Last year I planted a Meyer lemon tree and it produced approximately 40-50 tiny lemons (none larger than 3/4 inch in diameter) which have recently turned yellow. Cute but useless. The tree is currently flowering again and I would like to avoid the same problem with the new crop. When is the best time to thin the flowers/immature lemons and what is the preferred procedure? Thanks for your help.

Here's what I would do if you have excellent blooms. Get a glass jar (used for making jam) and a pack of sugar (brown or white) that would more or less fill up the glass jar.

First, put about an inch of sugar in the jar, then go around and collect the lemon flowers, leaving only two to three per cluster. As the flowers fill up a single layer, place another inch of sugar on top, and then fill with flowers that you collect from thinning out. Pretty soon, you would have filled up your jar. Set aside in warm dry place inside the house, like on top of the fridge. After a while, the sugar will melt, and it would make excellent syrup for tea, pancakes and other things you'd like to do with syrup. It is very aromatic.

Nothing goes to waste! And you would have thinned out your lemon flowers nicely.

Also take note that be selective of the flowers. Some of them are predominantly staminate, which means they will be predominantly male flowers and you remove those. Leave behind the flowers that are more towards the pistillate form, these are the ones that have better chances of turning into fruits.

Joe, interesting comments on the male / female lemon flowers. My two Meyer lemon bushes (the ones planted under my front window) are in full bloom. I will have to check out the flowers - I don't think I have enough to make your syrup recipe but it sounds very tasty.

Also, I believe my Meyers were propagated in Florida - they have sent out some 8 to 10" shoots from low on the trunk the leaves look the same- they have the same serrated edges) and have the same smell as the ones growing from the top. I do not see any signs of obvious grafts. Now I guess they could be from the rootstock? or because lemons are easily grown from cuttings, how likely is it that these will produce fruit? They look like they could be water shoots.
What do you think?

Thanks, Greg

I don't know if I could find the link again, but I recently read a report comparing production in untrimmed and "skirted" trees (skirted means cutting the lower limbs that often touch the ground). The skirted trees had significantly lower production.

Skeet, my lemon 'bushes' are still pretty small about 3' tall and 30" wide. I would have preferred to start of with a so called standard tree. What you describe - I envision on mature 20 foot tree.... perhaps one day

Take care

Greg