I ordered my tree from meyerlemontree.com as their 2-3 year old tree option and it arrived Thursday the 13th. I have it in a 12 inch in diameter pot now and haven't done much except water it and put my grow light on it. I'm using miracle grow's citrus plant mix with some wood chips mixed in (not much though). And last of all I live in Wisconsin!

I was wondering what type of fertilizer I should buy and where I could order it online (the closest nursery is a pretty far drive).

Another question is right now I have a 65 watt cfl, 200 watt equivalent, that puts out 3,900 lumens and 6,500K that I leave on for 10-12 hours a day. It's in the corner of my room right now because I haven't had time to move some things I have in front of my southwest facing window. This window only gets a few hours of direct sunlight a day so I was wondering how much more light will I need for it to put out new growth and flowers if it's at this window year round. I'm in a small apartment in a bad neighborhood so I don't want to leave it outside as now this little guy is my new baby because my girlfriend won't let me get a dog haha.

Thanks ahead of time for your help guys! Any extra tips would be great too. Looking forward to becoming part of this community.

The first thing that set my radar off was the mix you are using. I would suggest to not use any kind of wood chips at all but instead pine bark or even mix in pine bark mulch which is better than anything.
The wood will decompose robbing your tree of Nitrogen, a very important nutrient to keep your tree healthy and green.

If you should decide to use the mix you are using, I would suggest watching for leaf yellowing over time.
That is where depending on how your tree reacts how much fertilizer and or what kind comes in.

You can use Miracle Grow if that is local. I have been very happy with Miracle-Gro 12-4-8 all purpose liquid fertilizer, or 24-8-16 Miracle-Gro granular all-purpose fertilizer - both are completely soluble. I also discovered that a product by Dyna-Gro called Foliage-Pro 9-3-6 works well too.

The thing is, all plants need calcium and Magnesium and Foliage Pro has this.
If you are going to use the Miracle Grow brands, then using epsom salts and gypsum do the trick.

The key is to provide ALL the vital nutrients it needs. But if your mix is not open and does not encourage a healthy root system then nothing will work or only for a short period of time.

So, to reiterate, use a very porous mix with a majority of it being pine bark, no bigger than 1/4 inch in size, and use a fertilizer that provides all the vital nutrients.

As for the lights? That is something I use to be successful with, but then gave up on due to teh high cost of electricity and pest problems. My trees like a break from growing just by natural sunlight in a cool and sunny room. Many here are efficient at using lights and will be very helpful.

Good luck and again welcome. Hopefully I started the ball roliing since lately participation has been almsot nill except from the few very helpful regular friends here.

Here is a link that will get you on the right track about fertilizing. If you would like one about how to grow in containers and all the know how's of what goes on in them, just ask and I will direct you there too.

Mike:-)

Although the conventional ratio for citrus is 5-1-3; I have found that Meyers do best with a 6-2-4 ratio NPK.

Some wise person recently pointed out to me that 6-2-4 is 3-1-2; or as those you recommended, stronger, but still 3-1-2. Too long since my last math class.

John

As for the wood chips I figured I would use some because it seemed like the miracle grow mix had woodchips in there already. I'm guessing that's a different kind or the pine bark you were talking about. Would you suggest I just re-pot it now with different soil?

Here's a picture of what my soil looks like right now.

It looks good from here. Does it drain well? Watch to see how long before it dries out and how often you get to water, ok?

I would take out some of the mix from around the tree trunk until you almost see the roots with your fingers. It will not only help you avoid rot but will also look better.

Did you make sure you didn't over pot? if you use MG, you can get away with it as long as the pot is slightly larger than the roots.

Just be very careful about the bottom half of the pot as the weather gets colder and the days get shorter. Your tree will also slow down unless you provide at least 12 hours of strong light. That means the roots will not take up water as quickly. So watch your mix very closely and just be careful not to over water, under water. Evenly moist until almost dry through out would be perfect!

Mike

The mixture drains very well. I've watered once since I put it into the pot last Friday and will again soon because the soil is starting to get dry now. I'll make sure it's drying farther down not just on the top though.

The top of the roots were about a centimeter from the top of the soil around the trunk. That's about where I want them correct?

As far as over potting my container only had an inch or so on any side of the rootball and that's what my little potting instructions I got with it told me to do; but if that's wrong feel free to correct me :)

Yeah I'm kind of sad in a sense that it's getting colder and I got the tree right when growth will slow down, oh well. Hopefully that just means I will really have the hang of this for when conditions are better for growth! I have noticed a couple of spots where I think it's trying to give out new growth so I'm checking on that daily now! Yay!

I got miracle grow, gypsum and Epsom salts today so I'll probably start that with my next watering here soon. One last thing is it looks like a few of my leaves have tiny holes in them. Just a few leaves and only one hole in each. Ive searched for any bugs and haven't found any so ill post a picture when I get home to see what anyone thinks.

Also here's a picture of a leaf, it's only a few of the leaves but it's progressed into this. I've searched for any insects and haven't found any and it seems surprising to me that insects would have found their way to the tree in my apartment so fast! This tree hasn't spent any time outside at all! It's worrying that many holes showed up just today and the leaves seem a brighter color overall =(

In fact, you may even loose some if you repot again. To me that mix looked ok but you will be the best at judging how rapidly it dries out depending on the conditions you subject it to.

Many here are successful in heavier mixes that what you have and yet lighter mixes too. There are great ways to check for moisture to ensure that you do not over water. But in the end, a porous mix is always best for the plant.

It's great to see your enthusiasm, but don't let that turn into worrying. Just relax a bit and see the results of your hard work:-)
If you should fail like I did dozens of times, before I found this forum and the great friends here, you will press on until growing a citrus in a pot becomes second nature. Believe me when I tell you that holes, deformed leaves, and bitten leaves can show up out of no where, even in an apartment. You will understand the call of the wild:-)
Stick around and come as often as it takes.

Mike

My Mom says that if you begin to stress over it or worry over it, you loose the joy..
Sit back and enjoy your voyage...

Not me:-)

Oh well that's good to know that the holes are fine and I'll sit back for now and enjoy =) Be ready to see pictures of when it flowers and hopefully fruits for the first time! And maybe once I really get the hang of this and it does become second nature and I decide to get another =)

Please, keep us updated on your tree and ask as many questions as you would like. Growing citrus in containers can be a challenging and educational experience for sure, but the ability to succeed is highly elevated with the good support you get here.

Mike:-)

I tried searching on google for anything online that looked like my tree and I can't find out what it's doing exactly. Anything with black spots or black nodes came up as disease or fungus but it looks nothing like this so I'm guessing that I'm right to assume it's just a normal thing and what a tree does when it tries to put out something new at first. If anyone could tell me what my tree is doing that'd be great! Fingers crossed for trying to put something new out like flowers =) well here's a picture.

You may have bought a tree with some sort of pest, maybe immature scale, and not even know it. If it is a pest, it will show up now that you have the tree indoors.

I would make sure and treat with horticultural oil or Kneem Oil right now. It is always good to take precautions anyway. I NEVER get a plant from anywhere tis time of the year without treating it for pests.

Mike

I sprayed it with a mixture or neem oil and water so hopefully that does some damage to them. From what I've read about scale they seem to really be a bad pest.

About how often should I spray it with the neem oil mixture? And also how long do you think until they start disappearing; I haven't seen improvement, it just hasn't gotten worse. Should I spray it once in a while when the pests aren't there just to make sure they're gone or it takes a while for them to come back?

I've read a lot of ways to get rid of scale and they seem to vary in ways to get rid of them.

The scale has not gotten worse, I've picked off all the ones that are big enough too and I'm assuming the rest are dead and will fall off in time. I only sprayed it once so I guess the only question I have left is if it should be sprayed again eventually to really prevent the problem from coming back again as I've read that it's very hard to COMPLETELY rid the plant of scale. I'd say it's doing very well as far as that goes though! =)

The big update though is there seem to have been a bit of changes today! The new growth that I posted a picture of earlier is even bigger and looks great, though it is still very small haha. Also I've noticed what looks like new growth around all of the places where my leaves meet branches. They're very small right now however many of them I've noticed a purple-ish color to them! Which I'm guessing means my tree may do some flowering soon!!!

Hopefully very soon this will make my study room smell fantastic =) either that or I've heard just new growth can start out with a purple-ish color to it in which case my tree will just be growing more and will be able to flower/fruit more in the future!

Thanks Mike and John for the help and also calming me down =) I'm sure if I didn't have some help and advice from you guys I would have "cared" the tree to death!

I'll probably post some pictures soon! =) I'm very excited!

Mike

Thanks for that. I was wondering how sturdy that pot would actually be since it's so slim at the bottom... Well I'm in this apartment for another year or two and it's a pretty bad neighborhood outside. I had an empty pot just sitting outside my door and it got smashed so I'm not going to put my tree outside here... However I know wherever I am next I'll want this outside and hopefully a second tree! So I'll definitely keep it in mind to get something more sturdy for when I move. Thanks again!

Nic