Pick Fruit and Check for Circling Roots When Repotting Lemon

Q. I purchased a lovely Meyer Lemon tree in a one gallon pot in middle of the spring. It already had 6 lemons on it. I have the original fruit, have new fruit growing, and still am getting blossoms. Should I transplant it now into a larger pot or wait until after the fruit ripens and is used?

A. Remove any mature lemons from the tree.  Lemons should not remain on the tree longer than about late December and possibly early January at the very latest. 

Check for circling roots in the container before planting. This is early enough you might be able to correct it.

            Leaving lemons on the tree can disrupt the flowering fruiting cycle for the next season.            If you are planning on putting it in the ground then I would just wait until you have that spot prepared if it is this spring. If you are planting this fall then you might want to repot it into a larger container and wait for fall planting.

When circling roots get to be this far along they can no longer be corrected.

            If you do repot, check the roots for circling inside the container. This is a common problem in nursery grown trees, called “potbound”, sold in containers. Planting a tree with roots circling in the container and not trying to fix this problem before planting can lead to some serious problems down the road.