"How to grow a lemon from a stone?"

BPW

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I ask the question as in the title:
"How to grow a lemon from a stone?"

I am waiting for your answers and ideas. 😊

BPW
 

Wires_Guy_wires

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It's hard to turn a stone into a lemon.
If you want to grow a lemon plant on a rock, then plant the tree on the rock and bury the rock and the roots. After a couple years the roots will hug the rock and you can unearth it in stages, allowing the roots to withstand the non-ground conditions.

Can be done in the ground, but pots allow for more direction from your end.
 
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sorce

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Plant it!

Sorce
 

BPW

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The climate in Poland does not allow me to do this, therefore I need more proven methods.
 

Mike Corazzi

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Find a guy with a lemon. Throw the stone at him. Done.

👿
 

Leo in N E Illinois

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I suspect there is a language misunderstanding here. An "Old World" turn of phrase is to call a seed a stone. In particular, for "stone fruit" the seeds of various members of Prunus are referred to as stones. I believe the OP is asking how to grow lemons from seed. I am assuming English is not the OP's first language.

Poland is a temperate climate country, with winters that compare to the Midwest USA. So the question is about how to grow and develop a lemon tree in a container. And I assume since the question was asked on a bonsai forum, @BPW is probably looking for a more bonsai orientated answer to his question. Since winters are cold in Poland, citrus trees will have to be grown in pots, either as for bonsai, or nursery style pots. The plants are normally put outdoors for the summer and brought indoors when frost threatens. Returned outdoors in spring after danger of frost has passed.

To grow lemons from seed, simply collect seed from a few lemons obtained from produce market. Most culinary citrus have a fair percentage of seed that are apomictic parthenogenic, meaning that a fair percentage of the seed will produce a plant fairly similar to the parent plant. In other words, seed from a lemon, will give you lemon trees that will produce fruit fairly similar to the lemon the seed was collected from.

Citrus seed, lemon seeds, need to be kept moist from the time you collect them until they are planted. Drying out will kill the embryo in the seed. Wrap seed in moist paper until you are ready to plant the seed.

Use a clean soilless potting media. In the USA a blend of pumice and coir, or pumice and peat is a common seed starter mix. Peat, Coir, Perlite, Pumice, Vermiculite, fine bark, and a fair number of other substrates make for good seedling starter potting media. Usually a blend of 2 or more of these components are used. Single component mixes are usually avoided. I like perlite & peat mix, roughly 50:50 or a peat & pumice mix, again 50:50.

The initial pot for starting the seed should not be overly large. A 10 x 10 x 10 cm square pot would be fine for a dozen seeds. Fill pot with mix, tamp the media. Then place seed on surface, then cover seed with roughly 0.5 cm of additional potting media. Then water the pot, to thoroughly wet the media. Then set the pot outdoors, in full sun will yield the strongest seedlings. Indoors growth will be weaker because the light intensity will be less.

Keep pot with seed moist. In a week or two, new seedlings will become visible as they sprout. You may fertilize lightly after the second set of leaves appear on the seedlings.

Good luck. This process is not different than starting tomatoes or other vegetables from seed.
 

Shibui

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Exactly what @Leo in N E Illinois said.
I can add that sometimes the seeds start to grow inside the fruit. I have cut open lemons and oranges and found seeds with small green shoots emerging.
Some citrus seeds are also polyembryonic meaning they can produce several seedlings from a single seed so don't be surprised if you get more seedlings than seeds planted.
 

Clorgan

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Exactly what @Leo in N E Illinois said.
I can add that sometimes the seeds start to grow inside the fruit. I have cut open lemons and oranges and found seeds with small green shoots emerging.
Sorry not lemon related - but my partner had this with an apple he ate a month ish ago. Popped them straight into a pot with some soil and they're growing pretty well!
 

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Wires_Guy_wires

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Lemon, lime and mandarin plants are usually sold for indoor use in the more Northern parts of Europe. They're usually not that expensive; 10-20 euros will buy you a fruiting tree.
I keep mine indoors during the winter in a bright window. The lemon tree is too tall and it goes in the garage where it drops all its leaves and goes dormant until spring.

Meyer lemon should be cold hardy to -20C or so, trifoliate orange can stay outdoors all year but they're so far from regular citrus that it's hard to do bonsai with them.
Spider mites are a bitch and a half, and scale is something that plagues all of them.

But it would help a great deal if @BPW would explain us what he wants to do.
 
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Clorgan

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Here's a few lemons, planted around 2 months ago. Covered pots with cling film until they sprouted and away from too much light. Then moved to grow in a South facing window.

One of the seeds produced two seedlings, as @Shibui described
 

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