How to Grow a Lemon tree in a Pot
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How to Grow Lemon Tree in Pot
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 and want to show you how to grow lemon tree in pot.
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 its 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.
Choose A Glazed Pot
Growing this lemon tree has a few challenges because the heat of the Summer season can quickly dry out the pot. If the tree is older and root bound, they’ll definitely dry out quicker, especially in the rustic looking terra cotta pots. They frequently will sweat out water which a glazed pot will retain. We’ve since transplanted it into the glazed pot seen in these photos and it is much happier. It takes consistent watering during hot Summer weeks 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. The glazed pot helps but it can’t amend for neglect.
Watering Your Lemon Tree
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 which were left over from trimming our hedges. If you don’t have a way to put an automatic drip on the pot, then you have to be consistent in hand watering. What ever you do, make sure the lemon gets consistent water.
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.
Feeding and Fertilizing
Make sure to feed your lemon tree with a good organic fertilizer. Think of all the baby lemons the tree needs to nurture, so make sure to give your tree great food and nutrients. Citrus need nutrients and since there is nowhere for the roots to go outside the pot, it is even more important in citrus planted in pots.
One key feeding tidbit we’ve found, citrus can’t absorb zinc and phosphate at the same time. We were getting yellowing in between the veins of the leaves, usually a sign of nutrient deficiency (commonly either zinc or manganese in our area). Most fertilizers didn’t seem to help until we found this knowledge from a university’s research. After checking labels and finding a fertilizer which didn’t have phosphate but did have zinc and manganese, the tree almost immediately starting looking better. They still do need some phosphorus (phosphorus is the element – phosphate is a salt containing phosphorus – you’ll see them both used in labeling), but we’ll make sure to vary the feedings at least 6 weeks apart.
Full Sun or Part Full-Sun?
We found that placing the lemon in full Southern California sun all day long, especially in Summer, is too much. Our citrus we have planted in the ground can handle the full day sun, but it was too much for this potted lemon tree. The heat is intense and stresses it out. So we moved it to a section of the garden that gets sun for about 2/3 of the day, then remains in shade. This combination worked best because the tree still was able to get great morning and afternoon sun until 2pm, but was able to avoid the intense late afternoon sun.
!! Check with Your Local Nursery. Can you even grow citrus in your area?
The best advice we can give you is to consult with your local nursery. Every growing region is different and growing zones can change rapidly even within 10 miles of each other. So head to your local nursery and check to see what variety of lemon tree grows well and ask for their advice on how you can best grow it for your area.
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This post was originally published in 2010 and republished in 2016 with updated information and tips. Have Fun when your grow lemon tree in pot!
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. 🙂
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!
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 lemons you got there. Thanks for sharing your container gardening tips on growing lemon trees.
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.
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.
Todd and Diane – right after reading this blog a couple days ago I ran out to Home Depot to get my long desired dwarf Eureka lemon. I went to a couple nurseries to find my perfect blue glazed huge pot. I did come across one exactly as yours – its true, its beautiful and over 2 feet high, like a water carrying jar of olden days – who would bring down the hammer to a $225 pot?!!
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.
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
I love the smell of the lemon trees. Check out http://www.citrusfruittrees.net…Lots of great info.
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 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
The tree is so lovely! What size pot are you using? (approx height)
It is probably a little over 2′ heigh.
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.
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!
Would something like this work in a colder climate if it were taken inside in the winter? I have always wanted a lemon and/or orange tree but live in Indiana.
We’ve known quite a few people who will winter their citrus indoors. It is a fairly common practice in Italy. You can even keep them outside if you take the proper protective measures. Here’s a link talking about that. There will be some varieties which will do better than others, so make sure you research to find the ones which will do the best for you. Good luck!
T & D
We live in an area where it gets in the teens a few times a year (southwest Georgia). I put my glazed pot of dwarf Myers Lemon on top of casters and push it under the overhang of my patio when it is expected to freeze. I’ve got probably 15 lemons on it now; haven’t had any since I bought it. Been feeding it once a month with dilute 20-20-20, 1 teaspoon/gallon water. Every other month I add 1tsp of Epsom salts. I have finally figured out what makes it happy!
1 tsp of what in your 20/20/20 recipe. I keep getting lemon buds, but they fall off before they mature.
Sorry, I didn’t realize these comments were for me. I use Peters Professional All Purpose Plant Food (which is 20-20-20) per gallon of water to feed my Myers Lemon. Every other month I add one teaspoonful of Epsom salts to this same gallon of 20-20-20 mixture.
I recently read that lemon trees like Epsom salt but it didn’t specify how much to give it and when. I’ll have to try this. Do you dissolve the Epsom salt in the watering can?
Kim and Diane,
Diane, please describe your drip irrigation system. I’m trying to figure out how much water is too much without killing my trees. Thank you!!
BTW, Diane, my fiancee have been talking about starting a foodie blog for a while now and your blog inspired me to get it going–thank you! http://www.maneesadventures.com
I leave in Boston. My lemon trees were started from lemons i bought at my grocery store. Out took about 5 years but i have my first lemons growing. In the summer they are outside in the writer i bring them inside.
I live in a climate where the temperature drops into the single digits during the winter, so I move my potted lemon tree into the garage during the colder months. I use a couple of plant lights, turning them on at night when the temperature drops and off during the day. I water as needed. I have the tree on furnature dolly so I can move it outside on warm days. It isn’t perfect, but it keeps the tree alive, and I get tons of lemons.
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.
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!
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!