It appears that our lemon tree has renewed teenage vigour, though it's teenage years are long ago. As you can see by the picture, it is heaving with ripe fruit with more coming on, yet it is in no way the model of good fruit tree health.
When we demolished the existing house on our property about 6 years ago, we decided to keep the old lemon tree in the backyard and purposely planned the house and deck to finish with it in mind, as it was useful for both fruit and shade, and with me being a sentimentalist, was a nod to the former house and it's 1950's era. In those couple of years before we demolished, the tree was a riot of gorgeous lemons and vivid green leaves, but terribly overgrown and bearing the hallmarks of limb damage through bad pruning and pests. When we left before the new house was built, we decided to give it a heavy prune to open it up a bit, reduce the fruit burden, and make building around it a bit easier.
Sure enough, the peak of the drought hit Melbourne, and we weren't there to give it heavy waterings to get it through. So it struggled on by itself for almost a year, and by the time we moved in it was a sorry sight, such that we almost took it out.
It has taken almost 4 years of dedicated watering, fertilising and patience, but this year it has taken a positive turn and we are now reaping the rewards. There's life in them tree limbs yet!
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