a prolific lemon variety that makes
delicious lemonades let us look at
growing the Meyer lemon so you can buy
your Meyer lemon tree in this 5 gallon
container in most gardening stores you
can either get them in 5 or 15 gallon
containers and this is the improved
Meyer lemon tree the improved Meyer
lemon is resistant to the tris teza
virus and this is a very good tree to
grow in containers because it's a dwarf
tree so the dwarf improved Meyer lemon
tree is what you should be looking for
when you go to your garden store now
most home improvement stores like Home
Depot and Lowe's will carry this tree
you can also buy them in costco for a
great price the container that we are
using here is enough so that it has a
little bit of soil under the roots and
then you just put your plant inside that
container so you try to fill the
container till the pot fits perfectly
the one that you are looking at right
now is an 18-inch container 18 inches in
diameter body about 18 inches in height and
then what you do is just make sure you
have enough soil and then just take the
plant out of your container and then
just put it inside the container that
you're growing in
now I do not recommend that you grow any
tree including lemon trees from seeds
because the plants will not be healthy
they will not produce a lot of fruits so
your best off getting a nice grafted tree
from your local garden store they are
not really expensive they're pretty
cheap the citrus trees especially if you
have a costco near your place you can
get them for about twenty dollars in a
five gallon container which is a great
deal in my opinion because they will
start producing fruits right away and
then what you do is just fill around the
plant with some soil now the mix I'm
using here is a mix of peat moss compost
and perlite I did not have enough
perlite so I added a little bit but as
you can see here it makes a good mix you
can even use some potting soil if you
have some potting mix bagged potting mix
you can use that as well and that should
give you a good start for your citrus
plant now some people prefer using a
lighter and a more porous mix you can do
that by mixing bark, perlite and compost
here once the tree is ready its sitting
nicely in the container all you do is
just water the plant and at this stage I
don't recommend that you add fertilizers
if your potting mix contains fertilizers
that's fine give it about a day or two
to settle in and then you can add a
liquid fertilizer you can use a water
soluble fertilizer which is salt based
or you can use an organic fertilizer
that will break up over a period of time
now what i'm doing here is i'm just
trying to make sure that the plant is as
centered as possible and then i am
trying to push the soil in from all the
sides so how you plant your container
how you plant your plant when you get it
is very important
so we just make sure that the soil is
nice and compact around the plant and
that should give you a good start and
once this is done your next step is to
water the plant make sure you give it a
nice drench is make sure you soak it
very well from all sides and that there
are no air pockets that's very important
you can then keep your container in a
nice sunny location the Meyer lemon tree
needs about six hours of Sun a day to
produce good fruits and here you can see
some yellowing of leaves and this is
either because we kept the plant in a
very sunny location where it got a lot
of Sun and it got some sunburn which is
quite possible within the first few days
of keeping your plant because it's a
change for the plant from a shaded
nursery to this sunny location but you
still need about six hours of Sun a day
and as long as you're giving good water
to the plants they should recover pretty
well and that's what happened to our
plant and as you can see here the plant
actually started producing very soon you
can see the Meyer lemon fruit here the
lemons are very good-looking and the
leaves have greened up as well so as
long as you add some good fertilizer and
make sure that you water the plant well
your plant should recover very quickly
from yellowing of leaves and the plant
is a vigorous grower as you can see here
it's grown quite vigorously and at this
stage you can see the lemon it's quite
large the Meyer lemon plant produces
large sized lemons and here you can see
we're harvesting our first Meyer lemon
it's a pretty decently sized lemon the
Meyer lemon is actually a cross between
lemon and a mandarin orange so it looks
pretty large and it's got a very sweet taste
and now let's cut open one Meyer lemon
to show you how it looks like now Meyer
lemons were first introduced to the
United States from China in the early
20th century by Frank Meyer from which
it got its name the Meyer lemon and
today's Meyer lemon trees are a hybrid
that are released to the University of
California and this is an amazing
tasting lemon it's not tart as the
other regular lemons that you get so
it's not sour it doesn't have a tart
taste but it has a more of a sweet taste
it does have seeds as you can see here
but because of a sweet taste it makes
great lemonades you can grow this lemon
at your home and surprise your guests
with some delicious tasting lemonade's
when i tried the lemonade that was made
from this lemon I was completely blown
away the taste is just so amazing it's a
very mild and a very nice tasting lemon
so those of you who don't like tart
lemonade you get that weird feeling
around your teeth when you drink a
lemonade you should love this lemon this
lemon makes great lemonade which is
sweet and not very tart and that's the
best use of the Meyer lemon and as you
can see here the plant will keep growing
this is the second year of planting and
the plant has produced more flowers and
as the plant grows it will keep
producing more and more flowers and more
and more fruits and this is one of the
best plants you can grow in a container
the dwarf Meyer improved lemon and for
those of you who are looking to grow
this in your balcony or patio this is a
great lemon variety to grow out of all
the other lemon varieties available so
each lemon has its own place we saw the
Bearss or the Persian lime tree which
produces limes that are great for
cooking because they are tart and the
Meyer improved lemon produces lemon
that are great for making lemonade's you
can even make cocktails you can even use
it for cooking if you like mild tasting
lemons
so it's a pretty versatile lemon plant
that has a lot of uses
and as you can see here I did have to
transplant this plant into a larger
container and while I transferred this
plant into a larger container i used the
faster draining mix and so far it's been
okay i am not very happy with the fast
draining mix just because you have to
add fertilizer very often the mix which
includes the wood chips which is wood
bark peat moss and compost and perlite
so as you can see here the plant has
grown very well now and I will shortly
show you how to prune this plant but
even if you don't prune your plant you
let it grow for a few years and then
prune it you're okay and this is a
demonstration of the pruning technique
you don't have to prune very hard, just
make sure you give a nice shape to the
plant remove any stems that are crossing
over to the other side and interrupting
with the growth of the plant or stems
that are shading the plant so overall
it's very easy to prune this lemon tree
pruning Meyer lemons is just a matter of
keeping the plant in good shape making
sure you don't have any dead leaves or
dead branches now since I'm growing this
in a container I wanted to grow straight
up and not grow very wide so that it's
easier to maintain the plant so
depending on your goals you can shape
your lemon tree to the size and shape
you desire and that's all there is to
pruning the lemon tree you can do it
anytime between fall through spring so
there we have it folks that was our
episode on growing the Meyer lemon tree
this is a great lemon tree to grow in
containers and I highly recommend that
you try growing this lemon tree at home
do let us know if you grow lemons and
which are your favorite varieties and
whether you grow the Meyer lemon tree
see you again soon happy gardening