I have been growing lemon, limes and oranges in my greenhouse in the UK (USDA hardiness zone 9a) for a few years now.
If you have the right set up, you can have highly productive citrus trees that produce fruit all year round. Here are some of my care tips.
Purchase
I purchased all my citrus trees -lemon, lime and orange from retailer YouGarden. I found that they had the best deals for the size plant. All of my trees arrived well packaged and healthy.
If you enjoy my work and with to purchase a citrus plant, or any other plant or garden accessory from yougarden, please use this link to the YouGarden website here. I will receive a small commission on each purchase, at no cost to you, which will help me continue to create content that helps you!
Spring and Summer Care
Citrus are heavy feeders so during the growing season their feeding and watering schedules need to be kept up with.
Watering
I tend to water my plants every other day during Spring and Summer although during very hot days, they need watering every day. It is important to water citrus heavily, not a light sprinkle on the top. Watering heavily means you water the plant until the excess water runs out of the bottom. Be watchful of this though…you don’t want any nutrients to run off with the excess.
Feeding
In Spring/Summer, feed a specialist citrus fertilizer every other time you water. This could be every other day or every two days, depending on your watering schedule.
Container Set Up
Because citrus are heavy feeders, for a plant to produce lots of fruit, it needs a large container. The large citrus trees from yougarden come in 6L containers. I kept each plant in their nursery pot for a while after they arrived to get them used to their location, but then I transplanted them into these 30L containers with handles.
The handles enable me to move the plants from inside of the greenhouse to outside during the Summer months.
Mulch
Every Spring I put a fresh layer of straw mulch on the top of the container. This helps to retain moisture so the plant never completely dries out and gradually breaks down to feed the plants.
Pruning
Pruning depends on personal preference and the space you have. I like my plants to stay squat and bushy so I tend to give it a quick prune in Spring and I pinch out some of the new shoots at the top of each plant. However way you wish to prune your plants though, ensure you never remove more than 1/4 of the plant’s current foliage at once.
Pests
Citrus can be hosts to a range of common garden pests such as aphids and leaf miner which I try to control by growing flowers as well as fruit and veggies in my garden to attract insect predators like lady birds. Failing that, consistent with daily sprays of horticultural sprays like Neem oil or peppermint oil works to treat infected plants.
Autumn and Winter Care
Lemons are a lot more cold tolerant than limes or oranges, but even so, the optimal place to overwinter citrus in colder climates are bright, ideally unheated spaces like greenhouses, orangeries or by a big window or skylight in a kitchen or porch.
Watering
A deep watering every few weeks will suffice. Check the soil to see if it is needed.
Feeding
Feeding can do down to once a month or so during the colder months. Increase this as the weather warms up.
Gifting
When my niece Leanna moved into her first apartment with her boyfriend, I sent her a lemon tree as a housewarming gift. She was over the moon so they clearly make fantastic “keep giving” gifts whether you live in an apartment or house with a garden or greenhouse, in my opinion.
Video
In this video, I awaken my citrus, which had been neglected by me during the winter season, due to having a lot going on. I repot, prune, feed, re-mulch and show the results after two weeks of regular feeding and watering and my they are already looking better for it and no doubt will soon be producing fruit once again. Stay tuned for an update on that later in the season by subscribing to my blog and YouTube channel!
All Homesteading 
This is really interesting. I love citrus and it’s great to have home grown fruit in the house.
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