First a little background. These are two Meyer Lemons (Improved) that I have been growing for maybe 20 years. They are currently in a greenhouse, but spent the early years in small pots inside the main house. They were recently in black plastic 18” diam pots and they started doing poorly a year or so ago. Symptoms are heavy leaf drop, leaves yellowing between green veins before they drop. I attributed the problems to being root bound (had not xplanted them in a few years). So I transplanted them and a few other GH citrus a couple of months ago. I used my own mixed 5-1-1 soil mix. The other citrus, also in this mix, are doing well, so I won’t think it is the soil mix causing the problem.
I realize that yellowing between green veins can be a symptom of lack of available moisture, either from insufficient watering and/or roots failing to absorb the water (root rot, etc). So I got a moisture meter, and test the soil prior to watering; I try to let it get to dry on the meter before each watering.
What I have seen after the xplanting is the lemons have been sending out A LOT of flower buds, but no leaf/stem shoots. And the yellowing/dropping leaves continues. The other xplanted citrus are sending out both flower buds (in more reasonable numbers) as well as sending out new leaf/stem shoots which are doing fine.
I am at a loss as to what is wrong with these lemons. Do Meyer Lemons flower for a few weeks before they send out new leaves? Might I still have the water all wrong? What can cause a Meyers Lemon to make a bunch of flowers but no leaves? Something else going on here?
Any ideas or questions from the citrus experts here? Happy to provide more details, just ask.
I tend to see that on my citrus if they are stressed. I just do everything you did (check water, soil, fertilize, root prune, etc) and in time it’ll put on new growth. Meyer lemons can be complete divas, lol. I have a five year old one that literally didn’t put on ANY growth whatsoever during all of 2025 (mad at me for putting it in-ground as an experiment fall/winter 2024, so survived outside but dropped all its leaves). I put it back in a pot spring of 2025 but it is only NOW finally putting on some green growth.
Have you tried soaking them? I keep most of my potted plants soaking basically all the time, but they dry out quickly due to our heat. So saucers under each pot help keep me from watering daily. I would think a good solid soak and some nitrogen (fish emulsion) would help quite a lot. But citrus don’t take being moved around too happily, defoliation with lack of ample sunlight is quite common during the winter months.
Some photos would really help, also I would suspect scale caused them to defoliate. My in ground citrus give me almost zero problems, but the potted ones tend to be scale magnets.
Thanks to all. Here’s some more info, and some pics.
FWIW, I do not see any bugs on the citrus, but have to admit I am not that familiar with citrus specific bugs and diseases, In general the GH they are in has some white fly issues, but I don’t see them on the lemons (they hang out on other plants they prefer more).
A few more details on the watering/soil thing. Back when xplanted these to bigger, fabric pots I teased out some outside roots from the old root ball but did not attempt to wash off all the old soil. So this old root ball (which was pretty full of roots) was just put into the new pot and surrounded with new 5-1-1 mix. Now when I test with the moisture meter, The 5-1-1 on the outside tends to dry out in a day or so, but the old root ball stays fairly moist. I have been watering only at the perimeter of the pot, thinking that the old root ball would dry out some, but that does not seem to be happening.
Here are a couple of pics, showing the yellowing leaves and flowers/buds. Note on the second pic, leaves on this stem are yellowing and in bad shape, nonetheless it is forming a flower bud.
I have 2 of these lemons, and have been considering trying letting one dry out much further than I usually do to see if that helps. Also considering trying the opposite, watering much more than usual. As you might guess, I am pretty much stumped and grasping at straws here…
