I had a "Lemon Tree, Very Pretty" as the song says. However, after a few years of bearing lots of pretty flowers and lovely fruit, it got an awful disease. I think it was wasp gaul. Nothing can rid the plant of this gross disease except cutting it off. Well, the whole tree was covered in the forever creeping gaul, so I had the whole tree cut down except for a little stump. As it was cut below the graft, I was told that if it regrew it would grow as a bush lemon tree, the host for the graft. It wasn't long before it started shooting prolifically and the long gangly branches had huge spikes like on a bush lemon tree. Many, many flowers blossomed but it was far from a pretty lemon tree as the branches were drooping and the tree was a weird shape.
However, as the fruit appeared I was surprised to see that they weren't crinkly, thick skinned, bush lemons but the lovely smooth, thin skinned lemons like before. The tree was laden with hundreds of lemons and the branches couldn't cope with the weight and the fruit was touching the ground so BB propped up the branches with stakes.This made the tree look even more ugly, but the fruit is big and juicy.
Now the fruit is ripening and it is fun harvesting them.
This is the fourth load. We have given some to neighbours and friends and we have hunted the recipe books for ideas with lemons. I have ice block trays full of frozen juice. I just wish our vegie patch would do so well as our ugly, mutant lemon tree.
