Post this in the citrus section.

Thanks for all of the input. Bmelz, I suspect over watering also. Every time I put the moisture meter in it goes to WET. The fact the we have been getting rain every few days hasn't been helping dry it out either. I was afraid I was killing the roots. My blueberry plants where also suffering. They were all in a mix of 30% sand 30% Pete moss 30% miracle grow potting soil. Trying to save the container plants I came across the 5-1-1 recipe prior to checking back on this thread. I transplanted the lemon trees into a 5-1-1 mix and the blueberries into the mix minus the lime. I had to make two batches the first batch I let soak overnight the second batch was rushed with no soaking just a dry mix. The tall tree is actually just the root stock the meyer part died. I am going to grow it out and air layer clone some of the bigger sections to get them ready for grafting some bud wood on. I plan on taking some bud wood off the meyer and I have some kishu mandarin budwood coming in September. When I transplanted the rootstock roots were very large probably occupying 50% of the container. The smaller meyer roots were occupying 25% of container. I was afraid to work on the roots too much but I shook off most of the dirty but it still contained some deep in the center and I was hesitant to really get in there out of fear of damaging the roots. I put them in the new mix and gave a dose of osmocote plus and watered thoroughly. The 5-1-1 mix seems to work pretty good so far now even right after a vigorous watering it reads on the low end of wet but quickly moves to the moist zone. Currently the meyer tree is much smaller and has fruit set. I was thinking of taking the fruit off to help it recover from transplant and focus on growing bigger. Do you guys think that will increase the vegetative growth or should I leave them on? Thanks for the feedback Vlad, Laura, Meo, Bmelz!

Hi HU, citrus blooms can be triggered by stress. After a period of stress "drought" they may bloom. How many times per year depends on the cultivar of citrus. The larger the size of the fruit of the cultivar the fewer number of blooms. Some limes and lemons, for example, can produce up to four times a year, while the citrus blooming season for those big navel oranges is only once in the spring. There is a plethora amount of hack videos on the web about how to pollinate citrus for a bumper crop. The videographers all state this a necessity indoors. Its all BS. I tried it once with the tiniest artist paintbrush I could find and it knocked off 80% of everything I touched. Most citrus are self pollinating. I have a bummer crop of sweet oranges from last November that all bloomed indoors with no help from me to pollinate. Two of my trees have about 16 full size sweet oranges between them. 3'rd tree is the same cultivar and dropped all its fruit. My 4'th orange tree is a different cultivar and did not bloom last year. I harvested fruit last fall and again they bloomed indoors the year before and were never hand pollinated. https://www.walterreeves.com/food-gardening/pollination-requirement-and-seeds-in-citrus/

The hamster bedding is aspen wood shavings. ==>>> this is probably a big part of the problem .. though im not researching aspen to verify such .... but .. generally ... raw wood is not good in a pot ... as it breaks down... it can leach nitrogen from the pot.. as well as steal too much water ... not to mention potential causing mushrooms ... which might not be a problem.. but usually not something you want in your pots ... it also can bind with other things.. ruining the water movement thru the media .. many mixes including the cactus mix ... have relatively larger chunks of wood.. that does not do such ... such as pine bark ... its apples and oranges ... when i say a sip of water ... i mean that there is water flow thru the media.. and straight out the bottom ... the tree just sipping as little as it needs.. as the majority flows thru .. and what little is retained by the products in the media that are there to retain enough to be happy ... as compared to many water loving houseplants ... that are near bog like or aquatic ... and barely mind standing in water that never drains out.. e.g. a pot with no drain hole ... not many.. if any trees like standing in excess water ... now.. all this said.. from a variety of sources ... basically all agreeing ... you are back to the fact ... that citrus trees are full sun outdoor plants ... and not easy to grow.. indoors.. long term ... one reason for the need for full sun are those huge luscious fruits ... you simply cant get those indoors .. short of a lot of experience.. and a lot of supplemental light .. my point being.. if you are a bit of a newb... you are starting with one of the hardest plants to work with ... which is probably how most of us started ... but if you fail ... just try again ... and again .... and soon enough.. 30 years down the line.. you will be in some forum.. sharing your experiences and knowledge ... but dont get tied up to much on this particular plant ... you will win.. or you will lose.. and so be it.. thats what gardening is all about ... repot it in proper media in late winter.. 4 to 6 weeks before it can go back outside .. which would be about 4/1 in our MI [because it cant go out until mid to late may due to frost/freeze issues] ... so that it has that amount of time to settle down from the stress of repotting ... and then take it out into full bright shade ... im thinking your pot might not be big enough for direct sun .. harden it off properly ... or you will sunburn all the leaves off ... have fun.. and good luck ken ps: premoisten and sterilize your media before repotting .. to insure there arent any bugs or pathogens inn it.. easier to start hyper clean.. than to have to fix a gnaty problems ... https://tipnut.com/sterilize-soil/