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Are my Lemon tree's still alive? 🥺

fouzerrouguifouzerrougui Posts: 4
in Fruit & veg
The tree was looking super healthy until we had snow in December. Before the temperature dipped below zero and the frost settled, I covered the tree to protect it. Once the bad weather passed, I unwrapped it and found that the leaves were soaking wet. Since then the leaves have started to fall off, and now they are completely bare. Do you think the tree is dead, and is there anything I can do to revive it? I have attached a picture of when it was in full bloom as well as what it looks like now






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  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    I’ll give @Nanny Beach a nudge … she grows lots of citrus. 

    Whereabouts roughly are you …?

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • Nanny BeachNanny Beach Posts: 8,719
    edited January 2023
    Hello dove, have been nudged! Just taken a picture of the mandarin. All citrus are pretty high maintenance, special summer/winter feeds,rain water, spraying leaves indoors. Getting rid of pests. Ours go outside roughly April till September in a shady spot. They get dunked in a bucket of water weekly (in summer) left for 15 minutes to soak. The mandarin and calamondin are not at all hardy, they are both in the conservatory now. 
  • tui34tui34 Posts: 3,493
    Your lemon tree looks like it's on the way out!!!  Still, too hard to tell.  You are best to leave it, protect it from the cold.  Don't water it and maybe in the spring you get some buds.  They are tough little things.  

    If you get budding in the spring, prune off the dead branches ABOVE the buds.  

    Be patient.
    A good hoeing is worth two waterings.

  • philippasmith2philippasmith2 Posts: 3,742
    Not only protect from the cold in winter but also from the wet - a deadly combination.  Think on where these plants naturally flourish and that will give you some idea as to how to deal with them in your own situation. 
  • RedwingRedwing Posts: 1,511
    edited January 2023
    It doesn't look great @fouzerrougui. Lemons are the hardiest of the citrus IMO. Don't know where you live but but where I live in Sussex, my citrus spend the winter in a cold greenhouse and from about March to October they are outside come rain or shine and whatever the weather throws at them they cope.

    If yours were mine I would peal away a little bark with your thumbnail and if there is any green detected, it's likely it's still alive.  Can you give it some protection in this really cold  weather? assuming you are having really cold weather now.  If you don't have a cold frame, and you've determined that it's still alive, I think I would bring it inside for the duration of this cold spell, into the coldest part of your house. BTW mine are looking pretty good right now in the cold greenhouse.
    Based in Sussex, I garden to encourage as many birds to my garden as possible.
  • Joyce GoldenlilyJoyce Goldenlily Posts: 2,933
    Looking at your pic. your lemon does not look very healthy, the white/grey stems indicate dead. If you can, move it indoors to a porch or similar and leave it alone. No feed, water, or heat for a couple of months at least. When the days get longer and the weather warms up hopefully it will send out new shoots lower down the stems. Even possibly from the base. As above, remove any white dead stems in the Spring.
  • Allotment BoyAllotment Boy Posts: 6,774
    Hi, before I  started to put my home made lean too gh round them, I  tried wrapping my Lemons and they nearly always lost all their leaves.  They took most of summer to recover so I wasn't getting much fruit.  This was after they got too big to move to the greenhouse for winter. 
    As already said move them into  some protection,  even a garage or shed will do for now as they have no leaves. They may re-shoot in spring .
    AB Still learning

  • Joyce GoldenlilyJoyce Goldenlily Posts: 2,933
    Leaf drop does not necessarily mean a lemon is dead. It has had a shock of some kind. If the stems are still green it will shoot again. It is just a very unhappy tree.
  • RedwingRedwing Posts: 1,511
    Lots of helpful advice but the OP has not come back.
    Based in Sussex, I garden to encourage as many birds to my garden as possible.
  • bédébédé Posts: 3,095
    edited January 2023
    Redwing said:
    Lots of helpful advice but the OP has not come back.

    Now that is what I call rude.

    But I think the lemon is dead and unsaveable from any advice.  

    My supplier, The Citrus Centre, say:
    Almost no water in the winter - if I do that the leaves drop off.  
    Keep in the light - after this winter it would be dead in unheated my greenhouse (min so far -4ºC).  I tried one winter in the greenhouse and it took a year to recover.  
    It's now in a ±45cm pot, in my quite light garage, min +10ºC, watered with ca 1 litre of fertiliser-added rain water on Sundays.  Some leaves are dropping.
     I also suspect the poster's lemon  may have been overcropped the first year.
     location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand.
    "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
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