You should not have to coddle your citrus trees, they should have been shipped at the right time for your zone and zip code. Their fault and they know it. The tree on the right, is still green, BUT is the tiny branches start turning brown its all over. I have hope for the other tree.
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The one with the red tag should recover but the one on the right is extremely thin so its highly probable that it will die. You should definitely file a complaint with four winds to get a refund or replacement for these trees.
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Iām so excited! My one and only potted tree that I still drag in and out of the house twice a year is a Meyer Lemon that is coming up on its 3rd spring. It budded out about 2-3 weeks ago and now has 3 open blooms!!! Sadly, I donāt have any south facing windows and really no windows that receive any direct sunlight, so my tree really does poorly in winter - dropping a lot of leaves, etc. So it really worries me how well it will be able to support blooms and perhaps small fruits between now and when it can get real sun again- which will be 3 months or so. I have it pushed up against a window so its getting a little light but not really much if any direct sun.
Is there anything I should do to help it? Should I fertilize it now as it is starting to open blooms?
I am going to use a feather and do my best to hand pollinate, but I donāt know much about how to do that- though I understand the principles so I guess Iāll get it done.
Also, should I rotate the whole plant every few days so that different sides/parts of the plants will get whatever sun does get through the window? That seems to make since, on the other hand I worry that it might somehow disorient the plant since in nature the same sides of a tree obviously always face the same directions.
Finally, just a neat observation : Its mind blowing (and fun) how strong and wonderful these blooms smell. So far there are only 3-4 fully open blooms, and they are small, yet the whole room has that wonderful, sweet smell!!! This is some great scent making!
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You will need a grow-light.
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I was hoping you might offer some adviceā¦I know you love your meyer lemons and had a lot of success.
I honestly hadnāt even thought about a grow light for some reason! That makes sense and Iāll try to get one. Of course if I leave the plant in my window and put the grow light there, my neighbors will be telling the home town that Iām growing pot! haha.
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Ha!
Leaf drop when moved indoors is most often a result of cooler root temps leading to water shortages at the leaves. Citrus roots donāt really do much below 50F or so, and the typical scenario is indoors is the plant gets sun early in the day and the leaves need water but the roots are still too cool to provide it, so the plant drops the leaves. There is a lot written on this on the various indoors citrus forums. Not sure if this is a factor for you Kevin, as you say its not in a S facing window, but might be worth investigating.
Various āfixesā for this include putting Xmas light around the pot to warm it some, or painting one side of the pot black and facing the black side to the sun in winter, etc.
That is super interesting and worth investigating. But the plant is actually inside the living area of my house, not a garage, etc, so it should be around 68 degrees all the time. That being said, its in a part of the house I donāt use that much and which does get cooler so what you describe could be a factor. I may move it to a warmer room, make sure it stays watered, and see if it helps. Thanks!
I am not sure that this is the cause for you, but it applies to many folks that move their Meyers Lemons inside in their living room or the like for winter. Typically the issue comes about because the window the lemon is by does not go all the way to the floor, so only the leaves get sun. And even though you are probably keeping you home space above 50F, in winter by an outside wall the root ball may be getting down into the 50ās. And even if the sun can hit the pot, it will take longer for the soil to heat up than for the leaves to want to start working.
You can test the soil temps with a kitchen instant read thermometer when the sun is first up to see if this might be involved here.
I sometimes use warm water. Dunno how much help that is.
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I do this for my coffee and jaboticaba plants when I bring them in the house for the winter (they are in the greenhouse in summer, but it gets too cold in there in the winter), and Iāve noticed more vigorous growth since I started using warm water. Could be a coincidence, but it seems like causation and not just correlation to me. My citrus stay in the greenhouse, but they do mostly look a little sad and pale by the end of winter. Maybe I should try bringing warm water out to them, too!
This year I tried winter lights (3 hrs am and pm) and a foil backdrop. At my 48.5 latitude, the sun barely clears wooded horizon for more than 4 hours. This setup seems to make a big difference in maintaining leaf color. Attached ghouse stays above 37F.
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I have a south facing window and wonder if my household LEDs in that room help the citrus at all. I, too, faced dropping leaves every year. It got better when I started using Oscamote Plus and Foliage Pro, but putting some of the fish tank water from weekly changes seems to work better. I skipped the fertilizers after bringing the pots in this year and I think these trees are as healthy as they have ever been indoors. The two changes were the fish water and proximity to the windows. My trees are further away from the windows this year. With the fertilizers I was still getting some leaf dropping and discoloration after bringing the trees indoors. These trees simply look healthy.
That is great information. I know everyone says use south facing window but that is the only side of my house that has no windows!
I also was interested in what you said about how you pulled your plant a little further from the window this years. I have mine pushed up against the window and based what others here have said about temperature, Iām wondering it that may be hurting me. Several of my limbs and leaves and literally pressed against the windor, and the pot (and roots) is only about 10 incheas from it. So the plant and roots may well be staying too cool even though the rest of the room is fairly warm (65-68f).
With all the focus on root rimps, I am wondering it I should set the pot on a heating pad? Maybe put a rug or newspaper between pad and pot so it doesnāt get TOO hot? I would imagine that would cause me to have to water more often but that isnt a problem.
I did fertilize about 10 days ago and that actually seemed in increase the leaf drop! So Maybe I should have done what you did this year and not fertilized at all, or maybe done it a week or two before bringing it inside.
Thanks again.
If you search the forum you can find the Top Fruit Nerd has used fish tank water on his Meyer Lemon for a couple of decades, but that he also fertilizes. I only started keeping fish in mid Spring 2022. My hunch is Oscamote Plus, FTW, and some good sunlight might be all you need for potted citrus. My Meyer Lemon looks perfect. The Calamondin looks healthy but not perfectly so. It has very slight discoloration.
Keeping the soil away from the wall where itās subject to more dramatic temperature swings may also be part of this.
Iād love to build a sunroom.
I know Iām going to feel like an idiot when you tell me, but what is FTW?
Fish Tank Water
yepā¦since youād been talking about it for several posts, I do feel pretty silly for not figuring that out! haha
You donāt fertilize when itās blooming, fertilize after fruit drop. Donāt over water!! Moist but not wet.
So Steve, I just wanted to come back and tell you how right I think you were when you said that the dropping leaves on my potted Meyer Lemon may be caused by cool soil temps. I understand that my one experience isnāt a statistically significant study and could be anecdotal, but I think its darn good proof that what you said is true.
You see, just a couple days after you told me that, I bought a heating pad and put it under my Meyer Lemon which had really been dropping a lot of leaves. Though it is indoors, its at the far end of my house in an area that doesnāt get as much heat, and it is pushed right up against a window, so no doubt it stays fairly cool. Also, as you guessed, that window doesnāt go all the way to the floor so what little sunlight it gets only hits the leaves. So I put the pot on the heating pad. I put a towel between the two so I didnāt overheat or cook it. ha. But I let it get pretty warm- to the point that the lower half of the pot is slightly warm to the touch, so no doubt the roots are too.
The results have been nothing short of amazing! Seriously, it continued to drop leaves about 1-2 more days, and those were probably leaves that had already been abandoned by the plant but just hadnāt dropped. But from the third day on, the entire tree - and it is a bushy, 3.5 foot plant so lots of green- had dropped exactly one other leaf. THAT IS IT!!
So, while I obviously canāt say with 100% certainly that cold roots are always the cause of leaf drop on Meyers Lemon trees brought inside for the winter, it certainly does seem to be the case with mine. One $15 heating pad honestly seems to have made a world of difference. Also, it had pretty much stopped putting out blooms by the time I put it on a heat pad, but after about 2 weeks on the heat pad new, tiny little flower buds started appearing all over again. The leaves have greened up a bit too. I just canāt say enough what a big difference this low heat seems to have made- at least in my case.
Thanks again for the tip!