Michael: My trees are in Angleton, about 45 mi. south of Houston. Some are very ragged now. Citrus experts say you should not do any thing to the trees until later. If leaves or limbs are obviously blackened or dead brown you can trim them a little now. Do not trim back to the green wood until later, maybe May/June. You can use organic fert., like Microlife, now since it takes a while to break down and be useful to the trees. Or if you use chemical fert. wait till later this month. Then we should not have a killing freeze. Light freezes should not be too harmful. In 2002 it was 19 deg F in the first week of March. Some of my trees were blooming. In 1980 it was 25 deg F in Freeport, Tx near the Gulf on March 5. So we're not out of the woods quite yet but it wont be long.

Dogma is holding firm to the belief that something could neither be a conceptually or practically superior practice because you believe something else seems to be satisfactory - 'works for me'. Old beliefs are like a pair of old shoes - we often value their comfort so much we tend to ignore the fact they're full of holes. Almost everyone prefers the relative comfort of belief to the exercise of reason because believing is easier than reasoning; which brings us full circle to why there are so many more believers than thinkers. My $.02 I'm pretty sure you're not suggesting that a haphazard approach (a little of this and a little of that, even though I know neither what the plant needs nor what I'm giving it) is a superior approach to a well-reasoned supplementation plan. Discounting all reason because we're satisfied with the status quo is self-limiting by default. BTW - if Punky's trees are in pots (don't think that was made clear), moving closer to how nature does things is an exercise fraught with obstacles. Growing in the ground and growing in pots are widely divergent cultures. On a scale of 1-10 with growing in the ground being a 1 and hydroponic growing a 10, conventional container culture is probably a 7 or 8. Al

Update! So my I scoured other postings and found Mike's advice for adding vinegar to water when watering citrus. Before doing so I tested my water and the differing variations (tap alone, filtered alone, filtered + fertilizer, filtered + fertilizer + vinegar) for pH and hardness. My normal tap is neutral at 7. Fileted through the dehumidifier it is slightly more acidic at 6ish. So I tried one watering of the vinegar and fertilizer, and yes it certainly made my healthy leaves a deeper green, it did not resolve the leaf curl. In fact it got worse. I determined that this was not due to a vitamin deficiency, as no color is leaving the leaves. The leaves start by curling on both sides inward, then hardening from the outside tip inward, until it falls off the tree, felling hard and lacking moisture. I've lost probably 8-10 leaves in the last 2 weeks. I haven't watered in those two weeks. So I dug deep into the gritty mix and found that it was still wet down there, not just moist, but WET! I don't get it, this is what I was trying to avoid by switching over to the gritty mix. I have 10 drainage holes in the bottom of the plastic pot and water drains freely when the tree is watered. I rolled my pot over and gently nudged my tree out to confirm my suspicions - yep some mild root rot!. GRRRR! Needless to say I am disappointed. I had gone from watering the tree once a week with the 9-3-6 fertilizer which gave my tree blossoms, new leaf growth, even tiny fruit production, to depressing leaf drop no better than if I had left the tree in MG potting soil. I have the Gritty mix laying out so it can dry a bit, but I am hesitant to put my tree back into it. Any suggestions from anyone who has been very successful with the gritty mix? Should I add more granite to it? I'm thinking adding more of the Fir bark fines will only hold more moisture in the medium. I'm also thinking about giving the tree's root ball a trimming, not completely bonsai, but to allow some air in between the roots that have grown very close together. I'll post pictures.

Here it is the beginning of April and thought I would give you all an update on how my trees fared. I know it's long and wordy which I despise, but had to give details so others can learn. I have 3 trees in a bedroom which has a southern exposure with the window having mini blinds on it. On top portion of the window is also a half moon window which has louvered wood blinds. This bedroom gets natural bright light and can get uncomfortably warm because of the sun hitting the brick veneer of the house. The trees are a one year old New Zealand Lemonade, a Eureka lemon which had root rot 2 years ago and a 3 gallon W. Murcott which I received in November and is still in the original potting medium from Four Winds Growers. So now you know the environment the trees have been in since October. These trees have bloomed, set and dropped fruit, and grew new foliage. I watered sparingly and included Foliage Pro fertilizer at half strength. The only light given was from the window by manipulating the blinds to allow as much sun/light as possible to hit the leaves. The trees are still inside because they have been mite free all winter and see no point in them joining the other trees which do have red spider mites. I did not spray these trees with water for extra humidity throughout the winter. In the foyer, I have a Eureka lemon, 2 variegated minneola and a pink variegated Eureka. The room has the same sun exposure and the same type windows as the bedroom, but more of them. I watered them the same as the trees in the bedroom. Now these trees I have been putting outside as much as possible when the temps were above 50* because they are right next to the front door. I have been having a problem with spider mites with this group since February and did spray with Neem oil twice in early fall. I need to spray with Neem oil again, but there is no shade on this side of the house so I have been using the hose and spraying the trees with water when the weather is nice for the past few weeks. It temporarily solves the problem. The trees are currently in bloom and some have set fruit as well. Spray with Neem anyway? While the trees were inside, I did not spritz the trees for extra humidity. I only have been hosing the trees down outside only to control the spider mites. The last group of trees were kept in my sunroom. No grow lights used. They all did well with minimum watering which included Foliage Pro. I have a really big problem with red spider mites with this group and couldn't spray with water because the sunroom has very poor ventilation and I was afraid the humidity would encourage mold to grow on the walls if the trees had to be brought in. While in the sunroom, they all grew flower buds over the winter and started blooming in February/March. In the sunroom, I had a Meyer lemon tree. I kept this tree inside from October right next to the window and have been bringing it in and outside lately depending on the temps as to not shock it. It only goes outside if the temps are comfortable for me and brought in at night. It currently has bloomed and set fruit. It is inside right now and will go outside when I think it is right. I did hand pollinate the Meyer this year to see if it made a difference. I have lots of fruit thus far. We'll see how they fare with moving the tree in and out and bumping into the door frame. lol. Overall, I find it very interesting the trees did as well as they did. The sunroom windows only are on one wall and is full length. All of the them are now outside, except the lemon, and doing beautifully. The trees are blooming and setting fruit. I have not sprayed for the mites yet but have seen ladybugs, a lizard and a tree frog in the trees so hopefully, they are doing a good job with the pests. In conclusion, I have learned you DO NOT NEED GROW LIGHTS to overwinter your trees inside. You don't have to spritz them for humidity either. If you acclimate your trees earlier in the season to indoor temps/light than you have to, your trees won't drop their leaves. I learned that If the environment is the same indoors and outdoors, there is no leaf drop. My Meyer lemon proved that theory to be correct. My indoor temps of the house was kept 68* but periodically bumped up the heat depending on how cold I was. I did encounter a small problem with the mandarins though. I had to put them back outside in December to get the chilling hours they needed to increase the sugars in the fruit. While the trees were nice inside, the fruit was very bland tasting. They were juicy, but no flavor. So back outside they went until the fruit was harvested and then they all came back inside when the temps got close to freezing. I didn't anticipate dealing with that issue. I had very little leaf drop with them as well as I am assuming they are much hardier all around than the Meyer. Next year, another learning curve and more citrus tree shuffling in late fall/early winter as more trees will be fruit bearing age. Last year all my trees were in the sunroom, but I had less trees to contend with which is why I had to put a few in different rooms this winter. I had trees with a northern and southern exposure and they all did well with the exception of spider mites. What they all received since October/November was natural light, damp soil, liquid fertilizer at half strength, and temps moderately warm. I did temp the pots in the sunroom on very cold days and they ranged in the 50s. The room temps were in the same range as the pots with a few degrees difference. The temps in my bedroom and foyer never got below 65* so I know the pots were in the same range. I do live in middle GA so I don't know if my location made a difference or not, but figured I would throw that information in. I hope what I learned and shared will help others with their trees next winter. I am going to copy and paste all this information and put it into my citrus journal so if something happens to me, the recipient of the trees, will know what to do.