My husband bought a lemon tree of unknown name (I call it Larry) at an auction about seven or eight years ago and I've only replanted it once into a bigger pot. It usually stays in the conservatory all winter and moves outside in summer but this year we decided to leave it inside. (Laziness!). Hopefully this won't lead to getting bugs. We're in a cold spot and it wouldn't last a winter outside here.
Being inside I take a small paint brush to tickle the flowers to cross pollinate as advised by our local NT gardener. He also told me to feed weekly with liquid sea weed fertiliser to keep the leaves green and this works. I water fairly sparingly, and top up with fresh compost each spring and prune it to shape quite hard as it grows vigorously. There's no stickiness from the leaves so perhaps it's the variety? I get a dozen or so lovely luscious pipless lemons throughout each year which are nearly sweet enough to eat.
I'd like an orange tree but don't have room. Is there a hardy one?!
