Weed..as for where citrus emerge..fruit forms under flowers. Once the bloom fades, you'll see a little, round, green ball which is the fruit.

One bug I'd check for is scale..Scale excret a honeydew which attract ants. They're little bumps that can be scraped off w/fingernail.

You mention it being winter..What's the minimum temperature? If it's above 50F, it's probably best to take plant outside and hose foliage..This may need to be done a few times..

I know Pyrethum's are supposed to be safe, but I wouldn't want to apply on anything edible..Look for an insecticidal oil..

BTW, when I tried opening your link, all I saw were cars..lol..Toni

LOL I should have checked the web link beforehand, it's {{gwi:597721}}. I hope beetle / VW enthusiasts enjoyed the pictures though :)

Thanks for your reply Toni :) I have not seen the little green ball grow any bigger for the past few weeks (hence why I'm interested in resources on how lemons grow:)). I've seen 'spidery web' like remains around (which i try to brush away), and very tiny black dots (just a few) on the leaves. I'll read up about scale in a bit (do they occur on flowers or leaves?).

The min temperature gets a bit below zero, but the plant is under cover. What does hosing the foliage in temps above 50F do for it?

Does anyone have a closeup picture of a healthy lemon tree flower? Mine has yellowish dots all over. I was wondering if it's normal texture of lots of insect bite marks.

Not that I know much about them, but 'spidery web like remains' and 'tiny black dots' sounds like some sort of spider mite. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong on that one, I just thought I'd throw it out there and see what happened :)

~Derek

The webbing and dots (whether white or black or red, etc.), could mean mites. With respect to hosing off, you don't list where you live so when you say it gets "a bit below 0", is that 0° F or 0° C? Basically the recommendation was if the temps are conducive outside (ie., mild and definitely above freezing, assuming the tree is kept indoors in winter), then you could try to spray the leaves down with water to dislodge any mites. Otherwise you need to find a product that explicitly indicates that it is a miticide (as opposed to a regular insecticide). There are products like Neem oil that can be diluted according to directions, that also claims to kill mites.

Here's a picture of a cluster of blooms on my Meyer Lemon as of today:

{{gwi:597723}}

It's kind of cool how these bloom in clusters (as opposed to how my Cal orange would bloom). I have a bunch of clusters of blooms and buds right now on mine.

Cool, your lemon blooms look lovely Jenny! I checked and don't see any obvious spider mite problem (no reddish stains on white paper). Only a few very very tiny spidery like insects, but most seemed dead/drowned from the previous rain.

I'm concerned that my flowers here seems to have 'stunted' / slowed down in growth. Like I see another flower batch that are so tiny now (0.5mm), and some have dried out (turned reddish-brown) and easily drops off upon touching.

It goes til -6C (or ~40F) min here. There's a constant amount of black ants on the flowers (some entering the flower buds :\), and they keep coming back. Then I realised they seem to be coming from the ground in the pot :( :( Could the ants be affecting the roots or something like that? I have the dwarf lemonade plant hybrid variety. That's all it says on the tag, and I used fresh potting mix when I first got the tree 2 months ago. Is there anything natural I can use to deter the ants from climbing the tree?

We're in a middle of a drought here.....so is it equivalent to wipe the leaves with a wet cloth instead of hosing it down, just in case it's an external mite infestation?

Also, Jenny I noticed the translucent dots around your flowers too, but mine is more like pale yellow dots - on all my flowers which haven't bloomed yet.

How long roughly does it take for a flower to grow, drop its leaves, and then the green little lemon to grow?

I think this was what I saw, thinking it's a caterpillar - just one, on the lemon tree 2 days ago - any ideas (although it sounds like a one-off thing)?

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:597722}}

Weed, how small are the little spidery bugs you're finding? Spider mites are really tiny, almost microscopic..
When you tap leaves over a white sheet of paper, mites can be one of four or five colors.
Perhaps w/the rain, and 50 degeee temps, the mites are now gone, hopefully.
Is your citrus sitting directly on the ground (outside?) If so, there's a good chance your plant has outdoor bugs. That caterpiller reminds me of tomato caterpillers. Any tomatoes nearby?
Keep an eye out for webbing..the rains probably washed them away, but usually a mite-infested plant takes a couple showers..Toni

I'm thinking those "dots" (and darker area in the petal center), are just the natural coloration on the flowers. :-)

If your buds are dropping, it could be that they are not getting enough moisture (maybe the air is too dry) or the tree is just naturally thinning itself for various reasons. I noticed that these lemons are so floriforous. They sortof go overboard. LOL I know you are in your fall season and going into winter there, so the cooler temps may help if it is dry.

One thing you can try to keep ants at bay is a product called "Tanglefoot" (if they have it there), which is a sticky substance that you can spread on a surface that the ants can't cross without sticking to it. Some people wrap a small piece of cardboard or aluminum foil around the base of the trunk and spread the stuff on. This will help keep the ants off the top. A cheaper solution would be to use petroleum jelly to do the same thing. I think that once you can keep the ants down, then any aphid problem will be reduced. If you think there are ants colonized in the pot, I have seen recommendations to soak the container in a big bucket of water to try to remove the ants (they will bail out). Then you'd have to let the soil dry for a bit. After this, maybe prop the container off the ground and consider putting a piece of hardware cloth (window screen material) or cheese cloth over the drainage holes to keep the ants out. Just some thoughts!

One other thing since you asked about the timing... Citrus is one of those long-growing type fruits where once it flowers, gets pollinated, and starts to form fruit, it will take a number of months for the fruit to grow and finally ripen. So I'm firguring with mine, if I get fruits forming now, I probably won't see any ripe ones (assuming my plant doesn't drop them), until sometime in December - January (or maybe later).

Toni, the spider like bugs are very tiny, like half a mm or so (they look more like spiders, i.e. roundish shape opposed to oval-ish aphids). The pot is on a concrete patio, but with a tray underneath. No tomatoes nearby by the way.

I think the ants subsided. I placed a tape around the trunk such that ants can't go up the tree. And I think they've slowly moved out of the pot. I guess this means black ants do not like feeding on citrus roots, right?

And I think the rain has helped wash off any external probs it already had before.

Jenny, are you serious? Does citrus really take several months to ripen? Wow, I had no idea! I planted my Meyer Lemon this spring. It flowered like crazy, then formed about 40 little lemons. Now I have seven that are still hanging in there! I was hoping to get a small glass of lemonade this summer, but looks like it will be in late fall or early winter instead. I'm glad to know, otherwise I would've thought something was wrong with them - remedial lemons or something!

Kick up your feet and watch 'em grow! It'll be awhile but well worth the wait. The one good thing about a number of varieties and types of citrus is that in optimum conditions, they cycle all year long - ie., you may have ripe fruit, immature fruit, and new blooms on the tree all at the same time. So over time as the tree matures and as long as it is healthy and is growing in good conditions, you can look forward to fruit year round.

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to say that I think the consistent rain has kind of 'washed' the problem away :)

In fact, a day after I put a tape around the trunk base of the tree (and the ants didn't dare go on it, as the sticky part was outwards, they actually moved out of the pot. I don't see any ants on the tree anymore, and have since removed the tape. Flowers have not dropped in a while and the tree is kind of gleaming :) I can understand now why people here recommend hosing down a tree with lots of water in the first instance of bug problems.

Gosh, ripe fruit in 7 months. You lucky people. Here in the UK flowers in April turn into large green golfballs by October/November when they come in for the winter. They continue to swell and start turning yellow in January and are fully grown by May when they come out again for the summer, but still not ripe until July. Thats 15/16 months. My "Citrus Limon" at the moment has ripe fruit, large green golfballs that set last August, tiny fruit from this Aprils flowers and a crop of new flowers all at the same time. I've never had August set fruit before, and look forward to seeing how they develop. I'll probably need a chainsaw to slice them for Gin and Tonics.
Nik

Hi Everyone.

I have bought a lovely 'citus limon' tree which I am growing inside. It is doing really well and there are lots of little lemons growing and new flowers too. In the past few weeks I have noticed small white bugs on it which I have been picking off but there are more after a couple of days. They can be really tiny but then there are one or two that are bigger. I don't want to use and pesticides so was wondering if anybody had any tips on how to get rid of these?
Fiona.