Kaffir Lime tree

Good afternoon all
I wondered if someone would be kind enough to give me some advice.
I have a kaffir lime tree - smallish thing (used to be bigger... ahem..) anyway, I took it outdoors a little early this year and forgot about it. We had a wee bit of a cold snap and it dropped every leaf it had. I took it back indoors into conservatory but all that happened was that all the branches went brown. I waited for a while to see if anything would happen... I wasn't sure if it was just the temperature or if it had become diseased... so I pruned all the brown branches off and was basically left with a stick in a pot... Anyway, I kept giving it a wee bit of water in the greenhouse and now some leaves have started to sprout from the trunk... will it live?

 

It looks to me like there is a graft just below the top new shoot.
Yes it will live, I'd carry on whatever you are doing and see how it develops.

 

Pete's right..it's probably double-grafted, so the top shoot is kaffir lime and the lower ones are rootstock. You can see by the shape of the leaves...kaffir limes are sort of 'double'.
Keep giving it just a drop of water and let it drain freely (no sitting in a saucer of water!). A weak feed of Miracle-Gro will get it going now the temperatures are good. Once that top shoot is growing strongly, rub off the lower ones so they don't take over.

 

Thanks guys... I wondered why the bottom leaves were not double as expected..

 

So probably a daft question... what would the lower plant have been? The leaves are thin and sharply pointed... if I let one shoot grow, will it reduce the chances of the stuff above the graft scar thriving?

 

Probably a citrus, but one that roots easy from cuttings and maybe have some resistance to root pests.
Many years ago I used Poncirus trifoliata as a rootstock for clementine plants.
I dont think yours is Poncirus though as the leaves of that are very distinctive.

Personally the curiosity in me would make me leave one shoot just to see, if that shoot starts to take over, as it may well do, you can always cut it off later.

 

Agree with Pete that yours is unlikely to be Poncirus. Probably bitter orange. If you want to maximise the chances of your kaffir lime, be ruthless and rub out the lower shoots! All the while the rootstock's sprouting, it's at the expense of the grafted plant

 

Could i maybe take a cutting off one of the other shoots just to see?

 

That was my reason for leaving one and letting it develop a bit and then maybe root it, it needs to become woody before you can root it.

But as Noisette says it will hold back the Kaffir lime shoot.

 

I'm sure it will... but I'm not in a hurry...

 

Snicked off all extraneous shoots except for the largest one... both it and the kaffir lime shoot getting really big...

 

Couldn't wait any longer - other one is getting too big so I snicked it off- saying that, so is the "proper" one, so I am very pleased. Honestly thought I'd killed the poor thing - no leaves, brown stems... but hey - I don't normally name my plants but I think this one will be called Lazarus...

 

Well done for taking the plunge! Kaffir Limes are pretty tough as citrus go
He'll be looking like this in no time....

 

I'm actually shocked at not only the fact that it seems to have come back from certain death, but that the shoot that I have allowed to grow is becoming so large. It is being kept in the greenhouse at the moment anyway - Our "summer" isn't up to much right now...

 

I was going to suggest a small stick for support to the new shoot.
Often when they grow rapidly like that they can become over tall and get knocked off before they harden up.