Lemons… this tropical miracle can be grown at home even on the windowsill. To successfully plant a lemon at home from a seed, you need to know the features of planting. The article will inform you what, when and how to do so that the lemon tree from the stone grows healthy and bears abundant fruit.
Landing
When asked how to plant a lemon from a seed, and even achieve active fruiting, many gardeners shrug. However, it is not. If you follow all the rules, planting and care techniques, then in 4-5 years it will be possible to start harvesting.
The main key to success is the right seeds and the planting process itself. To start, choose a couple of ripe, undeformed, and undamaged lemons. Wash them, cut them in half and choose the largest seeds. It is desirable that the bones must be moist when planting. Dry seeds will germinate poorly, or even remain in the ground.
Treat them with a natural stimulant by placing them in the solution overnight. The use of biological stimulants is necessary so that in the future the roots of the lemon will actively grow and develop. In the morning, you should prepare a solution of one of the bioregulators, for example, Epin-Extra or Zircon. To do this, add a drop of the drug to a glass of water and immerse the seeds there for 12 hours. This treatment will help the seedlings cope with the lack of lighting and dry air in the room.
In order to plant a lemon from the seed, prepare shallow and small containers. You can buy ready-made in a specialty store or make from improvised material, such as yogurt cups, or you can cut plastic bottles to the desired size. Before planting, make holes for drainage at the bottom of the prepared dishes. Lay drainage at the bottom of the pot (you can use vermoculite) with a layer of 1,5 cm. It is recommended to plant several dozen seeds at once. This will help over time to choose the best and healthiest seedlings. After all, not everyone will grow.
Before planting a lemon from a stone, it is necessary to prepare fertile and loose soil. The land for planting citrus fruits, which is sold in flower shops, is perfect. And you can prepare a fertile mixture yourself. Take equal amounts of soddy soil and humus, mix as thoroughly as possible and add peat. The mixture is slightly moistened and placed in a prepared shallow container. Seeds are placed at a depth of approximately 2 cm.
In the room where the lemon from the stone will be planted, the air temperature should be +18 degrees and no less, otherwise the seed will not germinate. And how to plant a lemon from a stone if it is slightly cool in your place? In order to successfully grow a lemon tree from a stone, it is necessary to create greenhouse conditions (in the photo – one of the ways in which cut plastic bottles are put on cups). To do this, the pot is carefully covered with a film and placed in the warmest and draft-free corner in an apartment or house. The abundance of light or its lack does not affect the growth of seedlings.
But with watering you need to be careful. It is advised not to water the pot with planted seeds at all, so that moisture does not contribute to the death of emerging roots. It is advisable to spray 2 times a week. And water when the ground starts to crack.
Cultivation
The time of emergence of sprouts depends on the temperature in the apartment. It usually takes 2 weeks to 1 month. As soon as 4 or more leaves appear on the sprout, you can remove the film if you made a greenhouse, and place the pot with sprouts in a well-lit place. It is important that young leaves are not exposed to direct sunlight, otherwise the young sprout will die. Follow the watering schedule. Water the soil as it dries. Water must be pre-settled and be at room temperature. For irrigation, it is recommended to use rainwater, but make sure that such water is not cold.
It is not necessary to feed the lemon sprout in the first months. In spring and summer, a little fertilizer can be applied every 14 days. But only a little, proceed from the fact that it is better to feed less than to overfeed. Remember, the lemon tree is very demanding and capricious. The slightest violations in care and changes in the environment will affect the tree very unfavorably. Too much sun, strong winds, and drafts can cause your plant to lose its foliage. Non-compliance with the temperature regime is also undesirable for the germ.
With the advent of autumn, watering is carried out as rarely as possible. Landmark – the state of the upper layer of the earth. Top dressing is necessary only once every 30 days.
It is worth starting to form a crown in time, this must be done already in the first year of a young seedling’s life. All weak, inward growing and deformed branches should be removed.
As soon as the seedlings germinate, you should choose the strongest and transplant into a larger pot.
In order to choose the right seedlings for transplantation, you should pay attention to the following criteria:
- crown. You have to look at its density. To determine this, pay attention to the distances that pass between the buds on a lemon seedling – they should be minimal.
- needles. Their number on the trunk should be minimal.
- leaves. The more of them, the better. It is good if they are strong and do not fall off from the minimum breeze.
All seedlings that are weakened, have thin shoots and insufficient leaves must be immediately discarded.
Care
The transplant should be carried out together with the earthen clod in which the seedlings grew. Add biohumus to a pot with fertile soil. The diameter of the new “place of residence” should be approximately 7 cm larger than the old one. It is at this moment that a seedling can be formed. To encourage the growth of side shoots, pinch the top of a lemon seedling. For uniform development of the crown of the tree, turn it over a quarter of a turn once every 1 days. Due to a properly formed trunk, you can get high-quality fruits in the future.
Further care for an adult tree is carried out according to the rules described above. Proper watering, sufficient lighting (in winter, do not forget to use fitolamps) and appropriate top dressing. Use both mineral and organic fertilizers, alternating between them. Make sure that the interval between top dressings is no more than 10 days. Use only liquid form of fertilizer. The allowable dose of mineral fertilizer will be 2 g. If you add more, you can burn the root system of the plant.
If the tree began to bloom already in the first year, be sure to remove all the buds, although it will be a pity for you to do this. If this is not done, the young seedling, having spent all its strength on the flowering process, will begin to wither. According to the rules, flowering should take place when there are at least 1 leaves per 15 flower.
Know that a young tree should be replanted once every two years. And an adult lemon tree needs to be transplanted less often – once every 1 years. These time intervals must be adhered to so that the root system of the tree does not experience a lack of discomfort in the pot and does not get tangled. If this happens, then the lemon tree will stop growing. When transplanting, be careful not to damage the roots. With each replacement of the pot, the new one should be larger in diameter, usually 3-4 cm. The optimal time to transplant in the summer is June, and in the winter – February.
In order for a homemade lemon to bear fruit as early as possible, it must be grafted onto citrus fruits (for example, grapefruit). The best time for this agrotechnical event is summer or late spring. Grafting can be done in two ways: budding or splitting. The most successful and optimal is considered to be cleavage grafting.
The evergreen lemon tree is not only beautiful, but also useful. Even before it bears fruit, it will benefit you and your home. This is because its leaves are able to release active biological substances – phytoncides. They prevent the reproduction of bacteria and various pathogens in the air. After reading this article, you learned how to plant a lemon from a seed so that it grows and turns into a beautiful tree. Even if you have failed before, try again. After all, now you already know exactly how to grow a lemon tree from a stone in order to eat the exotic fruits of your own harvest.
Video “Growing citrus fruits at home”
This video will show you how to grow citrus fruits at home.
