How to Prune Meyer Lemon Trees

When it comes to lemons, there’s nothing like a Meyer Lemon. They manage to blend the sweet and tart in the lemon, and can be planted not only as outdoor trees or hedges, but as patio or indoor plants as well. With a thinner skin, and more juice, they are the must-have lemon for those who enjoy lemon flavor without the pucker. Meyer Lemons, depending on where you live, begin to ripen in late November through January, changing from lime green to brilliant yellow, sometimes even with a hint of orange. Properly pruning Meyer Lemons helps them develop a strong branch system to support the heavy fruit, and maintain the plant’s health.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Gardeners gloves
• Pruning shears
• Lopping shears

1. Prune after harvesting your lemon crop. Leave a few lemons on if you want, where you don’t expect to prune. (See Tips for what to do with all those lemons.)

2. Remove any diseased, damaged or dead branches or twigs all the way back to their base. You can usually spot these because they are lacking in leaves, or are brown or dried up.

3. Prune out spindly branches. Judge a longer branch by its ability to support fruit. Thin branches will sag and possibly even break under the weight. Branches that are thinner than a pencil should be cut out.

4. Check for branches that are crossing over each other, rubbing or chafing, and prune these out. This promotes better air circulation and allows more sunlight to reach into the plant.

5. Remove suckers. Suckers grow around the base of the trunk or even from below the soil, and come from below where the trunk was grafted to the rootstock–you can spot them because they are a bright light green. They grow quickly, and are energy vampires in that they consume much of the plant’s energy, which means less for the rest of the plant and the fruit. Prune them away flush with the trunk or soil.

6. Shape the plant. Meyer Lemons like to bush out on top, so shape it wider at the bottom and narrower at the top to allow for the next season’s growth. You want the tree or bush to receive lots of sunlight throughout the plant to promote good growth and fruit ripening.

7. Thin fruit part way through the season. Meyer Lemons produce an abundance of beautifully fragrant waxy blossoms, and subsequently lots of little lemons. The trees do tend to “self-cull”--shed a lot of the small fruit as they go along-- so don’t be surprised if you find them on the ground. However, you may need to thin crowded fruit clusters back while the fruit is still small (a nickel to a quarter in size), to usually one or two fruits. This allows for bigger, better quality fruit.

Tips & Warnings

• Lots of lemons? No problem. Lemon juice freezes and keeps for many months. Simply squeeze the fresh lemons, filter out the seeds, and put the juice in ice cube trays. Once frozen, store the cubes in a plastic bag or container in the freezer. Whenever you want fresh lemon juice, thaw a cube.
• You may be tempted to store all your lemons in the fruit drawer of your refrigerator. That will only work for 2 to 3 months. The Meyer lemons will start to “turn,” with the juice becoming progressively more bitter. They are also prone to molding. By freezing the juice, you will retain the sweetness and freshness.

[melgrimes]

on 6/10/2009 Great information about lemon trees. Thanks.