Hello! My sister and I are new to gardening (we live in Kamloops), but we are giving it a try with a couple plants on my patio right now. All in containers, we have a strawberry plant a new meyer lemon tree and a flower plant (can't recall the name exactly). We just picked up the lemon tree today, and I transplanted it into a large container with potting soil. Someone helped us with the size of container, and suggested a 20-20-20 fertilizer. So I have watered and fertilized but I am concerned that I have over watered although I am unsure of how to check, can trees endure a heavier watering than say the strawberry plant we have? Any tips for this new plant would be much appreciated. We were advised to fertilize every 2-3 weeks for the first few months. We have some green lemons growing right now, and we are not sure of how to prune. This is a patio tree, so I am not looking for it to grow tall -- bushy is fine but I may want to take this tree to a new place one day. Ok thank you, I really have a lot to learn. I may get a picture up of it as well --Megan
A few tips that would give you from growing one myself are these: Do not over water it. Give it a really good watering when the soil is dry down to about half an inch but then make sure to let it dry out again between waterings. Prune off any branches that go towards the inside of the tree. This will allow for the inside of the tree to breathe and will make it so you don't have too many leaves growing on the inside of your plant. This will be better too for avoiding an accumulation of pests. Which reminds me, I have one warning. Keep an eye out for spider mite infestations! Spider mites love lemon trees and if your tree gets too infested, the leaves will fall off. That's all I can think of. I hope others will think of some other tips for you. Oh, and of course I would think you would realize that it cannot survive outside over the winter in your area.
thank you, I have now moved it inside since it is getting pretty cold here. I wanted to post some images of the leaves since they are falling off and changing colour. This is only happening with the older leaves, newer growth is bright green and even in colour. -thanks for the spider mite tip especially, since I had not heard of them -- I will be sure to watch for those.
