I recently purchased a small potted key lime plant. I have a rather checkered history with plant growing – I tend to kill decorative plants but usually if the plant grows food I do a better job. If I manage not to kill this one, I can buy a dwarf fig in the spring. so I don’t want to screw this up!
The label states it needs 6 hours of direct sun. No problem, I have a window with an unobstructed southern exposure, as recommended for potted citrus. Unfortunately, it’s been raining a lot lately.
Here comes the dumb question:
If its been cloudy do I need to supplement with a grow-light? Does sunlight in this case mean literal sunlight daily?
Nah, that’ll be fine.
My mother grows citrus plants in England, without supplemental lighting. If a few weeks with cloudy skies would be a real issue, I dread to think what our weather would do…
A window with an unobstructed southern exposure should provide plenty of light for a potted citrus plant, even if there are rainy periods from time to time. Besides adequate light, other keys to citrus success are having a well-draining soil mix containing vermiculite and/or perlite (and not allowing the plant to stand in a saucer of water or otherwise get soggy), and using an iron-containing fertilizer according to instructions for potted plants (citrus tends to get chlorotic with pale foliage if iron-deficient; some fertilizers are especially designed for citrus to provent this problem).
Fun citrus to grow indoors include Ponderosa lemon (huge fruits on relatively small plants). I don’t know what dwarf fig you’re contemplating, but “Petite Negra” really does produce fruit on small potted plants.
Thank you for your help! I have been reading about drainage and fertilizing for citrus; it just seems like my sunlight question is one of those “too obvious to be listed in basic care instructions” type questions.
That fig is the very one! My key lime also came from Logee’s (this one). I’m completely obsessed with dwarf fruit trees, but at this point I have to content myself with those that can be grown in a southern window (someday, columnar apple tree, someday).
That’s generally a good idea, not so much to ensure that it gets good light (it doesn’t matter which leaves get the light for the plant’s health, just that enough do) but to stop it growing lopsided, and keep it looking nice.
Growing seedlings, it’s very important to rotate to keep them growing evenly, but for bigger, slow growing, plants, not so much.
so I don’t want to screw this up!