Without a better description of the yellowing, it is hard to tell what the cause is, whether it is water related, a nutrient deficiency, a disease, graft failure, or what. Since you brought up spreading calcium sulphate on the soil, whatever gave you this idea may point towards your problem. It could be an iron deficiency. Did your early leaves have a good green color, then later growth came out yellowish, with each shot of new growth getting yellower, maybe to the point that some new leaves were almost white? Do the yellow leaves have a tendency to still have green veins? I think peaches and nectarines are more sensitive to this than some other common plants and trees. Soils found in dry climates, former lakebeds, or from certain parent materials tend to be alkaline and sometimes salty. Frequently, you will find your soil pH on alkaline soils runs between 7 and 8.5. As you go above 8.5 it gets very difficult to raise our common garden plants. To help reduce the pH and help free up the salts so they can be washed from the soil, calcium sulphate, commonly known as gypsum (found in sheetrock) is used. The sulphur reduces the pH, the calcium replaces the excess salts in the soil and allows them to wash out. This can be a long term process and can take a lot of gypsum over time if your soil has a large content of minerals promoting alkalinity. At pH around 8 or below, I find that most plants will do well although they may need some periodic help. What happens in alkaline soils is that iron is tied up and mineralized so that it is unavailable to the plants, even though it is often plentiful in the soil. When you lower the pH, the iron becomes available again. Rather than trying to convert your soil (you could use gypsum for modest adjustments), I would suggest you use iron sulphate, which lowers the pH temporaily and at the same time provides soluble iron available to the plants. New growth will begin coming out green again, although the yellowed leaves will never recover. Iron sulphate can be purchased in 25-50 lb. bags at fertilizer dealers, or as Ironite in your garden center. Spread a cup or two lightly around the base of the tree and several feet out, a rate similar to what you would use to put fertilizer on a lawn. DON'T get the iron sulphate on cement, rock, or other hard surfaces as it will almost permanently stain them rust colored when they get wet. (I've had this problem) You can also spray the tree with iron chelate to feed the leaves directly and get quicker results, but you have to keep spraying every couple weeks. To treat a tree in trouble, you might want to spray the tree once or twice and spread iron sulphate on the ground, then in the future, just spread some iron sulphate every year or two at the first sign of leaves starting to yellow. Before trying this, try to identify the cause. If your soils are alkaline, this won't hurt periodically, but it may be unnecessary if something else is...

Jades are tough, so it can be revived, but it's hurting bad if it dropped as many leaves as you say. I and other jade aficionados here use a "gritty mix" for our plants. The term can be used loosely when speaking about A gritty mix, verses THE gritty mix, if ya smell what I'm cookin'. If not, search this forum with the term "gritty mix" and you'll find details on Al's (Tapla) recipe for it. People have had great success with his recipe. I, as well as others, have altered that recipe over time with different ingredients, but the principle of the mix is what is most important. What do I use you ask? Well, my mix until this summer, was an equal mix of turface (screened at 1/16") and #2 cherry stone chicken grit. This year, I've altered it into 2 parts chicken grit, 1 part screened turface, and 1 part red lava pebbles (screened at 1/16" and 1/4"). This mix is not only providing good drainage and aeration, but it looks good too. I'll post a pic of it in a bit, so I don't lose all the jibba-jabba I just wrote. Joe

Lisa, thank you. The Key lime is lovely and is on it's third major bloom. Trouble is, so far none of the many little fruitlets have stayed on the tree. I guess that's normal for young trees, but it's frustrating! Dale, yes all the stems remain on the tree, so there is some kind of stress. I am moving to CHC's ASAP - I found a supplier about an hour drive from me but alas just found out they are closed on the weekend! I have a day off next week so will go pick some up then. Good tip on raising the pots. I did put a couple of bottle caps (since I had a few lying around) under the sides of the pots that are somewhat downhill, but I could probably do more. Thanks again. Scott

Hi, I have a washington orange tree(dwarf)about 4 feet tall in my backyard and i noticed that half of the branches were dying. It was healthy for a year and all of the sudden this things happened started 2 months ago. Most of the leaves turns yellow and small branches turns to brown. New fruits about 10 mm in size were falling. I watered my tree almost every other day. Applied citrus fertilizer and still not working. How could i keep my tree healthy? Thank you so much.