Submitted 11 months ago by TheGiantKorean@lemmy.world to houseplants@mander.xyz
My potted myer lemon tree started flowering a few weeks after I brought it indoors for the winter. Is it OK to let it flower? Should I try pollinating the flowers to get more lemons?
I’m in Los Angeles so my potted lemon stays outside, and it’s a dwarf Eureka, so ymmv, but I would enjoy the flowers without trying to force another crop of lemons. If you can’t resist, maybe only do one or two. Because isn’t this the part of the cycle when the tree will store up nourishment for strength?
This is kind of what I was wondering. Like would letting it flower and/or fruit stress it out?
Flowers don’t take as much energy as fruit. You could probably just remove them as they fade, and pinch off any fruit that starts to form, or most of them anyway.
Or maybe it will be okay if you give it fertilizer.
Y’know, you should probably check with a local plant expert, I’m just a random old lady on Lemmy in a 10b climate zone.
DonielDoom@lemmy.poundncashdown.com 11 months ago
There’s a chance that you tricked it into thinking it’s spring, for lack of better terms.
It’s something I recently learned about in reference to Jade plants that come inside for winter. If you allow them to get a certain small bit of cold before pulling inside, the temperature shifts will force blooms to occur.
I don’t know much more about it, and I’m sure I’m botching the proper concepts here, but it sounds like what you’re experiencing.
I have a couple larger jade (crassula ovata) plants that live outside in the summer and inside in the winter. This year they both started flowering right as I brought them inside. When I read a bit more about it, it seems like a normal technique/trick that folks use to push out flowers.
I’ve never seen them flower before now! Not sure what else may have the same tendencies.
TheGiantKorean@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I’ve never seen a jade plant flower either! So cool! I’ll have to do a search so I can see what they look like.
Tricking the tree makes sense. I didn’t bring it in until the temp was about to dip below freezing, so it makes sense that it thinks it got through winter (albeit an extremely short one).
DonielDoom@lemmy.poundncashdown.com 11 months ago
Here’s a shameless pic of mine!
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