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| Hello everyone. Happy Spring! I never thought it would arrive. Even though spring means that the plants and trees will start growing and blooming, I want to start planting right away and can't because at this stage of the game, we still have drastic diffrences in temperature extremes. Last week we were in the fifties and sixties all week with only a night or two that went below freezing. Normally I will go to a grocery store or Walmart and buy a pot or two of hyacinths to get me thru until it's time to plant. However this year I bought a huge meyer lemon tree and the fragrance of the citrus blooms have filled my house nicely. I went to the citrus forum and asked if anyone could help me with pruning. I need to keep this tree around 6.5-7.0 feet tall, otherwise I would have to cut a hole in the celing and I don't think my landlady would go for that! I would like to encourage as much growth sideways possible. I wouldn't mind if it got to 5ft or 6ft wide. The flowers are worth it alone. Will there be any time when the tree doesn't have flowers or fruit? I don't want to cut off branches with either but if I need to I will. My last question is about cuttings. On the citrus forum a few people said that there rooted cuttings grew nothing but flowers and fruit. They would not grow much in terms of height and no new leaves or branches. Could this have been due to where the cuttings were taken? I want to root some of the wood I prune. I have had sucess with ponderosa lemons and am hoping that the Meyer will also be easy.
Andrew |
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| Meyer's are probably the easiest citrus there is to root. Just stick them in a pot covered with a bag and you should have very good success. As far as pruning, Any pruning you do on citrus is going to make it have less fruit the next season. Nothing you can really do about it in your situation but citrus take pruning well. I don't think there is much that you could do to cause a problem with the tree. I would just prune it to keep the shape and size you want and you'll be fine. My meyer only really flowers once. Pretty much right now. I know many say they are everbearing, but I have not found that to be the case in my climate. I get fruit that is edible in the late fall and winter. Never anything in the spring or summer. |
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- Posted by simon_grow San Diego, zone 10 (My Page) on Wed, Mar 24, 10 at 12:12
| Hello andrew78, the Meyer Lemon I have is really short but extremely wide. Its about 4 feet tall and 5-6 ft wide. Its the older Meyer Lemon and Not the Improved Meyer Lemon. I would assume you wouldn't have to do too much vertical pruning to keep it short, maybe just prune the central leader at about 2-3ft if you want to keep it fairly short. If you bought your tree at a nursery, its probably grafted so you want to make sure you don't prune below the graft. My Meyer has blooms all the time but I do live in sunny San Diego. The cutting you take shouldn't affect the proportion of vegetative growth or flowering much, especially after it gets established. For cutting, there tends to be more Auxins (a plant hormone)around the nodes and this should help it root better. My guess is that those people on the citrus forum took a cutting around Spring or just before spring so with the increase in photoperiod, the tree would naturally start flowering. Because the tree has now used up so much of its energy to flower and fruit, there is little left over for vegetative growth, especially for a newly planted cutting that is still developing its roots. If you want your cuttings to grow vegetatively, just pinch the small fruits off to conserve energy. If you want your Meyer to produce year round, you can increase the photoperiod in the Winter with artificial lighting. |
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