Anyone here have citrus in pots? :)

[RaychHasDatePalms]

Hello everyone! It's been a long time since I was here! 😊 Anyway, I have a key lime in a pot--my husband just bought it for me yesterday--and since I live in a 6A climate, in a pot it will stay. Since my knowledge of warm climate plants is basically just palms and cacti, I'm wondering if anyone has any golden advice for keeping this one alive and happy, aside from the card that came hanging on it, and the general "give it light, water, and humidity." Once Michigan summer comes around, I know it will be happy as a clam--my tropicals always have been--but for now, it's keeping it happy and healthy till that point. It's small, but already fruiting mightily, and the point is to keep it as long as possible so we eventually have citrus all winter, straight from the living room, as well as just the cheerfulness of such a plant, while a snowstorm is raging outside. 

I'll attach photos for tax in a second.

[RaychHasDatePalms]

 

Please excuse the Valentine's Day mess; I took these in the middle of everything!

[Fusca]

On 2/14/2025 at 12:29 PM, RaychHasDatePalms said:

I'm wondering if anyone has any golden advice for keeping this one alive and happy

I grow various citrus in the ground and don't have any experience with them in pots but I understand that many can indeed grow well in pots.   I believe most lime are the least cold hardy of the citrus so I would definitely bring it inside when it goes below 30°F.  The only thing I can recommend is giving it as much sun as you can.  Hopefully someone with some experience with them in pots can chime in. 

I believe that you were trying to grow a majesty palm (Ravenea rivularis) and some date palm seedlings (Phoenix dactylifera) awhile back.  How are they doing now?

[SeanK]

Looks good. I'm not sure how the seasons will run for you. Once you harvest limes there will be a couple months of non-production. The next cycle starts with flowering. 

I live in Atlanta. Mine flowers in February, so a lot of in and out of the house, trying to get pollination without freezing. You may need to do it manually with a cosmetic brush.

[PAPalmtrees]

Here’s my Meyer lemon in zone 7a Pennsylvania I also have a small one in the ground I will be bringing the Potted one outside for the warm weather in a few days

[PAPalmtrees]

On 2/21/2025 at 11:01 PM, PaPalmTrees said:

Here’s my Meyer lemon in zone 7a Pennsylvania I also have a small one in the ground I will be bringing the Potted one outside for the warm weather in a few days

sorry it's actually a lime tree i bought it as a lemon tree but when it fruited it was a lime my bad I still accidentally always call it a lemon tree

[RaychHasDatePalms]

On 2/21/2025 at 4:15 PM, Fusca said:

I grow various citrus in the ground and don't have any experience with them in pots but I understand that many can indeed grow well in pots.   I believe most lime are the least cold hardy of the citrus so I would definitely bring it inside when it goes below 30°F.  The only thing I can recommend is giving it as much sun as you can.  Hopefully someone with some experience with them in pots can chime in. 

I believe that you were trying to grow a majesty palm (Ravenea rivularis) and some date palm seedlings (Phoenix dactylifera) awhile back.  How are they doing now?

Thanks for the response! I’m so sorry it’s been literal months; I got a big fit of the winter blues and it was quiet the day I posted, so I tjought maybe everyone had gone. I see now that I was wrong, and am so happy! 
 

l had the most luck back then with my coconut palm, actually! It lasted a few years and was the light of my plant life, but like an idiot one fall I forgot to put the heat pad under it….. then, months later, it caught some sort of bug and couldn’t handle it anymore. I felt terrible, but definitely learned my lesson! 
 

I had the two majesty palms for a REALLY long time! They were from my mom, so older plants. One was chronically ill so it died a few years back, but then the second died of old age (I am guessing; it was happy and I did everything right but it had been potted for probably something like 10-15 years) just late last fall. Right now I am taking a break from palms to focus on citrus, and I am looking around for a tea tree to grow as well. I have a yucca cane just for funsies; i call it my Dr. Seuss tree. 😁

(As for the date palms—somehow my least successful experiment! I also had a variety of seeds that I couldn’t coax at all.)

[RaychHasDatePalms]

On 2/21/2025 at 10:19 PM, SeanK said:

Looks good. I'm not sure how the seasons will run for you. Once you harvest limes there will be a couple months of non-production. The next cycle starts with flowering. 

I live in Atlanta. Mine flowers in February, so a lot of in and out of the house, trying to get pollination without freezing. You may need to do it manually with a cosmetic brush.

I was wondering about that. After I bought it and posted this, I did get a spurt of growth right at the top, with new leaves and then flowers. I had one or two flowers try to form tiny lime babies, but unfortunately around that time we inadvertently put it next to an air purifier, which it HATED, so we lost them. The healthy leaves are still happy, though, and I do still have that giant lime and a few smaller ones. 

If I can put it outside for about 6 or so months out of the year, and if it flowers around that time, I am guessing I won't have to hand-pollinate. Should I, if the flowers pop up only in the winter? 

[RaychHasDatePalms]

On 2/21/2025 at 11:01 PM, PAPalmtrees said:

Here’s my Meyer lemon in zone 7a Pennsylvania I also have a small one in the ground I will be bringing the Potted one outside for the warm weather in a few days

I was close to getting a lemon instead of a lime, but I was split 50-50, we were going through a lime kick at home, and the girl at the shop accidentally mentioned that she was thinking about grabbing a lemon after work that day (and there was only one left). I didn't realize at the time that lemon would have been the logical citrus to start with! I'm going to get a lemon tree the next time I see one, though. I should have grabbed lemon, lime, and tea tree all that day, but now they're gone, since, as I am sure you also experience, they are seasonal up here. 

How long have you had your lemon? 

[Fusca]

1 hour ago, RaychHasDatePalms said:

Right now I am taking a break from palms to focus on citrus, and I am looking around for a tea tree to grow as well. I have a yucca cane just for funsies; i call it my Dr. Seuss tree. 😁

 

Maybe you could try a Parlor Palm (Chamaedorea elegans).  They are the only palm I have had good success with indoors.  They typically sell them at Lowe's or Home Depot in a small pot with about 20 seedlings that you can separate and grow individually.  Chamaedorea radicalis would probably be good too - they're easy to germinate from seed.  If you don't mind hauling a pot inside and out Phoenix roebelenii (Pigmy Date Palm) makes a good container palm as does Butia odorata (Pindo Palm) and Hyophorbe lagenicaulis (Bottle Palm) but citrus is a good choice too. 

[RaychHasDatePalms]

On 2/27/2025 at 11:56 AM, PAPalmtrees said:

sorry it's actually a lime tree i bought it as a lemon tree but when it fruited it was a lime my bad I still accidentally always call it a lemon tree

OMG haha! So have you been treating it like a lemon, or like a lime?? 

[RaychHasDatePalms]

4 minutes ago, Fusca said:

Maybe you could try a Parlor Palm (Chamaedorea elegans).  They are the only palm I have had good success with indoors.  They typically sell them at Lowe's or Home Depot in a small pot with about 20 seedlings that you can separate and grow individually.  Chamaedorea radicalis would probably be good too - they're easy to germinate from seed.  If you don't mind hauling a pot inside and out Phoenix roebelenii (Pigmy Date Palm) makes a good container palm as does Butia odorata (Pindo Palm) and Hyophorbe lagenicaulis (Bottle Palm) but citrus is a good choice too. 

Oh, I thought we were talking about those! That's what I had--parlor palms. I also had a pygmy date, back in maybe 2021 or so, but my cat at the time ATE it!!!!!! I was so upset! I would like to try a pygmy date again sometime, though. 

I've never tried a bottle palm before! 

[PAPalmtrees]

1 minute ago, RaychHasDatePalms said:

I was close to getting a lemon instead of a lime, but I was split 50-50, we were going through a lime kick at home, and the girl at the shop accidentally mentioned that she was thinking about grabbing a lemon after work that day (and there was only one left). I didn't realize at the time that lemon would have been the logical citrus to start with! I'm going to get a lemon tree the next time I see one, though. I should have grabbed lemon, lime, and tea tree all that day, but now they're gone, since, as I am sure you also experience, they are seasonal up here. 

How long have you had your lemon? 

It's about 8 years old we got it from a citrus farm in Florida.

 

10 minutes ago, RaychHasDatePalms said:

OMG haha! So have you been treating it like a lemon, or like a lime?? 

Lol I haven't really done any citrus things to it like fertilizing it which I probably should lol , I just bring it out in early spring and bring it in side in november and water it everyday in the summer and it grows good.

[RaychHasDatePalms]

1 minute ago, PAPalmtrees said:

It's about 8 years old we got it from a citrus farm in Florida.

 

Lol I haven't really done any citrus things to it like fertilizing it which I probably should lol , I just bring it out in early spring and bring it in side in november and water it everyday in the summer and it grows good.

Wow! Mine drops leaves and babies if I look at it funny! 

[PAPalmtrees]

28 minutes ago, RaychHasDatePalms said:

Wow! Mine drops leaves and babies if I look at it funny! 

Mine didn't drop leaves this winter but last year it did

[Fusca]

4 hours ago, RaychHasDatePalms said:

Oh, I thought we were talking about those! That's what I had--parlor palms. I also had a pygmy date, back in maybe 2021 or so, but my cat at the time ATE it!!!!!! I was so upset! I would like to try a pygmy date again sometime, though. 

I've never tried a bottle palm before! 

That's hilarious - I can't imagine a cat eating a Pigmy Date with those spines!  Here's a bottle palm I bought last year in Houston (it's in the ground though).  It made my drive home a bit cramped in my white Nissan!  Oh, and you'll probably want to change your username since you no longer have date palms!  😆

[RaychHasDatePalms]

On 4/11/2025 at 2:35 PM, Fusca said:

That's hilarious - I can't imagine a cat eating a Pigmy Date with those spines!  Here's a bottle palm I bought last year in Houston (it's in the ground though).  It made my drive home a bit cramped in my white Nissan!  Oh, and you'll probably want to change your username since you no longer have date palms!  😆

That bottle palm looks amazing!!!! 
 

I thought about changing my username, but then nobody would recognize me. Maybe I should grow some seedlings just to justify keeping it 😆