Grapefruit Blooms

It took a while for me to realize what I was smelling in the den. The grapefruit tree has been blossoming but now it has many blooms and they are extremely fragrant.

If there were any insects about they would surely be drawn to the fragrance. As it happens, it's only me that can determine whether we have citrus or not.

Grapefruit flowers are perfect, meaning they are both female and male and can therefore pollinate themselves. Bees would do this by default except that it is February and there aren't any bees and if there were it wouldn't matter anyway since the tree is inside.

I tried to act as a bee and hand pollinate the flowers myself.

The kid at the hardware store told me when I bought the tree that they had gotten one grapefruit the year before. I doubt they knew it needed a little help and one managed to get fertilized either by the wind, the pot being moved, a wayward insect or just plain happenstance.


Whatever the case, I am endeavoring to fertilize as many buds as possible. It would be nice to get fresh fruit off of an indoor plant.