Hi Bnqueen, nice to meet you! Welcome to the message board that never sleeps :)

Well, I'm a relatively new Meyer lemon owner too, and I've found great help and guidance from the good people on these boards on how to take care of my trees. I just went through the mix crusade with my two Meyer lemons, so for once, I can help! Basically, the bottom line is, you are better off by making your own mix. I resisted that for a couple months, and all I ended up with was a lot of rotted roots, despite following all the watering rules to the T and using a moisture meter and everything.

I did a lot of research online to try and find a mix that was good "as is", but at the end of the day, I ended up having to do my own anyway. If you want to go through the process, I made a post about all the soils available online HERE. There are some heavyweight soil mixes from Fafard that are apparently good almost as is, like the 52, but I was unable to get my hands on any, despite being willing to spend way too much money in shipping costs.

I ended up opting for the 5-1-1 mix, which is a mix developed by AL, one of the members of these boards. The 5-1-1 is widely accepted as one of the safest mixes for lemon trees because it promotes good drainage. Good drainage = happy citrus tree. Bad drainage = the mix I had in the nursery pot the tree came in = rotted roots that almost killed my tree. If you do a search with "5-1-1 citrus" you'll find all sorts of posts about it on these boards. Or you can go to AL's post HERE.

Basically, you'll need bark (sold at pet stores at the reptile isle), coarse perlite (sold on amazon) and pretty much any potting mix that does NOT contain a water retention agent. Oh, and some garden lime, which you find at home depot. I was really scared of the task, but it turned out ok, and trust me, if I can manage, anyone with two left feet and 10 thumbs can manage it as well :)

I just re potted both my trees last week end, and had to go through mixing the 5-1-1 for the first time. I posted pictures of each stage with the quantities of ingredients for the mix and everything, so if you decide to go that way, that will hopefully help you, too. HERE is the post.

If your pots are a different size than mine, you have a good guide HERE to help you figure out how much soil you'll need. No matter what pot you choose, you'll need good drainage holes at the bottom. Also, depending where you live, you might want to stay away from terracotta pots, since they seem to be heating up the soil too much in warm weather states like AZ.

How big/old is your tree going to be? Where did you buy it from? Which region do you live in? Those are questions that the good people of these boards will need answers to in order to help you better :) Most of the users of these boards end up putting their region in their profile, so that others can give them better advice. And pictures always help, too (if the pictures are oriented wrong, you can fix them online HERE before you post them, and you'll get more answers that way).

I hope that helped a little! Good luck with your trees :)

Atheen

Atheen,

Thank you so much for all your help! I will definitely be going out to pick up those supplies!

To answer your questions, the tree I ordered is three years old and I'm assuming will be around 2 feet tall. I live in zone 7 which is why I am planting the tree in a pot. I ordered from four winds growers and am hoping that they are an ok company since I have never ordered any plant online!

Thanks again for all your help! =)

Bnqueen

No problem. Basically we have trees about the same age and we live in about the same area, so what works for my trees should work for yours, too. If I can help you avoid the mistakes I made, that's great. Do you have a balcony or a garden? I thought when I first bought my trees that they would be happy living indoors all year long, but I was proven wrong and apparently it's best for your trees if they get some fresh air and light during the summer.

I have to admit, I had trees that were starting to get sick and even caught spider mites (don't ask me HOW you catch spider mites INDOORS, but whatever, lol), and since I acclimated them to being outside on the deck for the summer the mites are gone and they are doing a whole lot better. You can follow the madness HERE. Pop Corn is optional :P)

Atheen

Luckily I have a garden area and a deck! I'm thinking that I will put it on the deck because it gets lots of sun but also has some nice shaded areas plus I'll be able to check on it more often since I'll walk by it multiple times a day. Haha I'm hoping that I will be able to keep this tree alive but I guess only time will tell. lol Hopefully I can avoid the spider mites because they sound pretty horrible! O.o haha

Bnqueen