People grow lemons far and wide. On Italy’s Amalfi Coast, farmers have tended to vertically arranged lemon groves on steep slopes for centuries. In communist-era Hungary, lemons were grown year-round in trenches that were covered for winter. I know of a gardener in the Yukon growing potted lemons under lights. Lemons are versatile plants, and if you want a potted lemon tree, there are lots of ways you can fit one into your setting.
Are Lemon Flowers Edible?
Lemon trees grow well in pots, tolerate cold better than many people realize, and have edible fruit and flowers. The leaves, though non-edible themselves, can be used to flavor food, and the fragrant flowers are a treat indoors over winter or on the patio in summer, making them a fun potted plant for cold-climate gardeners especially.
The lemon (Citrus × limon) is an evergreen tree. That means it keeps its leaves year-round (if it’s happy, and we’ll get to that shortly). With care, a lemon tree can live a long time. I have a lemon tree that my neighbor Joe grew from a seed in 1967.
Equipped with simple lemon knowhow, you can successfully grow potted lemons and harvest your own citrus.
Choosing Your Lemon Tree Start
Here are three ways you can start growing lemons in pots.
- Buy a plant. Most lemon trees at garden centers are grafted. That means a lemon cultivar with desirable characteristics is attached (“grafted”) onto a cultivar that has roots with desirable traits (aka the “rootstock”). Some rootstock cultivars have a dwarfing effect, giving you a dwarf lemon tree.
- Grow from seed. The tree from my neighbor Joe was grown from a seed, but it didn’t fruit. So, a friend helped Joe graft another lemon cultivar on top, because seed-grown plants go through a juvenile stage and can take years to fruit.
- Grow from cuttings. A common propagation method for home gardeners is growing from cuttings. Lemons don’t root as easily as some common plants, but they’ll eventually put down roots given enough time to develop. If you know someone with a lemon tree, see about getting a cutting from them and growing your own plant from that.
Potted Lemon Tree Care
The most common cause of unhappy (and dead) lemon plants is overwatering. Lemons don’t tolerate wet feet. If potting soil is wet all the time, the roots will die. Before watering, make sure it’s necessary. The soil at the bottom of the pot may still be wet while the soil at the top looks dry. Stick your finger into the soil about 2 inches to see if it’s moist. Keep the soil on the drier side of moist. Frequency of watering will depend on the potting soil, the size of the pot and the plant, how fast the plant is growing, the temperature, and how dry the air is.
Prune in early spring, before the flush of new growth. I also give my lemons a haircut before moving them indoors for winter, so they don’t take up as much space. As you prune, remove crossing branches and try to keep branches well-spaced. Remove vigorous upright shoots, as they’re not usually fruitful. Additionally, remove shoots coming from below the graft union on grafted plants.
Repot fast-growing young plants once the roots fill the soil in their current pots. Repot mature plants every 3 to 4 years. If you want a bigger tree, give it a bigger pot. If you don’t want it to get any bigger, prune back the roots and put it back into the same pot with fresh potting soil. (Think of how root-pruned bonsai trees that are hundreds of years old grow in very small pots.)
Wherever possible, keep your potted lemon tree outside during spring (after your last frost) and summer. That’s because a lemon tree’s growth is more compact and it flowers better when grown in full sunlight. You can grow a potted lemon in partial shade; just know that you might get less fruit from your lemon trees, as conditions will be less than ideal.
Potted Lemons Over Winter
A potted lemon tree can spend winter somewhere warm, where it’ll continue to grow. Or, it can go somewhere cooler, where growth will stop during a semi-dormant stage called “quiescence.” We’ll look at both.
Winter in the House
Lemons aren’t ideal houseplants. That doesn’t mean you can’t grow them as houseplants; it just means other environments are more ideal. So, if you grow lemons as houseplants, plan to give your plant a bit more TLC. (By the way, my 1967 lemon tree spent many winters as a houseplant, until I got a greenhouse. And as I’d sit in my recliner inside, I’d bask in the fragrance of the flowers!)
The main challenges when keeping a potted lemon in the house for winter are pests and leaf drop. Leaf drop is a reaction to the stress of moving from cooler, more humid outdoor conditions to warmer, drier indoor conditions. To minimize this stress, move plants indoors earlier in fall, so there’s a less drastic change in temperature and humidity.
Winter Somewhere Cooler
When overwintered somewhere cooler, lemons will have less chance of leaf drop and fewer pests. When I kept my lemon tree as a houseplant, I’d regularly battle spider mites. In my current cold greenhouse, I never have to deal with pests because it’s too cold for them to thrive.
The grand orangeries of centuries past were just minimally heated spaces with big windows, much cooler than room temperature. Most home gardeners don’t have orangeries, but there are cool spaces suited to overwintering lemons in many homes: a bright window in an unheated attic, a sunroom kept just above freezing, even a garage that doesn’t freeze.
While bright light is best, another option is to keep a potted lemon somewhere dark, as long as it’s cold; since the lemon tree will be semi-dormant, it won’t need light. I use my cold, dark garage as a citrus plant overflow when the greenhouse is full.
Lemons After Winter
When there’s no more risk of frost, move your lemon tree back outside in spring. Put it somewhere shaded for the first few days so the leaves aren’t scalded by strong sunlight; then it can go back into full sunlight.
Indoor Lemon Tree Pests
Two common pests of potted lemon trees are scale and spider mites. Pests are less of a problem outdoors because conditions are less ideal than indoors – and because natural predators help keep pests at bay.
For overwintering in the house, it’s easier to prevent a pest problem than to treat an infestation. Spraying indoors in winter isn’t usually practical, unless you plan to put the plant in the shower or take it outside on a mild day. So, I take a preventive approach and spray my lemons with horticultural oil and insecticidal soap twice in fall before bringing them indoors.
- Scale. If you see sticky spots on the floor around your lemon plant, there’s a good chance the culprit is scale, because these insects excrete a sticky liquid. On a small plant, scrape them away with your fingernails, or wipe them off with a cotton swab soaked in rubbing alcohol.
![Lemon branch affected by the diaspididae]()
- Spider mites. Spider mites are hard to see without a magnifying glass; you might only see little spots moving on a leaf. If the leaves look stippled, or speckled, check for spider mites. They thrive in dry air in centrally heated homes. Higher humidity and misting will make conditions less suited for spider mites.
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Fragrant Flowers and Flavorful Fruits
Something that sets lemons apart from many other types of fruit – even some citrus fruit – is that they flower year-round. So, as you enjoy the smell of lemon blossoms, there can be both ripe fruit and immature fruit on the tree.
Lemon trees are “self-fertile,” meaning you don’t need pollen from another lemon tree to get fruit. If the tree is outdoors, insects and wind will pollinate the flowers. Indoors, use a cotton swab to transfer pollen between flowers, or gently shake the branches.
The number of lemons to expect will depend on the cultivar, plant size, and growing conditions. Because lemons flower year-round, the harvest can also extend year-round. I cook with my own freshly picked lemons midwinter.
Not every little fruit makes it to the end of the race. Some drop off when they’re pea-sized, a natural thinning that happens with many types of fruit. (If all the fruits drop off, you may not be watering the lemon tree enough.)
Pick ripe lemons when you’re ready to use them. Otherwise, ripe lemons can remain on the plant for many weeks, so there’s no rush to harvest them.
Wherever your location, enjoy growing your lemon tree year-round, reaping all the flavorful and fragrant benefits along the way.
How Hardy Are Lemon Trees?
If you’re growing a lemon tree in a pot, you’re probably not somewhere warm enough to leave it outside for winter. But it’s still good to understand how much cold it can take.
Young plants and younger branches are more tender than mature lemon trees; the fruit will be damaged by cold before branches will. More mature plants that have already been in cool temperatures can better withstand cold than actively growing plants.
Lemon fruit freezes around 27 degrees Fahrenheit. Mature trees are hardy to about 25 degrees (Meyer lemons to 21 degrees), but potted plants can’t take as much cold as in-ground plants. To play it safe, just keep them above freezing.
Horticulturist Steven Biggs shares his edible gardening and cold-climate fig-growing expertise at Food Garden Life. He’s also the author of the award-winning book Grow Lemons Where You Think You Can’t.
