Starting fruit trees indoors...

[jasonresno]

Hey guys,

For as long as I have been in to gardening I have never ever done anything with fruit trees. I'm talking apples, lemons, or oranges. I've done some smaller stuff (pineapples for example) but nothing as satisfying as starting a fruiting tree. Do you guys have any suggestions for propagation for these trees? I would assume the difficulty/process to be the same across the board but I do not know. I'd like to not waste the seeds that I buy so I am coming to you guys first!.

 

[headfullofbees]

Most fruit trees (in the UK anyway) begin life as two distinct plants.
The first is the rootstock; these are trees which are cultivated for the purposes of controlling the size and vigour of the tree (basically, the earlier a tree reaches maturity, the sooner it fruits) and which may have immunity, or at least some tolerance, to one or more diseases.
Secondly we have one (or more) scion/s; these tend to be grafted onto the rootstock, and, in fact, are the variety(ies) of fruit required.
The reasons for this are simple:
Firstly, an apple tree grown from a seed could take many years to reach maturity, and secondly, because apples are "open-pollenated," there is absolutely no way of insuring the variety of the resultant fruit.
So you could wait many years for apples which are not to your taste, or indeed, anyone's.

Citrus trees may be different, but as I live in the UK where they are not usually found, I don't have that knowledge

 

[Trellum]

I'd start with something easy if I were you, like for example an avocado tree Those seem quite easy to propagate! Plus, who doesn't like to always have avocados at hand? I know a person who has one, you can give it a try next time you have an avocado at hand. You should end up doing something like this:

Yup, people do that with the avocado ''seed'' I didn't know until some years ago, I've never tried, but why don't you give it a try and tell us how it goes?

 

[gata montes]

Where I live, we grow just about every type of fruit there is, and all of the trees here, regardless of variety start life in just the same way as Headfullofbees has already described - as two very distinct plants and not from seed.

The Citrus family are normally grown as a grafted tree, because they take a long time to mature, and grafting helps to ensure that the tree with be virtually pest and disease free, as well as being an abundant cropper of sweet tasting fruit.

You can grow citrus trees from seed, but unless you are wanting to grow a highly attractive evergreen plant for its ornamental value, growing citrus from seed is not normally advised, for the simple reason that not all varieties of citrus come true from seed and apart from the length of time it takes for a tree to reach maturity, you will often land up with a weak and diseased specimen, that may or may not resemble the mother plant, and one that rarely if ever bears fruit and if it did, you would probably wish it hadn't - as the fruit is very unlikely to taste anything like you were expecting.

 

[headfullofbees]

Where I live, we grow just about every type of fruit there is, and all of the trees here, regardless of variety start life in just the same way as Headfullofbees has already described - as two very distinct plants and not from seed.

The Citrus family are normally grown as a grafted tree, because they take a long time to mature, and grafting helps to ensure that the tree with be virtually pest and disease free, as well as being an abundant cropper of sweet tasting fruit.

You can grow citrus trees from seed, but unless you are wanting to grow a highly attractive evergreen plant for its ornamental value, growing citrus from seed is not normally advised, for the simple reason that not all varieties of citrus come true from seed and apart from the length of time it takes for a tree to reach maturity, you will often land up with a weak and diseased specimen, that may or may not resemble the mother plant, and one that rarely if ever bears fruit and if it did, you would probably wish it hadn't - as the fruit is very unlikely to taste anything like you were expecting.

Apart from that?

 

[Kiese]

I'd start with something easy if I were you, like for example an avocado tree Those seem quite easy to propagate! Plus, who doesn't like to always have avocados at hand? I know a person who has one, you can give it a try next time you have an avocado at hand. You should end up doing something like this:

Yup, people do that with the avocado ''seed'' I didn't know until some years ago, I've never tried, but why don't you give it a try and tell us how it goes?

Wow, it's great to see this start of an avocado tree, is this a stock photo or something you actually started? I would love to grow some of these because avocados are so expensive in the store!

 

[Trellum]

No, not my picture, is actually a picture I found around the next. It seems avocado aren't that hard to germinaqte, I'm sure there are manuals that can teaxh you how to di it. But it seems having avocados tress can be easy,

 

[claudine]

Wow, I would love to grow an avocado tree indoors But how big does this tree get? My space is very limited.
I grow a lemon tree from a seed, it's quite old already, but it doesn't produce any fruits yet. You have to wait a really long time for it to start producing any

 

[RedNeckCowBoy007]

I'm trying to start a pinapple tree. So far the leaves are mostly still green and it seems to be growing. I know I got awhile until it starts producing fruit, but I hope it will. If it doesn't, I think the tree will look good upstairs once the leaves are high enough the cats can't eat them.
Even though I already knew what has already been said, I'm hoping to try to start a couple apple trees from seed, as well as hoping I get a mulberry tree to start. If it works, great. If it doesn't, I haven't lost anything.

 

[Trellum]

Wow, I would love to grow an avocado tree indoors But how big does this tree get? My space is very limited.
I grow a lemon tree from a seed, it's quite old already, but it doesn't produce any fruits yet. You have to wait a really long time for it to start producing any

Aw that sucks!!!! It really seems like a lot trees are just like that! You've to wait and wait until they give you some tiny fruits! and that's it! That's wht I haven't been a big fab of trees in general, plus the only trees that would do great indoors are the bonsais, I think.

 

[Lostvalleyguy]

I attempted to grow a couple of orange trees from seed. I managed to get them to sprout and grew them until they were about 5 feet tall. Living too far north to have seen the trees in real life, I was shocked by the thorns. The trees never branched and the main stem was tall but fairly thin. After doing a little research I discovered that many trees grown from seed will not produce flowers or fruit. If you really want fruit trees, I would strongly recommend that you buy a plant from your garden center - it will be far more likely to grow properly and will get to the fruiting stage far sooner.

 

[Greenie]

I'm attempting to grow lemon trees from lemon seeds. It will probably take a long time before they yield any fruit but they're very pretty plants that if nothing more, add a lot of color to my kitchen right now. Who knows, they may even make my kitchen smell lemony one day!

 

[Leah]

I, too, am attempting to grow citrus from seeds. It has proved to be a very lengthy process!

 

[RedNeckCowBoy007]

I gave up on the idea of a pineapple plant (at least for the time being) after seeing how big they actually get! I did pop some grapefruit seeds into a pot though, so I'm curious (although doubtful) about if they'll do anything.

Most fruit trees grown from seed won't do well (or "correct") because the trees that bore the seeds are specially bred and grafted onto a root stock of something else to make more trees, as the genes that produce good fruit make for bad seeds or something like that. But it's fun to experiment and doesn't cost anything besides a couple minutes.