Venture, each one of the flowers are fruits,when the flowers buds fall you'll see tiny rock hard round fruits.They come generally in clusters.And some of the fruits will fall off by themselves at an early and tiny stage...this is nature aborting one to many in a cluster.Don't be alarmed by this just gather the ones that have fallen and throw them away. The ones that stay on your tree will only be stronger and bigger because of this. Meyers are good producers,and will fruit twice a year for you.I just picked around 20 ripe fruit off mine last week,and still theres at least 20 more.This is the same with thing to look for with all your other citris in way of fruiting.You should be enjoying the scent of the flower buds also.Citris are wonderful in many ways to grow.....Good growing to you.***Suzanne

I apologize for responding so late. Life took priority for a bit. Vegetative waste: I have access to the FREE mulch from the Comal county recycle center. I was thinking of purchasing a chipper shredder and running the free mulch through (to speed decomposing and availability) and just cover the area with the resulting product. I have not set up a watering system of any sort and the ground already has huge cracks in it that will only get worse as we go into the dog days of summer.... What do you think of my plan? Keep in mind free is for me. I have not yet looked for manure availability (other than my four alpaca's manure and chicken droppings/bedding)

This is a tough one. Many a cutting has been lost due to an eager gardener checking for roots. New growth on the cutting does not necessarily mean that the cutting has rooted. Cuttings can put out new growth and even attempt to bloom, before rooting. The only way to know for sure is to see some roots, or feel some resistance from roots in the soil. One thing you can do is put the cutting into a clear container to root, such as a baggie, a clear storage tray, or a clear plastic cup. This makes it easy for you to pick up the container carefully and look on the bottom for roots. If this isn't possible, you can gently tug on the cutting, and if there is any resistance, you can assume there are roots. Do this very carefully, as these new roots will be very fragile and easily snapped or broken. If you are working with sand, it is possible to very carefully "dig up" the cutting to see if there are roots or callous. The sand should allow the cutting to slip out with some ruffling from you, and the cutting can be slipped back into the sand after inspection. Be extremely careful in doing this. It is all too easy for the roots to remain in the sand and the cutting to come out, and how disappointing that can be!

Male and female flowers are not common. The Dioscorea is an exception, not the rule for cacti and succulents. Another exception are the Euphorbias. Treat most cacti and succulents as having both male and female parts on each flower. I think a single plant is usually either male or female if the flowers are only one sex.