Lemon trees are among the easiest subtropical trees to grow indoors, so they are great starter trees if you’re new to container gardening. Even better, lemons are incredibly useful, even in small numbers, and growing your own supply is feasible with just a few trees.
For new and experienced gardeners, this article goes over some of the most common questions about how to grow your own lemons at home… even if you live in northern climates.
Absolutely. You can start a lemon tree from seed and get a lovely, healthy young sapling… but beware. Lemons grown from seed might not be suitable for windowsill growing. If you’re starting a seed from a supermarket lemon, chances are that it won’t “breed true” or be content when contained to windowsill growth. I have started lemons from seed, but it’s not my first choice.
Read more about windowsill-friendly dwarf lemon tree cultivars.
Yes! Don’t expect pink lemons to be the flashy hot-pink of a girly makeup bag — but if you know what types to buy, softer, faded tones of pink are a “real thing” in specific lemon tree cultivars. Even better, a variegated pink lemon tree will have splashy, two-toned foliage that is incredibly striking. If you are looking for a showy citrus tree, this one is calling your name. Read more about growing pink lemons and other unusually-colored fruit.
In addition to planting from seed (which, as discussed above, is fully possible but not necessarily the best way to produce a fruit-bearing dwarf tree), the most common method I’ve seen to propagate lemons is through cuttings. I save all my pruned stems and branches when I’m pruning my established trees, add a little rooting hormone, and set them aside in a pot to see if they’ll take root. Not all will; be prepared for some casualties! However, a rooted cutting is a cheap and relatively easy way to expand your windowsill orchard.
Do also be aware that if you are rooting a cutting, you will be cloning the part of the tree that you took the cutting from. That means that if your mother tree is a grafted variety, you are losing the benefit of the root stock – or, if you took the cutting from below the graft, you are going to lose the benefit of the fruit-bearing upper cultivar!
My dwarf lemons are not grafted, so I don’t have to worry about this, but I’m just throwing it out there in case you are cloning from a grafted tree. Know what you’re getting before you plant.
Lemon trees DO have thorns. However, depending on what type of tree you have selected, these thorns might be barely noticeable. On the Meyer, for instance, I’ve always found the thorns are so flexible that it’s almost impossible to get poked; I had literally had my first Meyer Lemon tree for years before I even figured out it had thorns at all!
However, other lemon tree cultivars have thorns that mean business. If you’re buying from a local nursery, look the tree over very carefully before you buy. If you are ordering from an online nursery, make sure you read the description thoroughly before plunking down your money.
Read more about different types of dwarf lemon trees.
YES! If your nursery has multiple choices, I highly recommend going with the Improved Meyer Lemon. This has all the same great qualities as the traditional Meyer, but with improved disease resistance. Granted, most windowsill gardeners won’t have to deal with risk of disease transmission from other lemon groves (oddly enough, there don’t seem to be a whole lot of citrus diseases floating around in subzero climates… who knew?), but it’s always better to be safe rather than sorry.
Read more about different types of dwarf lemon trees.
Nope. Lemon trees are self-pollinating, which means that they don’t need a partner tree in order to set fruit. Now, a second tree certainly won’t hurt; theoretically, a second tree will boost pollination. However, since there’s no guarantee that the blossoms of two dwarf lemon trees will even open at the same time, I wouldn’t worry about it.
Don’t forget that an indoor lemon tree doesn’t get the benefit of insect pollination assistance that an outdoor tree would. You may need to step in and help out with pollination yourself!
Read more about pollination needs for indoor lemon trees.
NO (and by no, I mean… maybe). The lemon is really a pretty tough tree, but freezing temperatures are way outside of its happy zone. Yes, it’s possible that a well-established, mature tree will be able to tolerate a very light freeze… but I STRONGLY recommend not testing that boundary. My personal rule of thumb is to bring my potted trees indoors when the temperatures are forecasted to drop into the 50s at night. This is probably a little overboard, but I like my trees, and I want them to survive. I see no point in risking getting too far below their comfort zone.
Read more about the temperature requirements for a potted lemon tree.
Definitely not. Lemon trees are native to warm climates, not an oven. They are used to cooler winters, so the ideal temperature for winter semi-dormancy is much lower than the summer ideal. You should shoot for a temperature of roughly 65 degrees Fahrenheit for the months that your lemon tree is dormant indoors. Too warm and you will “wake” the tree, which is a problem because it went dormant to reduce stress during a tough season. Let it sleep.
Read more about the temperature requirements for a potted lemon tree.
Yup. Growing potted plants indoors is definitely not a “natural” growing environment. And that’s fine – but you just have to prepare for some unnaturally severe pest problems along the way. An indoor environment is protected from all the natural predators and environmental stressors that keep the bug population down. Keeping the pests under control is doable, but you have to make sure you know what to look for, and how to deal with it. Don’t assume your tree is invincible just because it doesn’t have huge caterpillar tooth marks in it.
Learn more about pitfalls of growing lemon trees indoors.
The recommended pot type for a container-grow lemon tree is a permeable (unglazed) stoneware or ceramic pot. This pot material allows some level of aeration to the roots to avoid root rot.
Is it important to stick with this recommendation? Well… the jury is still out on that question. Some windowsill gardeners insist that YES, the material the pot is made out of is a huge deal; others (like me) are a little less convinced. Personally, I don’t have a problem with plastic, as long as watering is carefully monitored (and in fact, I find plastic easier to transport in and out of the house).
Read more about the recommended pot size for container-grown lemon trees.
OK, so maybe this isn’t really a frequently-asked question about container-growing lemons… but if you are interested in learning more about how to successfully plant, prune, fertilize, and harvest home-grown lemons from potted lemon trees even in cold climates, check out my book – The Complete Mini-Guide to Growing Windowsill Lemon Trees: A Reference Manual for Northern-Zone Gardeners. Happy reading, and happy growing!
Growing lemon trees indoors is a great hobby, and even those without a “green thumb” can learn how to successfully tend a citrus tree in a container garden. Every windowsill should have one!
This post was originally published in 2023. The post has since been updated to keep information and links current.