GoGoGadgetLemon,
originally uploaded by Purplekitten.

It’s been a while, and we’re probably the only people who care about them, but it’s time for an update on the lemon-children..

Sadly we lost two of them over the summer, to ravening hordes of something-or-other. Leaves vanished and eventually the poor trees died. Still not sure why. The losses were Spindly Lemon and Sturdy Lemon (turned out to be a bad name, really!)

So we got a replacement from a bona fide garden centre thing, and it seems to be happy enough. Not sure how old it is, so at the moment we have no expectations of fruit.

GoGoGadgetLemon is growing yet another strange robot arm thing, despite our best effort at attempting to persuade it into a nice tree shape. It has also grown the largest leaves I’ve ever seen on a lemon plant: large shiny, luxurious and deliciously scented. It seems ridiculously happy, for a tree.

BifurcatedLemon is still plodding onwards. Has a lovely shape but is clearly unwell. There are strange brown things on the leaves so I need to take it outside and give it a good scrub with soapy water and it’ll be fine.

PointlesslyTallLemon has been brutally truncated in the trunk department (it was either that or a ceiling extension to the house..) so is now not so pointlessly tall. It also nearly succumbed to whatever took its brothers, and is left with only 3 leaves. These remaining leaves do look happy and glossy, so I think we’ve rescued it in time. I hope.

Finally we have - a new addition to the family. A Christmas present from my mother-in-law and presented early in case anything happened to it at her house! We’ve decided to use it as a Christmas tree, as it has ready-made baubles of a lovely lemon hue. Delicious.

I have decided it is now warm enough for our lemon-children to venture out into the sunshine. Of course this now means that I can take pictures of them, ably assisted, as always, by Mogret.

Lemonpictures 

Our precious drama-lemons have all suddenly sprouted thorns. In the last two days.

Well I’m not much of a lemon-parent, clearly, as I was unaware that lemon trees grew thorns. Seeing as our lemons are only two years old, well, almost three years old, they are really only trainee-lemons; but they seem to have bounced back from their winter of discontent. Even SpindlyLemon (yes, they all have nicknames) seems to have perked up again, and having shed all his leaves, has started to grow some fresh baby leaves for spring.

What a relief.

Well, if you’ve been following the fortunes of the Braggs for the past two years or so, you will be aware that we are growing some lemon plants. I stuck some pips in a pot full of soil, and to my surprise five-sixths of them sprouted.

All are still alive, although I regret not to be able to complete the cliché with ‘and well’. They had been universally happy little lemons all through the summer; revelling in the increased light our new housing arrangements offered to their glossy little leaves. It seems winter leaves a lot to be desired in the lemon-pleasuring department: their leaves are no longer glossy and luxuriant-looking; they rejected proximity to a cold pane of glass, but are now sulking because they are no longer near a window and are starving of light. Much as I hate to disappoint my citrus friends, we cannot, at present, afford to have the house double-glazed just to pander to five recalcitrant plants.

Things are coming to a head though, yesterday it was discovered that Tall Lemon had thrown off 75% of its leaves - overnight. This morning brought the discovery of several further shed leaves. A hasty consultation of that universal oracle Google brought comfort and confusion: we are not necessarily bad lemon-parents, it’s just that lemons are drama queens and will often just decide that all those leaves are not strictly necessary. It can be for a variety of reasons: too hot; too cold; too wet; too dry. Basically, there is no hope of ever discovering the root cause, we just have to weather the leaf-storm and hope they have the brains to leave themselves a few to transpire with.

I shall apply some citrus food, and dust the remaining leaves, as I fear they have been neglected since being relegated to the spare room. We have to keep the door to the spare room closed, otherwise the cat leaps on the printer and presses the sheet-feed button to help herself to a fresh piece of paper to shred. I kid ye not. That’s a smart mog we have there.