Make Your Indoor Garden Sweeter With a Mini Citrus Tree

Maybe you started with a windowsill succulent or a hardy pothos. Maybe you’ve made your fiddle leaf fig so happy it’s doubled in size. If you’re ready for your next plant challenge, a citrus tree would be especially rewarding, and there’s an online plant shop where you can find one.

Via Citrus is like other online nurseries that mail you houseplants in stylish pots, but it specializes in Florida citrus trees. It sells three kinds: Meyer lemon, key lime, and calamondin, which it describes as a mandarin-kumquat hybrid with a sweet peel and sour flesh. (At the moment, both lemon and lime trees are out of stock, but you can join the waiting list to find out when they’re available again.)

Before you fall in love with one of these trees, make sure you live in one of the states where Via Citrus can deliver. For now, it’s not able to send plants to Arizona, California, Louisiana, Hawaii, or Texas.

The trees sent from Via Citrus are actually intended to be kept potted, indoors. When possible, they arrive already bearing fruit, but even if yours doesn’t, Via Citrus promises that all its trees, as long as they’re kept in the right conditions, are capable of growing fruit. 

The shop gives care instructions on its website (keep soil moist, allowing top inch to dry before watering; provide several hours of direct sun daily). If your plant appears to be sick, you can also send in a photo for diagnosis.

Each tree costs $65 (or $80 if you choose a recycled-plastic eco pot over the standard plastic grower pot). They range in size from 18 to 22 inches tall and six to eight inches wide. See them all here.