PlantFiles: Lemon Tree
Citrus limon 'Eureka'

I have only had m Eureka lemon for about 3 months. My tree is still a baby at only 3.5 feet tall (4.5 if ou include the pot it is in). I had the same thing happen to mine as the earlier poster, about leaves curling and shiny white lines. I learned that this was from a larva of a bug, called a leaf miner. I stripped the leaves off because I didn't want the bugs coming back each year. I can't wait for my first crop of lemons. Though I understand it may be a couple of years until I get a good one.

Ten years ago I planted a Eureka lemon between my house and the house next door. The neighbors are to the southwest and the houses are reallyclose, so my Eureka doesn't get nearly as much sun as it should (and pretty much none at all in the winter when the sun is low). But that sucker has survived several frosts (which killed the neighbor's Meyer's Improved lemon) and merciless pruning. Last year I painted the house and had to whack the poor Euraka back a LOT just to get access to paint. In fact, I decided that I would just remove it so my pruning was basically butchering. Before I was done I got tired of pruning (the thorns are nasty) and decided to just leave what was left and see what happened after I had removed about 2/3 of the tree (maybe more). But over the past year it grew and it grew and it's now back to being about 12' high and 10' wide and I've had to prune it again. I haven't watered it for over a year (we do have a high water table, but still!). Even with last week's 95-degree weather, it thrives without water. It produces lots of big lemons -- enough for us and for the neighbor kids to use for lemonade which they sell. It had that gall or whatever a few years ago, which produced weird-looking fruit that was kind of creepy. But it was just that one year, and the fruit has been fine since.

I've been looking at the Meyer postings, and people just rave about that one, so I wanted to give the Eureka some credit too! The blossoms also smell very nice.

My experience with this plant is neutral because I have recently noticed that my citrus plant is not growing new leaves the way it should. The leaves grow differently from what normal leaves should actually look like.

They are wrinkled and look as if they have some weird liquid that has been dried over them in some time. I first thought that maybe that some insects were probably eating it but the leaves are perfectly green and do not look bitten.

I have raised this tree in Palo Alto and Modesto California. The Palo Alto tree was at least 30 years old, about 12 feet high and bore year around. The Modesto tree was planted as a sapling and grew more slowly than its neighbors, a Washington Navel Orange and a Valencia Orange. It is now 20 years old, is about 10 feet tall, and is about 6 feet wide. If you don't strip it, it will also bare and blossom year round. It is crowded and would have done better with more space. Modesto has blistering hot summers and an occasional ground frost. I deep water all citrus trees summer and winter and have large, juicy fruit with beautiful skins. Eureka requires a min. of 10 feet of space to grow in - in order to get good sun, to allow for long term slow growth, and for space to navigate around to avoid the wicked thorns. Eureka's fruit are all the size of softballs (and larger). I love the true lemony flavor of the abundant juice and the rind is fantastic in cooking and baking. I wouldn't waste my time, space and water on a puny Meyer lemon.

I understand this lemon is more tolerant of the occasional ground frost than some varieties of lemon. Certainly with us they have no effect on yield. One tree keeps us self sufficient in lemons despite being generous with gifts. I probably use 5 or more a week. I feed it heavily in Autumn and prune ruthlessly whenever the swellings from gall-wasps become apparent.