yeah I had one for a while. You need a greenhouse to overwinter them, they dont' like being inside the house as you've seen. Too dry and too dark. I had mine in an unheated sunroom and that was ok, but they still got scale and had to be sprayed weekly while inside.

citrus are heavy nitrogen feeders. Have you fertilized it? and make sure it dries between waterings, don't keep it wet all the time, or even damp. I fed mine every April and October. I did get lemons too.

If you are taking care of it properly, your Meyer will re-foliate. I agree with the previous post. I have a Meyer as well as a minneola and a persian lime. I overwinter them in a cool sunroom. But my sunroom doesn't get any direct sun in the winter months, so I supplement with cfl bulbs in floor lamps placed right at the plants. No leaf drop this year, even from the meyer. For mites, the best thing is blasting the plant with water on a regular basis. When the plants are inside they should be misted every day to prevent insects. Now that your citrus is outside, low light and low humidity will no longer be problems. Be sure to let the soil dry out between watering, then water deeply. I wouldn't fertilizer until you see new leaves forming, and don't overdo it when you do fertilize. There is a gardenweb forum dedicated to citrus. I recommend you check it out. Many knowledgeable citrus hobbyists post there. Also, make plans for how you will take care of your citrus next fall when temps cool and the plant needs to be brought indoors. I got inexpensive floor lamps from Home Depot that hold 3 bulbs per lamp. Instead of 60W incandescant bulbs, I used 100W equivalent compact flourescent bulbs in bright white and daylight. I put the lamps on timers to give 12 hours of illumination, and placed them right up next to my trees. That, plus daily misting, keep them bug free and well-leafed this winter. They even bloomed and got some new leaves. One more thing: when you transition your lemon to the indoors again (or vice versa) go slowly to give the plant time to adjust to the new conditions. Meyers can be temperamental, but they are pretty plucky plants. Good luck!

Thanks for the tips, guys. I had one of these about 10 years ago, and remember that the lemons I picked off of it were wonderful. It succumbed to mites after about the 4th winter... I'll try to take better care of this one.

I leave my lemon and orange trees outside unil it gets to 31 degrees under some kind of cover close to the house, like under the eaves(they don't want to be wet all winter). Then for the couple of weeks, I bring them in and usually the "below 32 degrees" doesn't last much longer than that. In a short indoor time they usually don't get too many bugs and if they do, they go away when I put them outside while it's still cold. I have had them for about 7 years now and enjoy the fruit from them. They do need lots of fertilizer (I give them the citrus spikes).

Just an update -- the meyer lemon has leafed out nicely on every are branch and is enjoying the heat and sunshine! Got a few cute little lemons set on, too...

I live in Pittsburgh Pa, and right nows cold out so i brought my lemon tree indoors. Its a good 7 feet tall, and is losing all its leaves. I have not spotted any bugs on it though. Ive had the tree for probably about 7 or 8 years and i have not gotten any lemons on it yet! I put it out every summer..and its getting too big to even bring into the house anymore! I dont know what im doing wrong.. is there a way to cut the branches back without killing it? And what is the secret to growing lemons on it? Because the branches are definatly big enough to bare fruit. I water it while letting it dry in between waterings, and ive used miracle grow but it wasnt specificly for citrus. I have also used a nitrogen based fertilizer but ive never gotten a flower nor a lemon. Its full of leaves when its outside in the summer time but nothing else, except it DOES have these obnoxious spikey thorns on it. Is this really a lemon tree? I mean, it said it on the box!

Hi, Sandra, if it doesn't flower, it won't fruit. When you have it outside, is it in good light? I think they need 6+ hours of good strong direct sunlight when they're outside to initiate flowering.

My lemon tree is 2 feet tall but shrubby with lots of branches, and spent spring/summer/fall outside in full sun. Last year I got flowers on nearly every leaf node, and little lemons on about a quarter of them. Most dropped off by themselves, and the remaining handful that grew to about the size of olives mysteriously disappeared one night... (I blame racoons!)

It's in full flower right now in my living room, and I'm hand-pollinating the flowers again in hope for some fruits later this year.

As to keeping the plant small, I think you can prune both the branches and the root ball to keep trees small for pots, but haven't had to do it to the lemon yet.

I have a dwarf lemon tree, that I keep outside until mid October. Right now it's in an unheated South facing bedroom. In early December, it was covered in blooms, and now has many small lemons. I also recently had three very large lemons!

I use citrus plant spikes, water it infrequently and it seems to do fine, except it is getting very "sticky". This stickiness gets on the leaves, and has also gotten on the carpet.

"Sticky" means it has an insect infestation. Indoor citrus are quite prone to them and you often see similar problems with garden trees in SoCal. Scale or aphids seem to be the biggest problems and both will produce a sticky honeydew. I've found Neem oil to be effective on controlling insects on indoor plants and its has very low toxicity so safe to use indoors. Be sure to spray on the underside of the foliage and in all little nooks and crannies. After you've used the Neem a couple of times a good shower is helpful - for the plant, not you :-))

Here's a pic of two plants I received on Mother's Day last year. They bloomed and set fruit thru the summer and are still holding the fruit. They've lost about half their leaves and a few of the fruit. I'm just now seeing mites so will give them a bath today.

They initially had a tag tied to the bush that said 'Meyer Lemon', but the tag attach to the pots says 'bears seedless lime'. So.......does anyone know whether I have a lemon or lime bush??
When I lived in Calif. I had a 10' lemon that produced year round and its fruit looked nothing like what I'm seeing on these plants. In person they do look more like limes!

Sandra........the site below may be of help for your non-producing plant.

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Here is a link that might be useful: lemon tree

Meyer lemons are very round, but those look like they could be limes. Meyers will turn yellow, limes will not.

A 7 ft tall lemon tree sounds like a seedling, not a grafted tree. If it's a seedling it may never have fruit while in a pot; needs to get too much bigger. A full size citrus tree is a good 15ft tall and wide or more. Dwarf trees can barely be managed in pots, let alone full size trees. And as said, it has to have flowers before it can fruit, and the flowers have to be cross pollinated - by bees, or by hand with a q tip or paint brush. No pollination, no fruit. No flowers, no fruit.

Sandra, a seedling tree may need to get very old before it starts flowering; commercial citrus are not grown from seeds but are grafted for earlier bearing. What you have may be a rootstock grown from seed. And, the most common rootstock for citrus is a deciduous species with nasty wicked thorns - sound familiar? Trifoliate orange, I think the name is. I've never seen one fruit but I don't see them all that often except as root suckers on other citrus.

Thanks! I didn't realize limes don't turn yellow, but since posting my question one of the larger ones has turned mostly yellow. Maybe there's still hope they're lemons!

Hi. I am new to the forum, so Hello everyone. I would like to know if anyone knows where I could find a Meyer Lemon tree in Pittsburgh? I'd rather not order online if I don't have to.

Thanks!
-Craig