Citrus grown indoors

Hi all,
Once in a while over the past 20 years or so I've tried my hand at growing citrus as houseplants from seed. I'm not interested in fruiting as much as I am in a nice foliage houseplant. I like the look of citrus as houseplants whenever I see them somewhere.
Problem is, I've never had much luck in the long run.
A number of different symptoms have occurred, not all on the same plant. They get spindly looking or the leaves fall off, or they seem to burn as soon as I leave them in direct sun in a south facing window.
I keep reading that citrus need something like 12 hours of direct sun a day to do well, but is that inside or outside? I've been told that some plants that need full sun outside may only tolerate very bright indirect light when inside. Any truth to that?
Also, I've been trying different watering methods..... keeping the soil slightly moist at all times versus waiting until it dries up a bit doesn't seem to make much difference..... they grow VERY slowly and don't look optimal.
Anyway, I tried again about 8 months ago and have three little plants that I keep in an east facing window.
A grapefruit, a mandarin and a kumquat plant.
Aren't they ridiculously small for 8 month old plants?
Here's the grapefruit..... the mandarin can be seen in the background.

Here's a better view of the mandarin.

And the kumquat. You'll notice that the two top leaves seem limp. They stiffened back about an hour later once the sun wasn't directly on it.

Citrus aren't the fastest growing trees in the world--I've never grown them from seed but I've grown other slower growing trees from seed and had them not get very large in their first year so I wouldn't worry much about that. Have you been fertilizing? If not, you might consider starting to use some dilute citrus fertilizer.

In terms of light--the trick with any plant is that you need to adjust it gradually to higher light levels or else it can sunburn. Even a plant that likes being in full sun, if you've had it in shade it will sunburn if you all of a sudden move it. Same goes with moving it to brighter light indoors, you need to do it gradually, leave it in the higher light area for longer and longer each day until it's there all the time.

For watering, I'd probably err on the side of letting them dry out a little bit in between vs keeping them constantly moist, I think you'll have less trouble in the long run that way.

Interesting! I've always wondered about planting citrus seeds, too, so now I'll try it.

I have to mention that I have been using seeds from fruit from the store, so they most surely will not be true to the parent tree. But that's ok with me, I'm sure they can grow to be beautiful houseplants just the same.
I would also prefer to keep them at a reasonable indoor houseplant height (let's say something about 3 feet high) so I will need to prune them eventually so they can branch out nicely. Guess that will take some time though since they don't grow that fast, lol.

From what I've read, many citrus tend to come a little closer to true from seed than a lot of other things do, so while it might not wind up exactly the same as the parent you should still end up with a good tasting fruit.

I've grown several grapefruit, a pot of unnamed ones my dad saved, some'honey tangerine" in other words an assortment. as window plants. They do seem slow growing, but eventually the grapefruit began to grow faster(the oldest one I've tried) Got a good 18 inches tall and was branching. I gave it away or I'd tell you how its doing. I usually do several seeds together which helps it look fuller and maybe helps with being too moist.

plant several seeds, pick out the strongest until eventually down to one. I use diluted fertilizer every time I water. I love the smell of the leaves right after watering!

These plants are definitely slow growers. I grew up in MN and a brother had tucked grapefruit seeds in a pot of African violets. When they sprouted, Mom made him confess. She thought it was neat, potted them up in one pot and kept it for years. It would winter in the living room (cooler temp) in a northern window. If we had a day above freezing temps, she would set it out in bright light (not direct sun) so I don't think light is the major issue. As I recall, it never grew taller than 2 - 2/12 feet. Years later, I started some seeds. Now, 20+ years later, (in the south) I have two grapefruit trees that are 6-7 feet tall in pots. Neither have bloomed or fruited.

I agree, it is pretty foliage and a delightful smell if the leaves are brushed. I learned too late that I should have taken a nail clipper and nipped the thorns off. Should have started that while they were small. The thorns can be wicked. Good luck with your citrus.

I have 3 lemon trees, one navel orange, a tangerine and one purchased grapefruit and 3 home started ones. The purchased lemon trees, orange and tangerine have grown quite a bit, especially when they were outside in the summer. The homegrown grapefruits are slow growing, but it's only going on year 2 for them. One of the little lemon trees has 3 lemons on it and is blooming almost non stop. Very rewarding when it's 15F outside and blowing snow! I keep them under flourescent grow lights and try to keep them a little dryer in the winter. So far the only major pest problem I've had was one incident of scale - killed the poor key lime.
I've started honeybell oranges from seed - very easy to germinate, especially if you mix coir with potting soil.
Good luck!
DEb

Wow, I didn't know it was possible to have them fruit indoors! Good job, Deb! Sorry to hear about the key lime, though.

Well, it's been about 5 months since I started this post, and sadly I have not managed to save the grapefruit and the kumquat plant.
The mandarin survived though and it has more than doubled its height since August. It gave me some new growth about two weeks ago and this is how it looks today.
I believe it might survive long enough to become something nice.
I also put about a dozen clementine seeds in a 4 inch pot about 3 weeks ago, and I think I can see one starting to sprout from the pot today..... news at eleven.

I was looking back at all your pictures, and in most of them your soil looks fairly wet on the top, plus I notice in a couple of them I think I can see a glint of water/moisture in the saucer underneath the pots, so I wonder if they're not getting just a bit too much water, that might explain why you have lost some of them. I would use the "finger test" and stick your finger down a couple inches into the pot and see how wet it feels down there before you water--citrus will do fine a bit on the drier side so if you've been watering when the top looks dry they're probably getting too much. And with the saucers underneath, you need to empty those out fairly quickly after you water, don't let the plant sit there with water in the saucer. I could be way off base, might just be a coincidence of when you took the pictures but I figured it was worth mentioning.

Sorry to hear about the others, but congrats on the mandarin! The gargoyle sitting on the windowsill is cute, lol.

I just examined my pics and I see what you're referring to. But I never ever leave any water in my saucers, and on the pics the illusion of wet saucers is created by the glazed inside of the saucers themselves. Probably accentuated by the light coming from the window.
Also, I had actually just watered the plants when I took the first 3 pics.
So far I've been watering all my citrus attempts using a water probe (those little meters with a metal rod) and I water them when the meter goes down to 3 or 5, which is pretty much on the medium/dry side. I actually had no idea what the proper watering needs were for citrus, I seem to have been lucky in my guess.
I'm wondering if maybe the dead ones were possibly burned by too much direct sunlight? Although I read that citrus need something like 800 hours a day of sunlight, lol, I may have exposed them to too much direct rays while the sprouts were still quite young?

I doubt that they died from too much sun--citrus can live in full sun in much warmer climates than yours, and light coming through a window is never as intense as full sun outdoors. So really the only way they would have burned at all is if they used to be in a darker place and you all of a sudden moved them to a really bright window. Even then it probably wouldn't have killed them, you would have just seen some bleached looking spots on the leaves (and I don't see any signs of sunburn in any of your pictures).

I still wouldn't entirely rule out a watering issue--I don't trust those moisture meters completely, personally I feel much more comfortable doing a finger check. Especially when the seedlings are on the small side, there's a lot of soil in the pot to hold water and not a lot of roots to take up the moisture quickly enough so things end up staying pretty wet for longer than would be ideal (even if you are letting things dry out some in between waterings). And since seedlings don't have large strong root systems yet they're going to be easier to kill with overwatering than a more established plant would be. Your symptoms of them getting spindly looking and leaves falling off could be a symptom of overwatering (although it can be a symptom of other things too). If you see any of the symptoms start to occur on the plants you still have definitely post a picture as soon as you can--it's much easier to diagnose the problem when you can see it so someone might be able to figure out what's going on in time for you to save it next time.

I managed to kill all of the dwarf citrus that I bought. They weren't exactly healthy though when they arrived. No idea where I went wrong with them. One day they were fine and the next they dropped all their leaves and died. I found a dwarf citrus site that might help. http://www.doityourself.com/stry/startwithfruittrees2
I read somewhere that the lemon like soil to be more sandy than most of the others.
For anyone that's had good results, can you tell me what kind of potting soil or soil you've used? I'd love to try another citrus but I'm afraid of killing them again.

My baby lemons have really struggled with mites this winter and they were hard for me to notice. And they were outgrowing their pots a bit and could dry out more quickly than I expected. Some dropped their leaves. A couple are resprouting after getting watered, and I'm using neem and alcohol spray for the mites.

I am not sure, but I have found every time one of my citrus does not appear to be growing, I dump them out on newspaper and find out they are root bound. Then, I take a knife and cut the roots, and repot them, and they pick right up. Krispi

I have a dwarf lemon (meyeri) that blooms and produces fruit from late December on. It is in a south window. Mine grows in a 5-inch clay pot, in equal parts soil, leaf mold and perlite. It likes an acid fertilizer, like Miracid. I feed it with every watering, at the rate of a quarter-teaspoon to a gallon of water. I let it dry out a little before applying the water/food solution. Hope this helps.

This message was edited Mar 20, 2009 3:03 PM