Small blossom on our lime tree

“Woes” is probably too strong a word. “Puzzlement” is more accurate. It’s difficult to tell in the photo, but that streak of white is the single blossom that we have on our lime tree. We have one poor lonely lemon on the lemon tree and therein lies the issue for this year. Let me back up for a minute. I have posted before that in putting our back yard together, we really didn’t know anything about citrus trees and while we’ve always had lovely foliage on the lime tree, actually getting limes hasn’t worked out. We sometimes have blossoms and even tiny limes, but they never make it much past the thumbnail size. We thought that birds were taking them and when we brought in the landscaper to update our design, she said that no, we had a drainage issue in that spot and the small fruit was literally dropping off the stems before they could mature. Addressing that issue is still on the to-do list. Not having blossoms at all is what continues to puzzle us.

On to the lemon tree. Until this year, it has been exactly the opposite of the lime tree with us frequently having so many lemons that we couldn’t use them all and they would fall to the ground from lack of being picked. Not only were they plentiful, they were large – sometimes twice the size of what you usually see in the store. They also took forever to turn yellow and we just had to become accustomed to have green-colored lemons. Their flavor was wonderful though so we didn’t mind. We have no idea what has happened this year and why we’ve had maybe half dozen lemons over the past few months. Ah well, maybe we’re just going through an odd cycle.