Lemon propagation by cuttings and growing at home

Lemon grown in a pot is a popular houseplant. It has beautiful glossy leaves and long-lasting blooms with delicate, white or cream flowers with a pleasant aroma. During the fruiting period, the tree produces miniature, bright and tasty fruits.

Lemon can be grown from a fruit seed, bought in a supermarket. In this case, the first fruiting is expected no earlier than after 5 years. If you propagate the plant by cuttings, you can bring this event closer by 1-2 years. Read on to learn how to grow a lemon from a cutting and where to get good planting material.

Lemon cuttings at home

Growing indoor citrus fruits from cuttings is the easiest way. Unlike plants obtained from seeds, they bear fruit already at 3-4 years of age. In this case, you can grow varietal lemon, not a wild one.

note! Lemons grown from seeds are more resilient.

Cuttings are sold in specialized stores and markets. You can independently separate planting material from an adult plant from familiar gardeners or propagate your own lemon.

Cutting lemons at home is a simple process. What should the mother plant be like?

1. Has no signs of disease or pest damage. Otherwise, the cutting will become a carrier of infection.Signs of disease include: weak turgor, yellowed, curled or dried leaves, spots on greenery or shoots, cracks in the bark, cobwebs, small insects on the tree.
2. It has already bear fruit at least once. This allows you to be sure that the daughter tree will also bear fruit.
3. During cuttings there are no flowers or fruits on the tree.

The ideal time to obtain planting material is considered to be the beginning of spring (March - April). At this time, sap flow begins, which accelerates the survival of the shoot. Summer is also a suitable time, but root formation in this case occurs more slowly.

Winter and autumn are not suitable for lemon propagation. At this time, the plant is dormant, and this significantly reduces the likelihood that the planting material will take root.

Before cutting a lemon, select a suitable branch. The cutting is cut from the top of a branch that is one year old. It is important that it has already woody but green bark, since young shoots do not always take root.

The selected piece of branch must have at least 2 leaves and at least 3 formed buds. The length of the cutting is 8-15 cm.

The cuttings are cut with pruning shears or a painting knife at an angle of 45°. Before making a cut, the tool is wiped with alcohol or calcined.

The cut area on the tree is treated with garden varnish. The product is spread in a thick layer.

note! It is not necessary to specially cut the cuttings. Branches pruned when forming the crown are suitable.

Growing lemon from cuttings

Cutting lemons and planting the resulting material do not require much time. To ensure that the seedling takes root, follow step-by-step instructions.

Preparation of planting material

Before rooting a lemon, prepare planting material.This is necessary to accelerate root formation and protect the plant from diseases.

The cut seedling is placed in a light pink solution of potassium permanganate for an hour. This will destroy any possible infection.

The top 3-4 leaves are left on the cuttings, the rest of the greenery is torn off. The kidneys are not touched. Large leaf plates are cut by half, and small ones by a third.

Then the seedling is soaked for 12-24 hours in a root formation stimulator. Most often they use “Heteroauxin” (take 1 g of the drug per 1 liter of water). After this, the cut of the cutting is dipped into crushed coal.

Rooting in water

The easiest way to root a lemon does not require the presence of a substrate. The seedling is placed in water. The advantage of this method is that there is no need to prepare a soil mixture.

The period for the formation of lemon roots in this case is one and a half months. There is a possibility that the roots will not form and the petiole will rot.

For rooting to be successful, it is important to know several nuances:

• opaque containers - jug, pot without drainage holes, etc.;
• lack of direct sunlight - the lemon is placed in partial shade, since a fragile seedling may not take root when exposed to ultraviolet radiation;
• warm water – not lower than +25°С.

When propagating lemons in this way, the seedling is immersed in water. It is important that the liquid covers the process no higher than 2 cm from the cut.

Place a plastic bag over the container with the seedling or cover it with the top of a cut bottle. This is necessary to create a greenhouse effect.

The water is changed periodically to prevent the occurrence of an unpleasant odor and the growth of bacteria.

One of the options for adjusting the degree of immersion of the cutting in the liquid is to wrap it with fabric to a height of 2 cm from the cut.The free end of the material is immersed in water, and the seedling is fixed above it. The wrapped part of the cutting will always be wet.

This is interesting! Some gardeners add a small amount of yeast to the water for rooting.

Rooting in the ground

Rooting a seedling in the ground requires the preparation of an optimal soil mixture, but is considered the most reliable method. In this case, the chances that the cuttings will actually take root increase significantly.

How soon will roots form in this case? Usually within 3-4 weeks.

For rooting, immediately select a pot in which the tree will grow throughout the year. Ceramic containers work best. It is imperative that there are drainage holes in their bottom. The diameter of the pot is 5-8 cm, and the height is up to 10 cm.

The container is disinfected: poured with boiling water or soaked in a dark pink solution of potassium permanganate.

Before cutting a lemon, prepare a soil mixture. It should be light and nutritious. Universal soil or a special mixture for citrus fruits is used as the main soil. You can also prepare soil for lemons yourself: mix equal parts of peat, humus and garden soil.

Drainage is also required - crushed ceramics, broken bricks, small crushed stone, expanded clay, shell rock or special glass balls for plants.

Drainage and soil are disinfected in one of the following ways:

• calcined in the oven;
• pour over with a dark pink solution of potassium permanganate;
• pour boiling water over;
• water with a solution prepared from 3 liters of water and 1 tsp. copper sulfate.

The soil is placed in the prepared pot in layers in the following order:

• the first layer (1-2 cm) – drainage;
• the second layer (main volume) – soil mixture;
• the third layer (1 cm) is peat or moss.

The last layer is laid after planting the seedling.It is not recommended to plant several cuttings in one pot.

Before planting the seedling, the soil is watered generously with warm water. Then the cutting is immersed in the ground so that it stands without support. Place a plastic bag over the seedling and pot.

For the first 2-3 weeks, the seedling is regularly ventilated for 10 minutes. The soil is watered as it dries, the cuttings are sprayed with water twice a day. It should stand in a place protected from direct sunlight.

When the lemon takes root, the duration of ventilation is gradually increased. By the end of the fourth week, the film is removed. The pot with the plant is moved to the western or eastern windowsill.

When rooting lemon, the temperature in the house should be close to +20...+22°C.

If the plant was rooted in one common container, it is important to know how to plant a lemon. In this case, prepare pots with three layers of filler (drainage, soil mixture, mulch). Carefully remove the cuttings that have taken root from the container, along with a lump of earth (when planting, the distance between the seedlings should be more than 5 cm). The seedlings, along with a lump of earth, are transferred to individual pots. The root system is evenly laid out across the entire width of the pot. The plant is buried 1 cm above the upper edge of the root system and watered.

The disadvantage of this method is that after transplanting, the seedlings will take time to take root. During this period, plants are protected from hypothermia and refuse fertilizing.

This is interesting! How else does lemon reproduce? This can also be done using air layering. But this method produces the weakest plants.

Lemon tree care

It’s not enough to know how to take a shoot from a lemon tree and root it. It is important to provide the plant with proper care.Then it will not get sick and will soon produce a harvest.

Temperature

In the room where the lemon is rooting, the optimal temperature is considered to be +20...+22°C. After the plant takes root, the indicators increase to +26...+28°C in the warm season. Comfortable temperatures at the end of autumn and in winter are considered to be +19…+22°С. Stronger plants can survive cold temperatures down to +10°C.

Lighting

Lemon does not like direct sunlight. Therefore, it is better to place the pot on a western or eastern window sill. If it is on a south window, during the day it is removed to a shaded place.

The daylight hours of a lemon last for 12 hours, but since the plant is dormant in winter, it is not necessary to use phytolamps. It is recommended to rotate the pot weekly in relation to the window so that the shoots grow evenly.

Humidity

Lemon loves high humidity. To ensure the necessary conditions, the tree is sprayed daily with water at room temperature. If a plant stands near a battery in winter, place containers of water or a humidifier near it.

This is interesting:

The best ways to store lemons at home.

Recipes for delicious prepared cucumbers with lemon for the winter in liter jars.

Features of pickling cucumbers with citric acid.

Cleaning and watering

Once a week, the leaves of the tree are wiped with a damp cloth. Once a month, wash the lemon in the shower.

In summer, water the lemon daily with warm, settled water. In winter, the amount of watering is reduced to 2 times a week. Some gardeners recommend pouring water into the tray on which the pot stands.

Transplants

During the first year, it is recommended to replant the lemon 2 times. The first time - at the beginning of summer, the second - at the beginning of autumn. Each time they take a pot larger in diameter than the previous one.The plant is taken out of the pot along with all the soil and placed in a new container. The missing volume is filled with soil. Moss or peat is placed on top, which acts as mulch.

Formation

In the first year, it is not necessary to form the crown of the plant. During this period, the shoots are allowed to grow. Formation and pruning are done next spring.

Top dressing

Fertilizers are applied once every 1-2 weeks. In winter, feeding is stopped.

It is recommended to alternate mineral and organic fertilizers. There are special preparations for citrus fruits - “Zdraven”, Bona Forte, “Garden of Miracles”. They are applied at the root and used for spraying.

Important! Chlorine is harmful to lemons. It is important to let the tap water sit to get rid of this substance. It is not recommended to use fertilizers containing chlorine.

Diseases and pests

The risk of lemon infection exists even in the first year of life. The houseplant is attacked by different types of fungi and gommosis.

To cope with diseases, cut off all affected parts of the plant. Places of cuts, as well as ulcers on the bark, are treated with garden varnish. Additionally, the tree is sprayed with copper sulfate. If these measures do not help, use fungicides.

Pests also attack plants. They are brought on infected planting material and are transmitted from other indoor plants.

To get rid of insects, wash the lemon in the shower. After this, it is sprayed with a decoction of bitter herbs or a soap solution. If this does not help, use insecticides.

Important! To prevent a relapse, treat all plants standing on the same windowsill with the infected lemon.

To reduce the likelihood of the tree becoming infected, the mother plant is checked for signs of disease or pests before propagating the lemon. Even if they are not there, the cut is disinfected with a solution of potassium permanganate. All tools and materials that the plant comes into contact with are subject to disinfection.

Conclusion

Growing lemons from cuttings is easier than from seeds. When growing from seeds, the first harvest can be obtained only after 4-7 years; propagation from cuttings brings this event closer by several years.

When growing lemon from cuttings, it is important to take a responsible approach to the selection of planting material and its planting. Otherwise, the tree will grow weak and become sick.