After a visit to Sorrento Italy in April of 2000, we were immediately smitten with all the wonderful lemon trees adorning the Italian coastline. All throughout Amalfi and Sorrento we saw gorgeous scenes of Sorrento lemon trees in terra cotta pots adorning house fronts, store fronts and cobblestone alley ways.
We knew right there and then we wanted something equally picturesque in our backyard. So, we planted a lemon tree in a container!
We really wanted to bring back a Sorrento lemon tree to the USA, but because we didn’t feel like smuggling anything into the country, we opted for the next best option possible – a Eureka lemon tree. This Eureka is studded with fruit and it’s extremely happy with it’s home in the urn shaped container. In winter, when the cool weather beckons the fruit to ripen, the lemon tree is an absolutely gorgeous scene to the garden.
This little lemon tree is our reminder of our trip to Italy and we’re happy to have it on our garden family.
Growing this lemon tree has a few challenges because the heat of the Summer season can quickly dry out the pot. Especially in the rustic looking terra cotta pots. We’ve since transplanted it into the glazed pot seen in these photos and it helps retain the moisture much better. It takes consistent watering in hot days to make sure that the tree stays hydrated and happy. Unfortunately there were a few occasions when we forgot to water our little lemon and the fruits became soft and dehydrated.
To keep it consistently watered, we added a drip irrigation line to the pot. Now the lemon tree is in full fruiting cycle again because it’s getting the consistent water it needs to stay healthy. Another added step we’ve found to help keep in the hydration is to mulch the top of the pot. We use about 2″ of leaves from out ficus hedge for the mulch, adding a fresh layer every time we trim the hedge (@ twice a year.)
A word of warning on pot selection: if you ever think you may transplant out of the pot you are choosing, do not get a pot which tapers in at the rim like the one our Eureka lemon tree is in. It will be very difficult to take the plant out without damaging its roots. Luckily this pot is large enough to be our Eureka’s permanent home.
We’re submitting this post to Fern’s Container Gardening Blog Carnival on her blog, Life on the Balcony. Fern’s great blog highlights gardening tips and advice for small gardens, particularly patio gardening for apartment and condo dwellers. Her wonderful site is a must read for all types of gardeners because no matter how big one’s garden is, one always has something growing in a container!
So if you have edible vegetables or fruit growing in a container, share your story, tips or advice to Fern’s Container gardening blog carnival! We’d love to see all your beautiful container bounty! (although we’re very aware that half the country is under snow and ice, but at least join us in celebrating those who do have warm sun!)
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{ 35 comments… read them below or add one }
Great choice of pot! The combination of the rustic pot and the beautiful tree is really stunning. It’s amazing that a relatively small tree can produce so much fruit!
I agree that the choice of pot is great, the very structured urn shaped pot against the informal branching of the lemon tree. Did you use dwarf stock or just a regular size tree?
Also, thanks for the great tip to add a layer of mulch to containers. My little potted kumquat tree will be forever grateful to you!
This was one of our original trees we bought when we had a tiny back patio, so it is only dwarf stock. We love the lemons off of it so much that we’ve added a second Eureka (this one’s a standard) and created a planter for it.
After we started mulching all of our citrus in planters or pots with cuttings from our hedges, we’ve noticed they all have been much happier. Since so much of their root structure stays shallow, they really benefit from the added protection and moisture. Hopefully your kumquat will be exploding with fruit this year!
Beautiful tree. Mine is just a baby fresh from the nursery, but sure enough it flowered first month and has one sad little lemon clinging on, and is busy flowering again.
But do you do something special during the winter? How come the plant oesn’t die during the winter?
Bogdan- we live in Southern California and our winters are very mild. Citrus trees do very very well in our area. We’re very fortunate!
What a beatiful tree! It looks great in that spot in your yard. My mom has a dwarf Meyer lemon that she planted in a pot and keeps inside year round. She lives in Colorado and enjoys lemons in the winter when it’s snowy and cold outside.
The tree is so lovely! What size pot are you using? (approx height)
It is probably a little over 2′ heigh.
I had my lemon tree in the pot forever and it won’t grow! It’s not dead, it’s just doesn’t do anything. More water?
There are a lot of factors which could cause it. Not enough water, it’s gotten root bound in the pot (pot size has limited it’s growth to what you have now), the soil in the pot doesn’t agree with your tree, not enough sun… I’d start by watering it consistently for a time and add about 2″ of mulch on top of the roots. See if the tree starts to get revitalized. If not maybe move it to a different spot where the sun exposure improves or maybe repotting.
Todd
My dad used to grow lemon and orange trees in wine keg (halves). I miss the sight and smell. I live in an apartment and don’t have any outside area but I want to share this post with my friends on my blog. Houston, where I live, is a great place for container gardening. I might just try growing one in front of my window. Who knows. I really haven’t lost much if it doesn’t grow. Thanks for the reminder about container gardening and bring back sweet thoughts of my dad.
We love using the halved wine barrels for pots. Our sideyard “nursery” is filled with them giving our seedlings their beginnings. Thanks for sharing the memories.
T & D
I love the smell of the lemon trees. Check out http://www.citrusfruittrees.net…Lots of great info.
I’m looking at planting some fruit trees in container this fall. How old was the lemon tree when you bought it? And how long before it bore fruit? I also noticed on your website that you have peach trees. Did those bear fruit in the first year or does it take some time before they develop? I’d love any insight you have on this. I love your website! Keep the great blogs and photos coming!
We’ve purchased several lemon trees over the years (2 Eureka, 1 Meyer). All were in 5 gal. containers and they were all producing fruit from the beginning. The peach trees fruit, but only our white peach has put out any tasty fruit over the last couple years. We are still trying to figure out one of the garden’s original trees (a peach) which developed nice fruit the first year we move in, then nothing very tasty in all of the following years. So Cal isn’t the best area for peach trees but you can still get some nice fruit each year.
Good luck gardening and thanks for the compliments!
T & D
The tree looks beautiful! We just bought one about a month ago and are keeping our fingers crossed it will survive! I was wondering about the watering. We don’t have the ability for a drip system, would it make sense watering twice a day? We are in the Santa Clarita area and temps are generally in the 80s to 90s right now and very dry. Also, what about fertilizing?
Thank you!
Hi Tina,
We have our drips set to every other day in the summer. Since yours are so young, once a day should be more than enough to help get them established. Most all citrus, especially if in pots, love being fed. We mostly use the liquid organic fertilizers ’cause any solid organic fertilizers will have the pups’ snouts digging them up. We fertilize about once every 2 months and that works well with our established plants. They probably would have benefited from more frequent feedings when they were younger, though.
What a gorgeous tree! It absolutely reminds me of our trips to Italy. <3 We are also in SoCal and have a dwarf Eureka, as well. How large of a pot is it that you're using? I love the urn shape and would be happy to have ours permanently potted near our patio. Also, how did you set your drip line? Does it run through the bottom and up to the surface? We hope to have our tree looking as happy as yours!
Hi Rachelle,
Thanks! We love our lemon tree. We think it is about 26″ diameter. The urn shape is pretty, but will make is almost impossible to transplant if we ever wanted to. That is always something to consider when planting in urn shapes. Drip line is coming up through to bottom, plus we’ve drilled extra large holes in the base to keep the roots from clogging up the holes (which will inevitably happen with the the stock drainage holes.) Hope that helps.
I have a lemon is a similar-shaped pot. Mine was supposedly a dwarf Eureka lemon, but it is 8 feet tall now. Anyway, I wanted to point out the obvious, which is that you can always transplant the tree by breaking the pot. That’s my plan should that ever become necessary. I am in SoCal, too, FWIW.
beautiful lemons you got there. Thanks for sharing your container gardening tips on growing lemon trees.
Love the post! Great tree! Thanks for sharing. I live in west central FL and two pink lemon trees (4 year) just arrived and I plan to container grow them. They came in 24 gal container and I’m planting them in a much larger pot (not sure of the size but they drop right in – they will stay outside all year (no problem in FL). I appreciate your notes about hydration and mulch. I thought http://www.MeyerLemonTree.com had some great prune/feed/grow tips. I’ll keep you posted. I never knew there was such a thing as pink lemons!
I’m waiting on two Nagami Kumquat’s (3 year), which I’m not sure if I’m going to put in pots or the ground yet. I can’t wait to see what the pink lemon’s look like in Dec/Jan. Thanks for your site.
We’ve kept our kumquat (Nagami as well) in a pot and it has always done ok. Fruits well, is happy with the sun and drip irrigation, but has been slow growing. It might do better in the ground with good soil, but our clay-scape doesn’t help. If it isn’t in a large planter, we are often better off keeping them in pots.
beautiful trees.I bought a meyer lemon tree a few months ago ,it had six lemons ,it still has the six.it has flowered several times,but no more lemons.It gets plenty of sun i fertilize it once a month and plenty of water inspite of the drought. what am i doing wrong? thank you for sharing
Hi Rinia,
I wouldn’t worry about your tree yet. As long as the leaves seem healthy, is should be fine. Sometimes they just take a little time to settle in. We usually don’t expect much out of our new trees for the first year or so. We tend to look at our trees’ progress in terms of years instead of months. Just keep watering, fertilizing, and making sure it gets a lot of sun. We’ve had great luck with using B vitamin to get the root structure settled and happy. Good luck!
The container you chose is wonderful! Any the lemon tree looks awesome. Do you remove any old soil to make room for new mulch?
Thanks so much. To answer your question, no we didn’t take out any old soil. Everytime we mulch, we just add it on top. Since it is mostly leaves from our trimmings, they tend to not add too much volume to the soil as they break down.
I love your tree! I’ve had one in a pot for about 4 years now, and every year we get about 3 or 4 wonderful lemons. How do you get soooo many lemons on your tree. I would kill for that many! The few we do get are the best tasting lemons I’ve ever had, but just not enough of them. We live in Kansas and it gets very hot in the summer and we bring it inside in the winter in a sunny location. We fertilize and water regularly, and yet skimpy lemon production. Any tips?
Hi there, I’m from Adelaide South Australia and have a eurika lemon tree in half a wine barrel. I was wo.dering how big should our drainage holes be. We put about 6 in and they are about 2cms in diameter. Is this big enough. We layered gravel first then a mix of sand and gravel then a layer of potting soil mixed with mulch.
Hi Helen,
That is about the same as what we drill into our bigger pots. Occasionally after several years you may have the roots plug the holes, but with the wine barrels it is easy to drill an extra hole a few cm from the bottom on the side if that happens. Good luck with your tree! We had to add an extra Eureka lemon to the garden last year because we love them so much. The oil content in the rind is so much fresher than anything we can buy, even from the best markets.
PS. We’ve found with the trees in our wine barrels that we need to water them a bit more than a ceramic pot. The water will evaporate from the soil faster.
T & D
Hi I came across your blog from pinterest. Your tree is gorgeous and I thank you for all of your tips. I’m looking to buy my husband a lemon tree as a gift when he comes home from deployment in april. Is there any place that you would reccomend buying from online? I’ve only found Meyer lemon trees.
Thank you!
Hi Michele,
Thank you so much. We haven’t ordered any trees online yet, but have heard good things about Four Winds. On a garden forums we’ve seen a few others mentioned as well. If you have a local nursery, even Home Depot or Lowes nearby, they may be able to special order you one as well. Good luck.
I loved your photos! I have had a patio Lemon tree for about 6 years. It only grows about 6 or so lemons a year and they never fully ripen. The leaves are beautiful and it looks healthy.
Very true. Although we have a had time bringing the hammer to a $200 pot. But the tree;s health does come before the pot.