Citrus in the house

My daughter liked my post last night, I'm thinking maybe because it was instructional and based on my experience.  So I decided that I would post again about my lessons learned in growing stuff in the house in winter.  This time: citrus.  I love citrus trees - especially the smell of the blossoms.  It reminds me of Florida when the orange trees are blooming.  You can smell the scent as you zoom by in your car, and it makes you want to slow down.  Seriously, it's better than smelling the roses.

So a couple of years ago I bought a Rangpur lime.  I read about this variety in some magazine I picked up at the Los Angeles airport, and I thought it sounded lovely.  A lime with a citrus note - and it turns orange when it ripens!  How cool is that?  I love limes in seltzer water, and just squeezed over a salad as dressing so I ordered it.  I got it in spring and kept it outside through early fall.  Sure enough, it's a gem:

But the first winter I had it something strange happened.  It started to get a shiny, sticky mess on its leaves, and this sticky substance was on everything around the plant, not just the plant itself.  And it got spider mites too.  I sprayed with soapy water, and took a soapy sponge to the leaves which seemed to get rid of the spider mites but not the sticky shiny stuff.  It came back worse than ever.  The tree was obviously in distress, with yellow leaves and a sickly look.  I took it outside as early in the spring as possible - actually too soon, I had to carry it into the garage a few nights when frost was in the forecast.  But it made it, and the season outdoors seemed to help.  Last winter I sprayed it with with water twice a week and it really helped.  The spider mites and sticky stuff came back,  but just a little, at the end of the winter, and I put it out early again figuring I just needed to spray it more.

Here's a picture of the lime cut open (isn't it pretty?):

This spring my mom bought us a Meyer lemon.  It came to us looking absolutely beautiful!  It was tall and full, and during the summer it developed a large number of baby lemons.  When we brought it in, in the fall, I was expecting a bounty of lemons (15 to be exact).  I thought I had learned my lesson so I sprayed it with water and even got a humidifier.  The tree got a few spider mites but the stickiness developed all over the plant - pretty much every leaf!  I was losing lemons like crazy - they just fell off the plant.  I really didn't know what to do.  One night our neighbor (who also has a Meyer lemon) was over and said we had scale.  I had thought the stickiness was something to do with the spider mites, but it they're separate problems.  Her remedy is wiping off the scale using a cloth soaked in alcohol.  This works!

I sat for over an hour rubbing each branch and leaf with alcohol soaked cloths - it was time consuming but it really helped.  I will probably have to do this again before spring, but the tree is so much healthier and happier and there is almost no scale left!  And the lemons that were left on the tree are not dropping off now.  I expect to have at least a few of the lemons mature and ripen.  Here is a picture of the tree:

An aside: I have to warn you - be careful of what alcohol you use.  Not because it matters to the tree, instead it might matter to your significant other.  The day I decided to do this it was snowing outside, and I was NOT going out in the snow.  I couldn't find our rubbing alcohol but I found a bottle of Absolute vodka in the pantry.  I used that.  Seriously, it was almost empty.  And it's really more for guests, we usually don't drink hard alcohol.  The bottle was at least a year old!  OK, you get the picture...just be mindful about your choice of citrus cures and choose your "rubbing" alcohol wisely.  :-)