If you love using lemons in skincare and beauty, or you just love the refreshing smell of lemons, you might want to start growing your own lemons at home. Dwarf Eureka lemon trees make this easy, but how do you grow them?
You can grow your own lemons with dwarf Eureka trees by ensuring you give the trees full-sun conditions and protect them against harsh winds and icy temperatures. You can also easily grow them in pots at the home.
In this article, I’ll explore what you need to know about dwarf Eureka lemon trees and how to plant them.
What Is a Dwarf Eureka Lemon Tree?
A dwarf Eureka lemon tree is a lemon tree that grows to approximately six feet (2m). It has beautiful pale green leaves and blooms in beautiful white flowers. Its lemons are medium-sized with thick skin that becomes orange when ripe. This lemon tree is popular because it grows fruit throughout the year.
It’s a small lemon tree that’s great to keep in your home because it’s small enough to grow in pots, so you don’t need a lot of space for it.
If you’re growing your dwarf Eureka lemon tree outside, it’s good to bring it inside during the winter to protect the lemon tree from frost and icy temperatures.
How To Plant a Dwarf Eureka Lemon Tree
When planting a dwarf Eureka lemon tree, you must choose the ideal location in the garden or home. Make sure it’s in a spot that’s warm and sunny but sheltered from strong winds.
If you don’t give your lemon tree enough sun, it will experience problems such as leaf curling and yellowing. Read our guide to find out what to do if your lemon tree’s leaves are curling and showing signs of distress.
The great thing about dwarf Eureka lemon trees is that you can plant them in half-shade conditions, and they won’t struggle to survive. However, in this case, they won’t provide as much of a harvest.
Ideally, give your lemon tree about 10 hours of sunlight every day. Here are other tips to ensure your dwarf Eureka lemon tree grows healthy.
- Plant your tree on a slope. This prevents water from accumulating and waterlogging the tree’s roots. This will also encourage adequate water drainage.
- Give your lemon tree acidic soil.
- Plant your lemon tree in well-draining soil that’s sandy or loamy in nature.
- Water your lemon tree so that its soil is constantly moist.
- Avoid mulching it. This can help other trees to preserve moisture, but it can cause your lemon tree to become soggy, so be careful when adding mulch to it.
- Don’t expose your lemon tree to temperatures that are lower than 20°F (-6.6°C). This means if you’ve got a dwarf lemon tree outside, you should bring its pot indoors during icy winters.
Growing Eureka Dwarf Lemon Tree From Seed
You can grow a dwarf Eureka lemon tree from seed. However, make sure that you soak the seeds overnight in a bowl of water. This softens the seeds so that they will have greater germination success.
Plant the lemon seeds in moist potting soil, making sure that they’re put about half an inch (1.27cm) deep. You want to cover the pot with a clear plastic bag to encourage greater warmth and humidity for germination.
This should be left for a few weeks until you can see the seeds are growing. After that time, you should remove the bag and put the seeds in an area where they will get around four hours of sunlight until you transplant them.
How Big Does a Dwarf Eureka Lemon Tree Get?
A dwarf Eureka lemon tree reaches a mature height of between six and nine feet (2-3 meters). This makes it ideal for keeping in a pot as it won’t get too large. However, it is a bushy tree, which makes it beautiful for patios and sunny spots indoors.
If you’re growing your Eureka dwarf lemon tree outdoors, make sure that you provide it with enough spacing so that it has room to grow. Dwarf lemon trees require between six and 10 feet (1.8-3m) of space.
If you allow your lemon trees to become overcrowded, they won’t grow well because other trees shade them. Dwarf citrus trees, just like regular-sized ones, need lots of sunlight otherwise, their growth will be stunted.
Make sure you give your dwarf Eureka lemon tree at least six hours of sunlight every day. It wants full-sun conditions.
How Long It Takes For Lemon Trees To Grow and Produce Lemons
Dwarf lemon trees will grow for about six years before they reach maturity. However, they don’t produce fruit until they reach the age of three years, so you’ll have to be patient before harvesting lemons from the tree.
Lemons are self-pollinating trees that don’t require pollen from other lemon trees for them to grow fruit. Lemon trees do, however, need insects to pollinate their flowers when kept outdoors.
You can help indoor lemon trees to pollinate their flowers by shaking their branches so that pollen will spread from one flower to another. To ensure that your dwarf lemon tree doesn’t struggle to grow and bear fruit, you don’t want to expose it to very cold temperatures.
Although dwarf lemon trees can be exposed to light frost, they can only handle temperatures that are as low as 32°F (0°C). Your lemon tree should never be exposed to temperatures lower than that, as it can cause them to die.
Can You Plant Dwarf Eureka Trees In Pots and Keep Them Inside?
You can plant dwarf Eureka lemon trees in pots and keep them indoors, but you have to ensure they get enough sunlight and that the pot in which you’ve planted them is large enough to accommodate their growth.
The size of the pot for your lemon tree should be about 12 inches (30.48cm) in diameter. When keeping your lemon tree indoors, make sure that it’s in front of a south- or southwest-facing window, as it wants to receive lots of light.
Besides light, lemon trees want to be in a warm environment. Night-time temperatures should be kept at around 65°F (18.3°C). You should keep them away from temperature fluctuations, such as cold drafts, as this can hamper their growth.
It’s a good idea to bring your potted lemon tree outside during warm days in the summer. This is a good way to ensure your tree gets more sunshine, and it’s also useful if you want to acclimate the tree to the outdoors if it’s been spending all of its life indoors.
You should bring the potted lemon tree back indoors before the first fall frost of the season.
For more information about growing lemon trees indoors, read our guide, “Fresh Citrus All Year Round: Growing an Indoor Lemon Tree.” This article covers important tips to help you grow healthy lemon trees.
Does Dwarf Eureka Produce Smaller Lemons?
Dwarf citrus trees, such as the Eureka, provide the same size of fruit as larger lemon trees. As long as you ensure you give your dwarf lemon tree the right kind of care, it will bear fruit as large as lemons you’ll find on regular-sized trees.
Since giving your lemon tree what it needs to grow healthy and bear fruit is so important for you to harvest lemons, growing lemon trees outdoors instead of indoors can be easier. You can ensure full-sun conditions without worrying about your indoor tree not getting enough light.
However, with a bit of extra care, you can give your indoor dwarf Eureka tree the right conditions so that it produces flowers and fruit.
It’s good to know that there are some differences between the fruits harvested from different lemon dwarf varieties. For example, Eureka lemons tend to be juicier and larger than those of other dwarf lemon trees, such as the Lisbon.
The Eureka lemon tree bears fruit with rough skin and lemons that taste sweet yet zesty. This is what makes it such a popular fruit tree to grow! You’ll be able to use the lemons in a variety of ways, such as in cooking, when whipping up drinks, or for use in skincare.
Conclusion
Growing lemon trees is easy, both indoors and outdoors, if you have a dwarf tree variety, such as the Eureka. However, you have to ensure you provide it with the proper care so you can harvest lemons from it. This entails the following:
- Giving your lemon tree at least six hours of sunlight a day.
- Watering your lemon tree regularly so its soil will remain moist.
- Bringing your potted trees indoors during the cold winter to protect it from frost.
