The making of a lemon tree . . . again

Spring has arrived! And with it my lofty ambitions of planting and growing my very own lemons . . .are once again rekindled! Aidan of course reminds me of my last effort which ended in tears. (See Part 1) But now older and presumably wiser, this time round I won’t make the same mistakes.

Mistakes which when I look back in hindsight, most likely came down to sun and soil. So, as real estate agents tell us. Its all about location. Honestly, I don’t think I chose a bad location. I just think it was a compromised one. (as is often with things in life).As a result, it never got enough sun. And to compound the problem, the spot suffered from poor soil quality. Or at least there was something odd with it. Don’t ask my how I know because I won’t be able to explain it. I just know that it was dodgy!

So If I just fix these two factors this year, I should be laughing all the way to lemon heaven. But there really aren’t any spots in my garden left. Or at least uncompromised ones. And that is why I have been putting it off all winter.

Until just last week when I had my eureka moment. Like why didn’t I think of this before . . . I figured I could plant it in a pot! So in one fell swoop, I solve both problems, Firstly, I can get it the best soil but more importantly I can put it wherever the sun is best. Simply perfect.

So, we headed to Masters (our nearest big format hardware store). They have a garden section which is normally well stocked. After poking around and appearing undecided, a nurseryman approached us dressed neatly in his standard issue Masters uniform. Within minutes we realised he wasn’t your typical horticulturist. With his goatee and swagger, he reminded me more of Captain Jack Sparrow. And mind you he had the cheeky inclination to match it. When I told him we tried everything with our last lemon tree, he asked with a grin, “Did you try singing and dancing to it?”

But he did know his stuff and he went on to educate us about varieties, pots and soil. At the end of it, we walked out with the best looking lemon tree from the lot. When we got home, we transplanted it into a bigger pot and filled it with “Citrus” potting mix.

Finally, we plopped it on our balcony which gets plenty of sun and here goes round two in the making of a lemon tree. (and we named him Joey coz all lemon trees should have names!)