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This summer, our movie star neighbor proudly displayed dozens of dwarf lemons he had bought for a song.  The trouble was, every single one had sprouted from the rootstock, and the bushy growth of trifoliate orange was overshadowing the lemon scionwood.  I was itching to prune, so my neighbor kindly handed me the clippers and let me play.

Soon, the little lemon trees were revealed, and the ground was littered with dozens of trifoliate orange branches.  The opportunity to root this dwarf citrus species and use it to create more dwarf lemons was too tempting to resist, even though Mark reminded me that neither we nor our movie star neighbor have room for any more dwarf citrus plants.

There's the right way to root semi-difficult species like trifoliate orange, and then there's the homesteading way.  I tend to go for the quick and dirty methods that require no storebought supplies, even though these techiques give fewer successful results.  If I've only spent half an hour of my time and absolutely no money, who cares if only 10% of my cuttings make it?  With that in mind, I simply snipped the trifoliate orange cuttings down to four inch lengths and plopped them in glasses of water along with a few willow cuttings collected on the walk home.

Next, I forgot about them.  The glasses of water dried up repeatedly, but I tended to remember to add fresh liquid before the cuttings really gave up the ghost.  Months later, I was shocked to see that three of my trifoliate oranges had grown hefty roots!  I potted them up in some composted manure and will graft on Meyer lemon twigs in a month or two, once our parent tree has ripened its lemons all the way and starts putting out new growth. 

And then I'll give the baby lemon trees away because Mark was right --- we really don't have room for any more potted plants.  But it sure is fun to make something out of nothing!