12/02/10 THE LEMON TREE

A REPEAT OF YESTERDAY
LEMON TREE, VERY PRETTY...
AND THE LEMON FLOWER IS SWEET...
BUT THE FRUIT OF THE POOR LEMON, IS IMPOSSIBLE TO EAT...
(BUT MAKES GOOD JUICE)...
(AND, BEWARE THE THORNS!)

Thursday 8:45 AM. 19 degrees, wind WSW, calm to very light. The sky is overcast and it is snowing very lightly. The barometer is up, predicting sunny skies; perhaps this afternoon. But for now it is a cold, gray day.
It may be rather dismal outside, but inside the foyer is filled with the sweet, sweet scent of lemon flowers. We have had our lemon tree (it is probably the variety Meyer, which is most suited to indoor culture) for almost twenty years and have moved it from one place to another, so it is pretty tough. It likes to be outside in the summer but is perfectly happy inside the rest of the time. It prefers cool nights (around 55 degrees) and 70 degrees during the day, so it is does pretty well in a room that does not get much heat. It prefers a sunny location but ours does well with rather minimal winter sunlight. It likes to be kept moist but should be well drained. Ours is currently in a plastic pot but would prefer to be in a clay pot. A good peaty commercial soil mix suits it fine, and a little supplemental fertilizing when it is growing actively is beneficial. I would dearly love to have a sunny “winter garden” plant room but spreading plants around the house in suitable locations works O.K. too.
In my experience, scale insects are the worst and most prevalent pest of lemon trees, and ours seems to be free of them at this point because I really cleaned the tree up well and sprayed it with an organic pesticide before I brought it inside. Since it is blooming now with no insect pollinaters available, I will hand pollinate it with a small paint brush. Then, if kept properly watered, including some hand misting, our tree will bear a lot of good, useable lemons (which take a long time to mature). At present it has only one large lemon attached to it, but several years ago it bore two dozen good lemons, which lasted us a long time. One caution: its thorns are wicked, and if the plant gets too large and heavy you will bleed some when you have to move it around. Keeping it on a plant dolly minimizes the hazard, as does pruning, which it withstands quite well.
Tundra swans are still on the Bay at Ashland, looking like blocks of floating ice when they have their heads and necks submerged while feeding