And you'll notice how low and sprawly that is! LOL Mine is like that. I am trying to get mine settled (this is its 3rd year as a FW premium) and I'm about ready to start heading back the ends of the long branches to encourage some side shoots.

Am curious how others handle their variegated pink lemons.

Kelly, yours is a much nicer shape than mine, which is kind of a shapeless mess. I look at it all the time and think about how I should prune it. So far I’ve just left it alone. It’s been really slow growing, so I should probably let it be before I start hacking away at it. I’m jealous if your flowers.

Kelley, your tree looks great. It is growing more upright than mine, which is also low and sprawly, lol, but it has gorgeous leaves. I will let mine be for now and let it grow on its own. Maybe give it a trim next season. No spring bloom yet, sadly.

I have one too that I've had about a year now. I think I got it at Home Depot. I love it! I only have had about 5 lemons so far. I haven't pruned it but it just blew up with new leaves this last week. I'll post a picture soon. Yours looks taller than mine. It seems way more hardy than the Valencia orange I had. Put them both in 511 and the Variegated PL has taken off and the orange didn't do so well. I love that they're a tad sweet and beautifully pink inside! I moved it near my rosemary bush but I can't get the ants to leave it alone.

Thank you ladies for the kind words! The flowers smell sooo good!

Quick question: are these thrips?

Kelly, how long do they usually take to ripen or mature?

I have seen those bugs on my blossoms too, but only on the blossoms.

Can't tell for sure, but probably are thrips.

Kelley, yours looks great! I have to say my variegated lemon is the second slowest and most frustrating of all my citrus. It gets covered with flowers, then little fruitlets, drops most, turns brown and burnt looking for the rest, and is low and sprawling! I am waiting for it to grow a little taller before I trim some of the lower branches off. I finally picked one decent size lemon yesterday, haven't tasted it yet.

My persian lime, meyer and calamondin are all in the same part of the garden, and they are all thriving! But the variegated is a pain!

Thank you, kcandmilo! I’ve heard many say the same thing, and a few others say that theirs is very vigorous. It’s going to be a few years before my other trees bloom and I couldn’t pass up a tree with blooms for $34 lol. Beautiful fruit! I can’t wait!!

Here's my VPL! It's leaning at the moment... but it did have more fruit on that side recently. I didn't even see that sucker before this moment! I'll have to chop it off tonight. I haven't had a lot of time lately to give it some attention but it's doing well. I'm happy! I think you'll find that it's a bit more hardy than some. It is slow growing but, to me, worth it. We haven't had a lot of sun lately and this morning it was sprinkling so I haven't had to pay too much attention to watering as I will in the summer.

What are those four things in the soil mix?

Ant bait that I need to remove. It's not like it works!

Me too Kelley! I want to limit myself to 4-5 trees but Ive been thinking I should have a true lemon so I wanted to go for the variegated pink lemon! Awhile back in fall someone (I forgot who) posted about a variegated pink lemon that was on sale at Target. It's not on sale anymore since it's so warm now but I should've gotten it when it was. Your tree has a very pretty canopy, a great find!

Here's my sprawling low branched tree! The whole thing is barely 2 feet tall, most of it with branches practically dragging on the ground! It gets plenty of flowers, but not much luck holding on to the fruit yet!

KC

That's beautiful Kcandmilo! I have a grapefruit that's low like that. It's nice that your VPL is in the ground!

George, wait, it's supposed to get pink outside too?? I thought it would be lemon yellow outside and pink inside! Alrighty, the next one to ripen stays on!!

KC

yes, it gets a nice pink tinge when left on the tree. I will post some pics of the fruit inside / outside when I get a chance to...

That lemon really is gorgeous. Mine have never gotten pink. I'll have to wait and see as well!

Nice pink lemon Kelley, Kelly, KC and George I’ve never seen mine turn that color. That is awesome!

heres my little vpe tree.

Citrus pics 2/3/2018 · More Info

1/13/2018 citrus pics · More Info

Citrus pics 2/3/2018 · More Info

Very nice fruit and tree, Evan! I picked up a 16” pot to repot tomorrow, though I’m kind of sad to do so. I counted 13 fruitlets that are hanging on strong and a more flowers on the way. The tree does show leaf loss along several branches, so I’m hoping it’s not stress budding. I’ll see what the roots look like tomorrow.

Nice plant Kelley! I like the plant so much it went in the ground. It's now leafing and budding out.

Here was my harvest from this past Jan. I now know I could /should have left them another few weeks but we enjoyed them.

Here's my Variegated Pink Eureka lemon that I'm forcing to stand up straight. I got it for $18.99 at my favorite store in the whole wide world - Costco (lol). $1.50 hotdog and a soda, $4.99 rotisserie chicken, and $18.99 for a citrus tree that's twice+ the size of the ones sold at home improvement/online stores. My VPE tree on C-35 came from Frantz Nursery, Hickman CA.

I've been secretly spamming Costco's suggestion box (in different handwriting, of course) on which citrus varieties I think they should order MORE of from their supplier...basically the variety I need or want (lol) - Gold Nugget, Tango, red lime, etc...

Anony... i saw 5 Gold Nuggets at the Cordelia Costco this past week.

Sorry, didn't mean to hijack the thread, but I must give thanks to the OP Kelley_GA8a for starting this VPE lemon post, and molewacker for the heads up.

It's a Saturday, I need to put some mileage on my car (after replacing the spark plugs and oxygen sensors) to get it ready for the smog test.

Read molewacker's post regarding Cordelia Costco. Decided to take a chance that maybe, just maybe, there will be one left hidden in the back somewhere that people can't see. First time in Fairfield, by the way.

Came in praying for a Gold Nugget. Came out with a nicer than expected Gold Nugget mandarin tree I've been search for, for so long. And at $18.99, I couldn't control myself. I bought the last Flame grapefruit tree on a STANDARD rootstock too. $37.98 for both trees, no tax. I love it!

So a big THANK YOU to Kelley_GA8a and molewacker. I now have my Gold Nugget.

Wow they are beautiful! Congratulations!

Nice picks Anonymous, Congrats!

I found 5 VPE fruit in my garage bin, stored in an open bag since late March. They were (still) terrific and especially so when the juice was diluted with vodka and water.

juice from the first two:

Yum!

George, it's 10:00 am!! :)

But it's 5 pm somewhere in the world.

Beautiful finds at costco! I haven't seen a single citrus at costco this year.

Boy do I wish I had a California Costco near me! What a steal - those trees are beautiful and my local stores rarely stock citrus. I hit every single one in the area today and I found one hideous record buck Key lime cutting. I dream of moving to citrus country.

Move to Guatemala; it is citrus heaven 24/7/365; and you can get most of the varieties talked about here for under $10

Congrats Anony for that score! Agree with Alanna regarding big box stores like Costco in the cooler areas. Where I am, Costcos are few and far between (I have yet to get to one) and the HDs here tend to have the small (usually gallon size) generic citruses - at least the last time I actually saw a few offered on a rolling shelf at the HD near me. And thanks all for your experiences with the variegated pink lemon.

Does your variegated pink Eureka have 1" thorns? I found some trees at a nearby Walmart and happened to notice it. I like the trees but not enough to purchase if it has thorns that large.

Denise - I just looked at mine and it has some tiny thorns, about 1/8" long, on the newer branches - similar to my regular Eureka. Here is a pic of one of the younger branches (the older branches don't have thorns) -

Variegated Pink (Eureka) lemon thorns -

Gardenweb - 2018 · More Info

I.e., it's not like the giant thorns that I saw on my regular Eureka's rootstock (which I believe is Cuban Shaddock). That rootstock had sent out a shoot last summer that had thorns that were pretty shocking and alerted me to something "wrong"! LOL I cut the shoot off after identifying it.

Regular Eureka lemon rootstock shoot last summer (huge thorn circled, graft is a couple inches above the yellow tag) -

Gardenweb - 2018 · More Info

jenny, the thorns circled were the size I saw at Walmart. I have to bring my trees in for the winter and do not need a thorn scratching up my face or poking my eye out in the process. If they were small like you showed in the first picture, I would have stood there in the rain debating whether to get it or not. lol.

Denise - I hear ya!!!! My Australian red centre lime, although still small, is a thicket of needle-like thorns. lol

I have read that younger trees tend to be thornier so am wondering if what you saw were young own-root variegated pink lemon trees (versus the grafted variegated pink lemon in the top picture, which is a FW "premium" tree that I got in 2016, where the bottom pic was of my regular Eureka with a rootstock shoot). I know that Lisbon lemons are thorny regardless. Otherwise, you might have been seeing rootstock shoots.

jenny, these trees were definitely grafted as they were grown by Saxon, Becnal & Sons. Walmart had a good selection of trees so they may be there again next week when I go shopping. I will take a better look to see if all the trees were like that or just that one. I didn't spend too much time checking them out because I was holding an umbrella and rain was coming down too hard. I was more interested in which varieties were available.

Denise - you were lucky to even have any kind of plant selection at your Walmart. The one near me doesn't even have a garden center. lol I do have a Lowes home improvement store near me that supposedly has a very nice garden section and I keep meaning to take a trip there just to see what they actually have and if they have any citrus from the usual wholesalers... :-D

I repotted my VPE tonight and found extensive root rot. I actually lost half of the root system. Hopefully it will not suffer too greatly.

Kelley, I hope you kept the receipt. If it doesn't recover, the big box stores will give you a refund because they usually have a one year warranty on perennials.

Kelley, that’s a shame about the root rot. I had similar problems with some of mine when I didn’t bare root after purchasing. It will recover, just put it in a smaller pot and give it some time. They don’t seem to be fast growers unfortunately.