Trees that spend part or all of their time indoors need to be controlled for size so that they will fit through a doorway whether it be a standard sized door or a patio sized door. I'm wondering what size trees others are growing. Specifically, how tall and wide are your trees and what pruning regiment do you follow to control their size?

Junglekeeper, you didn't say anything about the size of your trees. Can you tell us something about them? What are your growing conditions?

I live in Wisconsin, zone 5. My tallest tree is 2 feet tall and is my key lime. All the others are about 17 inches tall. They are a persian lime, an orange tree, 2 meyer lemons, a limequat, and a new satuma that's never bloomed.

They spend a short summer outdoors, and then live in a small north facing sunroom. So far all have produced fruit except the satuma mandarin.

I keep my house on the cool side ( in the high 60's to 70 during the day and 55 or higher at night). They get no supplemental lighting or anything else. Right now the key lime is blooming, one meyer lemon is setting fruit, and the persian lime is setting fruit.

Hi, citrusnut. I grow my trees year-round in an unheated room with a southern exposure where temperatures of around 9C/48F have been observed during winter. Even though they never spend any time outdoors they still have to be able to go through a number of doorways for maintenance. Therefore the spread of a tree has to be kept to around 2.5'. At one time I had both Eureka and Lisbon lemons growing to about 6' in height as single-stemmed trees. They were both healthy and thick-stemmed but were reluctant to branch out. My larger trees now have several upward growing stems as a result of repeated pruning. They're about 4' tall with a 2' spread and a trunk diameter of 1". Pruning certainly curtails fruit production but there is really no choice if I want to grow these trees indoors. Hopefully there are now enough horizontal stubs in place to produce a limited crop this year and beyond.

One point that might be helpful to those in your situation that have seed grown trees is that since to flower, each branch has to reach some specific but unknown node count. Therefore, those side branches will never be able to flower unless you graft mature wood onto them. Once the top of the tree reaches that mature node count and begins flowering, you can transfer a few buds from the top to those side branches and then you could get fruit from them as well.

Citrusnut,how do you keep your meyers alive and keep them from defoliating?

thanks

I haven't done it with citrus, but I've brought other large tree/plants into the house, I just drag them in pot first and the branches bend up and slide through the doorway.

thanks
I think I asked the wrong question, how do you prevent the winter leaf drop? Are you in dallas?

Frank, 1 of my meyer lemons is defoliated since last spring when I missed a watering. It's still green and viable just leafless. Last summer it got a few leaves but lost them again and it also flowered. But I did a no-no and let it set fruit (2 lemons) which are still on the tree. Up until now it kept its leaves all year and was giving better crops. Last year I had 6 yummy lemons.

The other meyer is a smaller plant and still has all of its leaves. Why it does I can't say.

Once or twice during winter I put the citrus in the bathtub and spray them with RO water that I purchase from the supermarket.

I live in Wisconsin, zone 5 so it'll be a while till my plants can go outside and revive.

SusanB, love your set up. Nice plants. I like to live among my plants too.

Junglekeeper, do the Eureka and Lisbon lemons taste the same? Eureka is on my wish list because I heard that the trees grew little smaller. What's your experience?

I can't really compare Lisbon and Eureka, but I can say my Lisbon (on regular trifoliate stock) is a very vigorous plant-- after 4 growing seasons it is well over 12 ft tall from a 3 ft potted plant. I'm sure it would help if you can find a lemon on Flying Dragon stock.

Skeeter, you live in God's country for tropical fruit growing. You must have tons of tasty lemons.

Just read JoeReal's great page of his experience on citrus on the front page of this forum, again. He prefers lisbon to eureka as far the tree shape itself is concerned.

I don't like the sound of lots of thorns. My key lime and limequat bite me all the time and it smarts and that's after trimming the thorns. There always seems to be one I missed. Well I don't have to decide yet. Before I buy another lemon, I will get more mandarins and oranges first.

Thanks for the info.

RO = Reverse Osmosis - Miller

Citrusnut, I do still have about 30 lemons on my tree (they are huge) and I have had lemonade almost every day since August in addition to several lemon meringue pies (Yum!).

My Lisbon has very few thorns and the ones it has are usually less than 1/4 inch--but it is those little ones you don't see that often get you.