For anyone growing a lemon tree, flowering is usually a good sign. It shows that lemons are on their way. Flowers will slowly mature and develop into lemons as time passes. It can take anywhere from 4 months to 12 months for lemons to mature.
Getting your Meyer lemon tree to bloom involves getting it more sun, water, fertilizer, or even changing its position to adjust climatic conditions. If no flower blooms on a Meyer lemon tree, it also means no lemons!
Let us look below at factors that impact the blooming of flowers on a Meyer lemon tree.
Provide More Sunlight
Producing flowers and lemons takes energy! In order for your lemon tree to convert raw materials into energy, photosynthesis must occur.
The key factor to successful photosynthesis is full direct sunlight.
Lemon trees need a minimum of 4 to 6 hours of sunlight a day. But, 8 hours or over are optimal for flower and fruit production. The sunlight should be intense and direct for the majority of the time.
Sunlight is essential and a lack of it can cause your Meyer lemon tree to not bloom. But, that’s not all! It could cause stunted growth and deformities in your tree.
Your lemon output will be poor, to say the least. You may not get any lemons at all!
Positioning and climate do play a part in deciding how much sunshine your Meyer lemon trees will come to enjoy.
Planting your tree out in the open will definitely get the best sunlight possible. Climates known to have a majorly sunny one will be most appropriate to grow this type of citrus tree.
Avoid planting your Meyer lemon tree hidden by taller trees or other foliage as this will result in a blockage of sunlight. The same goes for buildings and large structures.
They could potentially give your lemon trees too much shade and not enough sun for flowering.
If your garden doesn’t have one spot that will fulfill your Meyer tree’s sun requirements, grow it in a pot instead. This way you can keep moving your plant around various locations to get the most sunlight.
Need a clearer picture of how much sunlight lemon trees require? Find out: Do lemon trees need sunlight?
Use the Right Fertilizer
Water and sun alone won’t help your Meyer lemon tree flower.
Eventually, these flowers will need to develop into lemons. So, it’s best that the tree has enough nutrients prior to flowering instead of risking poor flower/fruit development.
If you are expecting your soil to provide every nutrient your lemon tree will need, you are wrong!
Lemon trees, including Meyer lemon trees, are heavy feeders and fertilizer will be required every now and again.
A notable requirement of all lemon trees is that they need a fertilizer with double the quantity of Nitrogen than Phosphorus and Potassium.
It is crucial to fertilize before flower production sets in as this will help to develop flowers as well as fruit.
Fertilizing may have to be more prominent if you have many plants growing in a small space. Because there are more plants than soil there would be competition for nutrients.
Overcoming poor soil nutrition starts by first testing the soil. This helps to identify what nutrient the soil is rich in and which one it is severely lacking.
Doing this also helps to determine what kind of fertilizer to use and the dosage.
Apart from artificial fertilizers, you could also choose some natural materials that double up as fertilizers for lemon trees. Eggshells are one of them.
Don’t believe us? Read: Are eggshells good fertilizer for lemon trees?
Whatever fertilizer you choose should strictly maintain the mildly acidic pH that lemon trees find necessary to grow.
If the pH becomes neutral or alkaline you won’t see much growth or even fruiting/flowering in your Meyer lemon tree.
Adapt the Climate to Suit Your Meyer Lemon Tree
Lemon trees are tolerant trees that can withstand temperatures between 55℉ and 85℉ (12℃ to 29℃). But temperatures under and over this range may be the cause of a lack of blooming in your Meyer lemon tree.
Another lemon tree fact is that the temperatures exhibited during the day and night should not vary by a lot.
The exact number is between 5 and 10 degrees. So, anything more than this would create an environment that is not that ideal for flowering and fruiting.
This is particularly why anyone wanting to grow a Meyer lemon tree for lemons should decide if their climate is ideal. If not, you may need to think of other ways to keep the temperatures up.
This could involve using an artificial grow light. Or, you could even grow your Meyer lemon tree in a pot and bring it indoors if you live in a cold climate. But, just make sure that your lemon pot plant gets to see enough sunlight throughout the day.
But, if sunlight is the only concern for your potted plant there is another option. You can take your pot-bound Meyer lemon tree out during the day and bring it indoors at night.
If your lemon tree needs help growing faster, check out how to help with the best potting mix for lemon trees.
Give Enough Water
Watering is a sensitive topic when it comes to fruit-producing trees such as Meyer lemon trees. Underwatering or even overwatering will come with consequences.
The most common ones are lack of flowering and lack of fruiting. But another risk is that developing flowers will dry up or fall off. Thus, your lemon harvest might not happen at all because there will be no fruit on the tree!
Watering your Meyer lemon tree doesn’t come with a printed manual! Knowing when to water or not water your lemon tree will take some experience. Luckily it can all be settled with a test using your finger.
Before you water the lemon tree again the soil should be dry but not dry enough to start cracking. Dip your finger into the soil and make sure the soil is not moist at all. Only water the lemon tree if the soil is dry with no moisture.
Overly wet soil will make the roots and stems start to rot and this prevents the respective parts from carrying out their function.
On the other hand, underwatering will result in drying out of tree plants. Both affect your Meyer lemon’s ability to bloom.
Guard against both overwatering and underwatering as they affect your lemon tree.
Lemon Tree Origin/Type
Are you an experienced gardener who deals with growing fruiting trees? If so, you’ll know there is a big difference between planting a tree from seeds or using a grafted lemon tree.
The lemon trees, available at your local nursery, graft a scion onto a rootstock. This grafted lemon tree usually ensures growth. Also, it could be modified to ensure a particular character.
Some desirable characteristics are lack of thorns, better fruit taste, or better fruit size.
Growing lemon trees from seeds sound interesting and fun. But, these seeds may never grow large and healthy enough to produce fruits let alone flowers.
Even if the tree grown from seeds produced flower buds, they may not open. Plus, it takes a long time for flowers to mature into fruits, it may not happen!
If your lemon tree is not flowering you should start to question what source of lemon tree you’re using. Were they Meyer lemon tree seeds or was it a grafted lemon tree? It’s definitely much better and faster to just choose a grafter lemon tree.
Read more about rootstocks in Do Lemon Trees have Thorns.
Getting your Meyer tree to bloom will require you to make conditions in the environment suitable for the lemon tree. So this means you will have to adjust a condition or two to make the tree more comfortable for flowering.
Reasons, why your Meyer lemon tree is not blooming, could be:
- Lack of sunlight
- Incorrect or absence of fertilizer
- Unsuitable climate
- Underwatering or overwatering
- Lemon tree’s origin
Any one of these factors could negate your lemon tree’s ability to bloom. But, only when factors are appropriate will you see an impressive flower bloom.
Fixing them is important because anything that affects the flowering capacity of a
Meyer lemon tree will also affect fruit production. But, we trust that you will take care of the points mentioned above to ensure you have a healthy turnout of lemons.
Go ahead and plant a Meyer lemon tree if you haven’t already. Now you know how to get your Meyer lemon tree to bloom!
Meyer lemon trees are quite productive and they can be found to produce flowers throughout the year.
This ultimately also means that they have the capacity to produce lemons all year round. But, that’s only if all the conditions are suitable for lemon production.
Meyer lemons take quite a long time to mature, almost 6 months to be exact! But of course, the lemons will start to appear sooner.
Around 2 to 3 months after flowers you will start to recognize the smallest fruit that kind of distinguishes a lemon.