How to form a lemon tree at home. Pruning lemons for fruiting at home

How to shape a lemon crown

You grow indoor lemon? How to form it correctly? He needs to form a crown, which is made up of skeletal branches and growing branches. To achieve its correct and dense form, you need to know how the lemon crown is professionally formed. At correct form, lemon leaves will be able to properly absorb air and receive light.

A grafted lemon can be shaped without a stem. And if you grew it from a stone, like a houseplant, then the stem should be up to 15 centimeters.

Before proceeding with the formation of the crown of a lemon tree, it is necessary to study how a lemon should develop correctly, and what is necessary for its good growth, taking into account its biological characteristics.

Lemon, a fruiting plant. In order for your pet to bring more and more lemons every year, you need to do everything and properly care for the plant. If it is not formed, not fertilized, then it will be just a beautiful tree.

Lemon does not develop branches in the same way as other plants. The first to grow is the vertical shoot. This is a zero queue. Up to a year or a year later, shoots grow - this is the first stage. Cut off excess shoots and leave 4 shoots. More shoots will grow on these shoots - this is the second stage. Then more shoots grow on them - this is the third stage, then the fourth, fifth, etc.

When shoots of the fourth line appear, the first fruits may appear on your lemon. And this despite the fact that you did not specifically graft the tree and did not root it.

The formation of the crown must be carried out in stages. When the vertical shoot has grown to 25 centimeters, four well-developed buds are left on it, which are located in different directions. Cut the rest of the branch. Skeletal branches will grow from these four buds. Upon reaching their height - 30 centimeters - pinch the branches. Each shoot of the new line must be pinched, but it should be 5 centimeters shorter than the shoot of the previous line. This means that the branches of the second stage will be 25 centimeters, the third stage - 20 centimeters, and so on.

Shoots are fatty and grow upward. But it happens that already in the first year of growth, the lemon bears fruit. Fruiting branches are usually horizontal and located in the upper part of the crown. They form a large number of an ovary that will not be empty, but will bear fruit.

As the tree grows and forms, the old branches of the first lines will die off. So that they do not take away nutrients and food for new shoots, they must be cut off regularly.

It is advisable to remove fatty shoots completely. But you can prune up to 25 cm, and if the shoot does not bear fruit, then it is better to cut it off completely.

Pruning should be done gradually, as if you do a lot of pruning, the lemon will weaken and may die.

Pruning is different depending on what results you want to achieve from the plant. Pruning is divided into two types: short and long. It is necessary to cut short shoots in order to form new stronger shoots. Long pruning is needed to form fruit buds.

The best time for pruning is in the spring in March. At this time, the lemon has buds and is getting ready to bloom. When the lemons have been harvested, you can revise the excess branches again and cut them off.

You can not do pruning in the spring, but replace it with an autumn one. If you cut the branches in the fall and winter, then the next year the lemon will bear more fruit.

It is necessary to pinch the shoots in time so that the crown is formed correctly. Just saw unnecessary shoots - remove them. Those shoots that you left for growth must be pinned after the appearance of the seventh leaf.

Not only on lemon, but also on other types of plants, in order to harvest an annual harvest, the color is partially removed. The harvest will be smaller, but the fruits are larger. Thus, you yourself regulate the volume of the crop.

Flowers must be thinned out so that the plant does not weaken during strong flowering. There may be many flowers, but no ovary will form. A large harvest of lemons will lead the plant to depletion and there will be no fruit next year. Thinning the buds - you need to remove the weaker ones. When there are fewer buds, they will receive more nutrition and more ovary will form.

If the lemon is old and gives little fruit, it must be "restored". This means that the weak branches are cut shorter - this will enable new shoots to develop. If you do the right pruning and feeding of lemon, then the tree will bear fruit for more than one year.

In many houses you can see lemon Tree... Lemons usually grow well without constant shaping.

However, in order for the tree to have an attractive appearance and a neat crown, it is necessary to regulate its growth all the time, regularly doing pruning, as well as pinching, pinching and trimming the formed buds.

At the initial stage of development, young lemons form only one shoot of a vertical direction, and after a while, lateral shoots appear.

Video: Houseplant fuchsia: autumn pruning and rooting of cuttings Part 2

Branches of the following orders develop only after a few years of tree growth. It is these short shoots that serve as the place where flowers and ovaries appear.

Pruning is one of the main ingredients in lemon care at home.

Video: Fruits, pruning and bathing Pavlovsky lemon 17 11 2014 001

Pruning lemon at home

Lemon tree pruning can be carried out throughout the vegetative period.

Pruning is carried out according to the following principle: it is necessary to carefully shorten each branch, while starting work with zero shoot. Thus, the plant will begin to bush, and the so-called fruits will appear much faster.

A fully matured zero-order twig must be shortened by almost twenty centimeters. As a result, only a couple of well-developed buds should remain, which are facing in different directions. After some time, shoots will sprout from them.

The latter will also leave 4-5 branches of the first order, which served as the basis for the skeleton of the plant. Such branches should be trimmed so that their length does not exceed an average of twenty-five centimeters.

All shoots that belong to the second order must be cut off by about ten centimeters. The branches of the remaining orders are shortened by no more than five centimeters. The skeleton of the crown is formed before the stage when shoots of the fourth order begin to appear. Then this process must be completed.

When working on the formation of a suitable skeleton of the crown of a lemon tree very important to control so that not one, but several buds are formed on the shoots at the same time.

You need to understand the differences"Trimming" and "deleting". Thus, pruning during the formation of lemon grown in indoor conditions is not the most suitable option. This is due to the fact that the procedure is both irrational and "painful" for the plant.

Indeed, in order to build the trunk tissue for a tree, it takes a lot of time, as well as a huge number of various nutritional components, without which the normal development of the plant is impossible. Therefore, such idle work should not be carried out.

Video: How to form indoor lemon and other citrus fruits

Pinning

Most suitable option- pinching. This method is based on removing unnecessary shoots at the initial stage of its development from the fruit. Sometimes the kidney has to be pinched again. Pinching on the tips of intensively developing shoots has no less favorable effect.

As a result, you can significantly save nutrients in the tree, which will contribute to more intensive ripening of the newest growth of the lemon tree.

Crown formation

Recently, gardeners very often give preference to the formation of the crown of a tree with a flat shape.

This form is considered appropriate for growing a plant in a confined space.

How to form a crown lemon at home? It is not very difficult to form this crown: from the very beginning you need to certain time guide all branches and shoots, breaking and bending them if necessary.

Then, when the dimensions of the crown of the tree reach the boundaries of the window opening, it is necessary to carry out a hard pinching, and in some cases pruning. As a result, the lemon will develop well, as well as give bountiful harvests.

When shaping the crown of a lemon tree at home, you must constantly make sure that both in the crown of home lemons and in the lower region of their trunks do not develop fattening shoots or the so-called tops.

Because tops grow quite intensively in the vertical direction, consuming huge number nutritional components, which negatively affects appearance the whole plant and its further development.

Fruiting

It is worth noting that fruiting it is better not to allow until the final completion of the formation all skeletal branches of the lemon crown.

This is due to the fact that the branches develop very poorly under the heavy weight of the fruit. In most cases, with premature bud formation, they are simply plucked.

And here is a video about how to form a crown, how to properly cut a lemon so that it bears fruit.

Another method

The method of cardinal lemon pruning is also practiced, when all branches are shortened to a certain length... However, it has one big drawback - the tree may not bear fruit for the entire next year.

Video: lemon how to shape

It is better to carry out corrective pruning, slightly shortening new growths. Usually, buds soon appear on newly formed shoots, which grow vigorously.

Lemon pruning - the most important procedure in the process of crown formation plants. Within a couple of weeks after pruning, new growth sites are formed on completely bare branches.

A video on how to properly prune a lemon at home, about when you can prune a lemon tree.

And then there's a video about how to cut a lemon at home.

Indoor lemon will only bear fruit when proper care and provided that a high-quality plant seedling was chosen.

It is important to choose the correct pot for transplanting a seedling.

Since the lemon grows very slowly, it root system will braid large area pot for several years. Until a solid earthy ball forms in the pot, the lemon will not bear fruit. Therefore, the plant is transplanted into a cramped pot.

Top dressing

A solution or liquid vermicompost is introduced into the soil to stimulate sap flow. Such feeding should be done twice a month. IN winter period you need to saturate the soil with trace elements. Potassium and magnesium are very important for lemon flowering, and for better accumulation nutrients in leaf plates, phosphorus fertilizers are applied to the soil.

In winter, it is important not to overfeed indoor lemon with phosphates, since due to a lack of sunlight nitrates can be formed from phosphorus and harmful substances, which accumulate in the ovary during the flowering period.

In the warm season, and especially in summer period, lemon needs organic fertilizers. For top dressing in the summer, use liquid biohumus, a tincture of cow humus or herbal infusion. Thanks to such fertilizers, the lemon will grow quickly and bear the first fruits already in the third year after being transplanted into a pot.

Formative pruning

To increase the yield, the indoor lemon is formed. Formative pruning can be done as early as eight months of age. If you are forming a lemon bush into a tree, pinch the side shoots of the young plant. They will slow down their growth and allow the central shoot to develop. With this formation, all branches growing inside the crown break off, and the lower ones are cut off to get a bare trunk.

It is very important to leave at least five leaf plates on such a "tree". They accumulate nutrients, thanks to which the lemon will more easily tolerate pruning.

When a lemon is formed, the top of the central shoot is pinched by a bush, then the lemon begins to grow in breadth. The branches growing inside the bush are removed.

Kira Stoletova

Pruning lemon at home is necessary for more than just adding indoor plant neat look, but also to ensure flowering and fruiting.

The purpose of pruning and principles of carrying out

Lemon tree pruning is done for the following reasons:

• to give the crown a decorative look,
• to rejuvenate and prolong life cycle an adult plant,
• to reduce the risk of fungal and bacterial diseases,
• to ensure fruiting and prolong its duration.

Principles of conducting

Lemon is cut at home, following a number of rules:

• Pruning is carried out at the dormant stage, which occurs in late autumn-early spring, until the appearance of young shoots.
• To improve the quality of fruiting for the next year, pruning is planned at the end of autumn.
• Before pruning an adult lemon tree, fruit is removed from it at the fruiting stage. A good time to prune mature citrus for aesthetic purposes is spring, from April to May.
• Lateral shoots at the first level are cut to a length of up to 25 cm, at the second level - no more than 10 cm, all subsequent ones - up to 5 cm.

An incorrectly performed procedure will give an improper direction for the development of citrus with a violation of the processes of flowering and fruiting.

Main steps

The procedure for pruning lemon at home for beginner growers is conventionally divided into 2 stages.

Initial stage

For the first time, a lemon tree is pruned in the first or second year of life. This is done to indoor citrus did not stretch out and bore fruit. The right time is February.

Subsequent stage

The second and subsequent pruning of homemade lemon involves crown formation and includes:

• partial pruning of excessively actively developing branches that take most nutrition,
• complete removal of dead and old branches that provoke the appearance of diseases,
• pruning shoots that prevent each other from developing due to their dense arrangement, leaving the strongest shoot.

Strong shoots growing vertically are removed, leaving less strong ones, but developing in a horizontal direction, which will ensure proportional crown growth both in breadth and in length. On the lemon crown, the growing shoot is cut off.

Scheme

How to properly prune a lemon at home:

• In the first year of the plant's life cycle, the central trunk is cut off at a height of up to 20-30 cm from the soil surface in a pot, leaving 3-4 developed buds, from where young shoots are formed and lateral branches develop further.

The kidneys should be level with different sides central trunk.

• In the second year, vertically developing branches are additionally removed, shortening them by 25 cm. At the same time, they observe the growth of 3-4 new shoots. If only one shoot is developing, they resort to the breaking procedure: it is completely removed in order to ensure the formation of other young shoots.
• In the third year of the life of an indoor lemon, the tier of the third order is cut off.
• In the fourth year, the formation of the crown is completed by cutting off the branches of the fifth order. After the completion of this stage, the citrus begins to bear fruit.

Pruning problems and solutions

In some cases, difficulties arise:

• In place of the cut branches, the so-called tops develop - vertically growing branches that are not capable of fruiting. Compared to fruitful ones, they are distinguished by an increased growth rate and take away a significant proportion of nutrients in the process of caring for citrus, preventing the rest of the shoots from developing. To correct this situation, they are removed completely or cut off by 25 cm.
• Even with all the rules for pruning, homemade citrus in some cases does not bear fruit, therefore it is worth taking a closer look at the working shoots, from which the tops are pinched, which gives an impetus to the formation of fruits. Pinching is carried out when there are 6-7 leaves on the branches.
• Lemon trees over 15 years of age often stop bearing fruit regardless of good care. Increase fruiting allows spring pruning crown, in which all branches up to 4-5 orders of magnitude are cut off, the plant is transplanted into new pot after shortening the roots by 30%. This stimulates the activity of dormant buds and gives an impetus to the formation of new shoots.

Lemon - wonderful plant, which many want to have at home. Being thermophilic and whimsical, it requires increased tireless attention and troublesome care, so it will not be superfluous to get acquainted with some information on its cultivation. In appropriate conditions, the tree can bloom beautifully, filling the room with a delightful aroma, and bear fruit, giving the owner healthy and tasty fruits, almost constantly.

Conditions for proper cultivation and care of homemade lemon

Lemon is classified as a remontant plant. But in order for it to produce a crop at home, you first need to choose the right variety. Dwarf citruses are pleasing to the eye and decorate the home, but they do not give much big harvest... Tall trees have large fruits, but require more care. They need to be cut and tied more often.

Like any plant, citrus loves light. It is optimal to place it on the window from the south-east side. On windows facing north, lemon will need backlighting, especially in winter, and on southern ones, you need to take care of its shading.

The temperature regime is no less important for the tree. It does well at room temperature. When the lemon is budding, it should be around 15 ˚C in the room. A higher temperature leads to drying out, the buds are shed; at low - they may stop appearing. In the summer, to make it easier to care for the lemon, it is worth moving the pot to Fresh air on a glazed balcony, while not forgetting about the undesirability of sudden temperature changes.

The soil around the roots of the lemon should be evenly moist. For irrigation, warm settled water is used. In the summer they water it every other day, in the winter - once every few days, sprinkling also around the lemon so that the air is not dry, otherwise the foliage begins to curl.

At home, the plant also needs feeding. Organic blends are best for citrus that you have been growing for several years. Fertilizer is desirable to apply in liquid form.

Lemon fruits ripen for a very long time, they can be removed slightly greenish. It is worth noting that the fruits of this plant can hang from the tree up to three years... According to the reviews of amateurs, the taste of homemade lemon fruits differs from the purchased ones for the better.

Home pruning

Pruning, like grooming, helps plant growth, is done in order to form beautiful shape bush and improve fruiting. So, the trunk of a small tree is pinched already at a height of about 20 cm.

This makes it possible for the branches to develop from the side. Be sure to cut off all vertical branches. Care must be taken that they do not grow vertically. To do this, the processes are tilted to the side, tying them to a stick placed in a pot.

Young indoor lemon should be properly pruned in winter, before spring begins. There must be a branch with buds at the bottom. Next, cut off the already sprouted lemon shoots, leaving three buds on them. In a similar way, care for the tree is carried out during its growth and further. If the lemon is not cut, there is a high probability of having only the main stem or the formation of a very dense bush.

On the first branches of lemon, fruits do not appear. They can only be expected if there is a fourth row of branches from the ground, so you have to patiently look after the tree. In order for the crown of a homemade lemon to take on an oval shape, the pot must often be turned on the window. With greater demands on the beauty of the tree, wire is used to fix the branches in the desired direction.

To preserve the shape of the bush and stimulate the growth of the branch, when collecting ripe fruits, not only the stalk is cut off, but also a separate piece of the branch on which the fruit is located.

Pruning is also needed in the presence of diseases and for their prevention. Dry branches must be removed. To support the depleted homemade lemon, pluck the flowers, leaving only a couple of buds.

Lemon transplant at home

Transplant the plant correctly in early spring or in the fall. The tree is taken out of the pot along with the soil, previously moistened, trying not to damage the roots. If rotten roots are found, they are cut off.

A properly chosen pot should be spacious enough. Drainage is placed on the bottom, a certain amount organic fertilizer and land. The lemon tree is placed in the center, then the earth is filled up.

Features of caring for lemon in unfavorable home conditions

Indoor lemon should take root in a specific home environment. Even minor changes in them ( temperature regime or moisture) can adversely affect plant development. Here are some tips for caring for citrus in adverse conditions.

When the soil dries out, the leaves turn yellow and brown. You can't water the plant right away big amount water due to the likelihood of root destruction. It is necessary to moisten a little near the root and spray the foliage, and wrap the trunk damp cloth for a while.

With increased watering, leaves begin to fall off from homemade lemon. In this case, it is worth carrying out a plant transplant. The lemon is taken out along with the ground, allowed to dry, placed in not too moist soil, subsequently observing a moderate watering regime.

A frozen lemon plant is almost impossible to revive. The trunk becomes dark, the leaves fall off. In this case, you can advise to transfer the lemon tree to a warm place under a lamp for illumination, transplant into another container, removing dead roots and branches.

If the temperature is too high and the exposure to direct sun rays brown spots appear on the lemon leaves. The pot should be removed from overheating, the plant should be shaded from the sun, covering it from burns.

You can't very often change the place where the citrus grows, as it adapts to new conditions for a long time. The plant does not like drafts and stagnant air.

The brown color of the leaves can be an indicator of poor home conditions and illiterate care. Possible cause this will be inappropriate soil acidity. In this case, the plant should be transplanted by choosing a different soil.

It is necessary to constantly inspect the tree for the presence of pathogens and pests. Mites and scale insects are very fond of settling on citrus fruits at home. Rinse the lemon completely with water several times at intervals of a couple of days.

The use of infusions of garlic or onions for spraying helps against mites. To combat the scabbard, you can try to wipe the trunk and leaves with soap.

We hope that our article will help you make it easier to care for your citrus plant.