Gardening - Hipster Homesteaders

How to Deal With Pests in Potted Citrus Trees Indoors

If you're getting into container gardening, at some point you'll have to deal with a pest infestation. If you've landed on this article, then the odds are good you are already experiencing an issue.

Pests in your garden, particularly in citrus trees grown in containers, can be incredibly tricky to deal with. When the trees are outside, you have numerous options such as waiting for a good soaking from the rain, strong winds, a hot day to dry the soil out, or even the ability to apply large-scale insecticide applications.

Indoors, not so much.

Over the years, we've had numerous infestations of our plants once we brought them indoors including gnats, spider mites, mealy bugs, and other soil-based insects. So in this one, we thought we'd share some of the things we have tried to manage each of the populations, and identify which ones we think have (so far at least) worked the best!

Whenever we have a good piece of fruit, I often stop and wonder if I should collect the seeds to try and grow them in future seasons.

That curiosity got the better of me, and I did just that- taking seeds from all manner of fruit (namely fruit grown on trees), saving them in our fridge for cold dormancy, and planting them the following season. Some have been a success (so far), many have failed outright, and the experiment into growing fruit from seed is, admittedly, still ongoing.

But before doing this yourself, you need to stop and think about your plan here, because there are some very good reasons why you shouldn't grow fruit from seed and others why you should.

So if you're okay doing some careful research, finding the right type, and being patient, you may be able to make it all work. So let's break down the pros and cons in this one!

I certainly don't like to make my life easy, and this is especially true with my fruit tree collection.

Despite living in a decently warm Zone 6b, where common fruits like apples, peaches, cherry, and others reign supreme, my fruit tree goals look to warmer climates. When I realized that my south facing house was plenty bright indoors in the winter months, making our bedroom a defacto greenhouse, I knew I wanted to try and grow as many tropical fruit trees and other plants in pots and try my luck at having a harvest.

Now that we're a few years into the effort, I thought I'd provide a quick snapshot of how all my trees are doing, and try to identify which ones may be on the easier side to grow in a less-than-ideal climate and others that have been much more difficult.

While a lot of this one is based on my own personal circumstances, including dealing with our local weather, overwintering concerns, and my own habits of watering/fertilizing/etc., this may provide some insight for others looking to do the same!

Please note: This article only features exotic fruit trees and plants we are personally growing or have tried to grow. This article does not feature trees we are not familiar with. So if it is not featured below, we haven't planted it. For reference, we are located in Zone 6b and when plants are brought indoors for the winter. We are fortunate to have robust south/west facing windows plus additional grow lights. Our trees were purchased between 2021 and 2024, and those that have fruited will be noted.

For our tropical fruit trees in pots, getting watering right is critical. Water too much and you may trigger root rot and kill the plant. Water too little and you may lose fruit or, in extreme cases, kill the plant. When in doubt, I'd almost always go too dry as most of our trees can manage that scenario far better than being too wet.

So, that begs the question, when is the right time to water?

Most articles I had read on this topic simply offered a set watering frequency for each specific plant and left it at that. However, general watering intervals are often not good enough due to the many variables that impact our plants. Are your plants indoors or outdoors? Is the humidity high or low? Is it warm or cold? Is the plant big or small? Is it growing vegetatively or producing fruit? All of these can significantly influence how much water they will need.

To get a handle on your trees, you'll need to do some checks!

As a collector of unusual tropical fruit trees, I decided to go on a hunt for some rather unique species that are hard to come by.

This search led me to the company Fast Growing Trees, a large online plant store that had, well, seemingly everything available for purchase.

After placing two orders, with five unique trees and/or cacti, I have to say that I have been quite pleased with the company all around!

Not everything is fun and games when it comes to growing tropical trees.

If you are like us, particularly growing tropical trees in climates they are not suited for (in containers), it is a constant battle to provide the right conditions in the less-than-ideal environment to allow the trees to thrive.

The tree that has been giving us the biggest headaches since acquiring it was none other than our Mauritius lychee tree. This one is particularly sensitive to, well, everything, and we unknowingly overfertilized it when we potted it after purchasing.

The leaves began to dry out, fall off, and we unfortunately became the victims of an untimely tree death.

So in this one, we thought we'd share a bit more about fertilizer burn, what signs we had on our lychee that indicated the problem, and what we tried to turn the tree around despite ultimately losing the tree.

Note: In this article we are addressing fertilizer burn on lychee trees as this was something we personally experienced. However, all plants are susceptible to fertilizer/salt burn in some capacity- lychee is simply more prone to it than most and the one we have personal experience in. So while the solution in this article could apply to other plants, we caution that other issues could be at play here. Likewise, fertilizer burn (and other similar issues) can result in tree death if not rectified in a reasonable period. Had I recognized the issue sooner, we suspect we could've saved our tree. That said, we have to admit that the steps outlined below are never guaranteed for survival. We are simply sharing the process that we followed when we identified fertilizer burn on our own lychee. Proceed with caution.

I have to admit, I have a bit of a problem when it comes to growing tropical fruit trees at home. I just love growing rare and exotic fruit that is either impossible to find fresh at a local store (or that doesn't cost an arm and a leg in the process).

But as I live in a cooler climate, one most certainly not suited for tropical fruit trees (zone 6b/7), growing these trees is also a bit of a challenge that only the most determined gardeners with ideal growing environments should consider.

In this one, we want to go beyond the basics- checking to see if a plant will do well in your growing zone and if it could thrive in a container or not based on your indoor lighting conditions. We hope (and assume) that you have already checked these things. Here, we want to dive into some considerations to think about once you are committed!

These are truly some of the finer points I wish I knew before getting into growing tropical plants at home.

If you live in a cooler climate, as we do in zone 6b/7, odds are good you'll have to bring some container plants inside for winter.

We love growing tropical fruit trees, and, as you can expect, they do not do very well outside when temperatures drop close to freezing (let alone as low as 0 °F that we sometimes see in extreme cases). As such, we bring our plants inside for the winter to help give them an environment that they can tolerate until the following spring when temperatures rise once again.

But there are some things you will likely experience when doing this, and after several seasons with our own citrus trees, we have some thoughts that you should know before heading into winter!

When we bought our Meyer lemon tree, we thought it looked odd. We couldn't quite place our fingers on why, but it amounted to the fact that some leaves and branches seemed different.

One set of leaves had a single lobe, while other sets had three lobes similar to those of a very large clover.

It wasn't until the tree started producing flowers that we realized only specific branches were budding (only the branches with single-lobed leaves), and we investigated further.

As it turns out, we had a huge issue– fruit trees should not have two unique sets of leaves and the rootstock was growing a bit out of control!

I always knew that it'd be a bit of a risk trying to grow a passionfruit vine in a container, but due to our location in the north this tropical plant simply would not have done well in the ground during winter.

The vine was growing quite fine for many months until it started losing leaves at the bottom. The problem got worse and worse and we knew we had to figure out a solution right away. The problem was that any solution we read about could also have been the problem!

So, after testing, we came to a conclusion- we were underwatering. Read more about how we figured this out below.

Note: Please keep in mind that my passionfruit vine is potted and trellised. I bring it inside in the winter as we live in Zone 6b with cold enough winters that would kill the plant. This more than likely influenced the issue that will be described below and may not have the same solution for those growing a plant in the ground.

How to Deal With Pests in Potted Citrus Trees Indoors

3 Reasons Not to Grow Fruit from Seed (and 3 Why You Should)

Growing Exotic Fruits in a Cool Zone – Easy to Hard

3 Ways to Check if its Time to Water Your Container Trees

Fast Growing Trees Review – Are The Trees Worth It?

Diagnosing Brown Leaves on Lychee – Fertilizer Burn?

7 Things I Wish I Knew Before Growing Tropical Plants

5 Things to Know Before Bringing Plants Inside for Winter

What to Do When a Fruit Tree Has Two Sets of Leaves

How We Saved a Dying Passionfruit Vine – Container Gardening