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laurelzito

Too much water? Lemon tree roots a funny color

Laurel Zito
13 years ago

I moved my lemon tree, after being so unhappy with the lemons I thought it was the mislabel. The spot it was in got full sun in the summer, but in the winter the sun only comes to that part later in the day. I had to squeeze the tree in the far right hand corner. I have hardly any full sun spots at all. This is a western exposure, so it only gets afternoon sun. My sun is blocked by big houses.

But, when I dug it up the roots looked a funny color kind of rusty and cooper line and not white. This could be too much water, I guess or bad drainage? But, maybe they are supposed to be that color? I cannot remember, I have only seen that on a color on clematis roots, that ended up dying.

It's a bad drainage yard without tons of compost and years of work, I have managed to improve the drainage, but sometimes it's just a lot of compost and it's not draining fast enough. So, the part I had the tree in before could have been a bad drainage area or else I used too much water. I had been reading that citrus is a water pig, but maybe that only means in southern CA?

I hope next year I can get some usable lemons, this year I have given up. There is no transplant shock so far, that I can see. So, I have to cut way back on water, but since its newly transplanted I can't cut back on water. But, I have to at some point.

I only got this tree because I read a San Francisco gardening blog that suggested Meyer lemon trees for San Francisco. That blog had been removed. Maybe it's just that edible crops do so poorly in San Francisco, and they have to suggest something or other to grow.

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