- Basics for pruning
- The best time
- Instruction for education
- Instructions for maintenance cut
- Taper cut instructions
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A skillful pruning is essential for your lemon tree to present itself as an evergreen, blooming work of art with golden-yellow fruits. Slow growth and conditional pruning tolerance require a special pruning, beyond native fruit trees. This guide explains in detail how to properly cut your lemon. The expert combination of maintenance and training pruning is not a sealed book for newcomers to the Mediterranean garden. This is how you elicit more blossoms and fruit from your lemon tree.
Basics for pruning
Basic knowledge shows the way
A brief excursion into the basics of pruning Mediterranean shrubs will clear up any doubts about the pruning. Characteristic of the lemon tree are leisurely growth and evergreen foliage. Due to the long ripening period of the lemons, a citrus limon often bears white flowers and golden-yellow fruits at the same time. Native to the Mediterranean Sea, the budding in the cool spring of our regions is significantly lower than that of native fruit trees. While extensive pruning supports the formation of fruit wood in cherry, plum and apple trees, you are denied this strategy with lemon trees.
So pruning citrus crops to develop more blooms and fruit requires a rethink. The top premise is a cautious, moderate approach. Only prune your lemon tree when you really need it. The upbringing pursues the goal of a shapely, densely leafed crown with numerous flowers and fruits. The maintenance cut frees the crown from unnecessary ballast, such as dead or diseased parts of the plant. The rejuvenation cut is only used in extreme emergencies.
The best time
Since every pruning measure means pure stress for your lemon tree, the time has to be chosen carefully. The following dates and time windows have proven themselves in practice.
education cut
- in early spring during the months of February, March or April
maintenance cut
- all year round if required
taper cut
- in late winter during the months of January and February
Since the maintenance cut relieves your lemon, it is not tied to a specific point in time and should not be put off. This does not apply to the education and development section. The focus here is on lush flowers, lots of lemons and a richly branched crown without superfluous water shoots. Therefore, the topiary should take place just before the start of the new growing season. To rejuvenate a lemon, on the other hand, an appointment in late winter is recommended, when its growth is almost dormant.
Instruction for education
Crown shape tips
In order for a lemon tree to develop an optimum of blossoms and fruits, the selected crown shape should simulate the natural habit. In contrast to other citrus plants, a citrus limon thrives more unevenly, is less compact and branches out only hesitantly. The spherical crown is therefore not the ideal solution, as is preferred for orange trees, among other things. More promising is an upbringing to a semicircular crown, widening upwards from a low trunk. Despite the conditional cut tolerance of a lemon, this silhouette is easy to create as part of a training cut and can be maintained for many years.
preparatory work
First, please place the lemon in front of a light background and step back a few steps. By planning the incision mentally or in writing, you effectively prevent cutting errors. If the contour later shows holes, it can take up to 2 years for them to close again.
Then pay special attention to the tool. The scissors should be freshly sharpened and disinfected with spirit. If it is an adult lemon tree with strong branches, also have a pruning shears or pruning shears ready to hand. If your lemon tree has sharp thorns, put on sturdy leather gloves before you start cutting.
Would you like to do the pruning outside because you have more freedom of movement there? Then choose a frost-free day with overcast, dry weather. Fresh cuts should not be exposed to sunlight so as not to impair healing.
incision
A young lemon tree from the specialist trade has 2 to 3 strong leading shoots, which form the basic structure of the crown. This pruning comes from the hands of the master gardener and offers a valuable guide for those new to citrus care. The following instructions begin in the first spring after purchase.
How to train the lemon to a flowering and high-yielding tree:
- intersect the leading branches by a maximum of a quarter of their length
- Cut side shoots so that they are 10 to 15 cm shorter than their leader
- apply the scissors just above a leaf or flower bud in a vertical orientation
- below the desired crown height, cut off all branches just before the trunk bark
- Dust larger cuts with charcoal ash or rock dust
The 2 to 3 shortened leading branches now branch out until next spring with 3 or 4 new shoots each. Choose the two strongest branches as part of the basic structure. Cut these again by a quarter so that they also branch out. Cut all other side branches 10 to 15 cm shorter than the supporting branch. You proceed in this rhythm in the following years until the desired crown shape has developed.
In the period that follows, training is limited to cutting back all branches that grow out of shape in the spring. Cut back branches that have borne fruit in the previous year below the fruiting point. When pruning, please bear in mind that your lemon tree planted the buds for this year's flowering last year. Therefore, do not cut more than is absolutely necessary.
water shoots
Recognize and cut water shoots
They sprout primarily during the growing season and are not welcome. Water shoots sprout from dormant eyes of older, horizontal branches and strive steeply upward towards the sky. These branches are unproductive as they do not bear fruit. On the contrary, its larger leaves will shade the valuable noble branches and thus affect the abundance of flowers. If these water veins catch your eye, they will be removed immediately.
If your lemon is grafted onto a robust wild rootstock, water shoots will also shoot up vertically from the trunk and root area. Stay on the heels of these comparatively fast-growing wild shoots so that they do not overgrow the magnificent crown. The nosy water shoots can also be torn off at the root disc with a courageous jerk, as they will sprout again from even the smallest tissue remnants.
Instructions for maintenance cut
Instructions for the maintenance cut
The maintenance cut serves primarily as a supporting measure of education. In addition, it prevents the crown from aging, so that the willingness to bloom is preserved and numerous fruits thrive. Last but not least, damage caused by care errors, diseases or pests is repaired with this cut.
How to proceed professionally:
- Cut dead branches back into healthy wood
- Cut branches broken off at the base with a clean cut from the next larger branch
- Remove shoots that point towards the inside of the crown
- of crossing branches only leave the stronger ones
- of 2 branches that are very close together, cut the weaker one to a branch
- Cut out leaves with fungus or pest infestation from the crown
Brown, dried up and leafless branches are usually dead. If you have any doubts, a vitality test will bring clarity. Scrape off a little bark and green tissue will appear, no need to remove the shoot. Brown tissue indicates the branch has died and will not recover.
In the end, your lemon tree should present itself with a light-flooded crown. Only where the sunlight reaches the branches with sleeping eyes can flowers and fruits develop.
Taper cut instructions
A lemon tree will age completely if it is not pruned or pruned for several years. In the end it only has a sparse dress of leaves, only a few flowers and mostly no more fruit. By radically cutting back the crown, you breathe new life into the plant and stimulate flowering. This plan works because even older lemon trees still have dormant eyes under the bark that can produce new shoots.
How to proceed:
- as a first step, clear out all dead wood
- Cut back healthy, strong skeleton branches by half to two thirds
- leave at least one branch with dormant eyes on each leader
- cut all weak, puny branches to astring
The radical pruning means that there will be no flowering in the two following years. Use this phase to train a new crown shape according to these instructions. If you then repot the lemon tree in fresh substrate, the nutrients it contains will also stimulate growth.