood it is advised by me that you also give this tree a granular commercial Citrus food fertilizer and force a quick dissolving of the crystals with a heavy watering to allow the dissolute to move down into the root zone. It is for reasons such as for sudden freezes why I use a Bloom fertilizer, sans any Nitrogen, such as a 0-10-10, two ounces for fifteen gallons, one ounce for five gallon plants per application, during the Winter months for container grown trees. I've seen firsthand how these applications can help aid a tree ward off the effects of cold in a variety of plants at a time when I was rather skeptical a Bloom fertilizer could do anything to help. I had to yield to what an old foothill nurseryman swore by, by the looks of the root systems when lifted out of the cans just prior to the onset of cold and soon afterwards and later had to admit he knew what he was doing for Winter protection of cold sensitive container grown woody plants grown in a Western Garden Book zone 7 designation, right at an elevation of 3000 feet. Jim
