Where are you located? Must be somewhere near me. I'm in Alachua County and we had some crazy temperature swings here in late Feb and early March. One of my trees has also lost its leaves and I was thinking the temp. swings could have been a factor, though some here say it could be root rot. Citrus doesn't like temp. fluctuations. Did you have the wild swings from 80 to freezing and back over a few days?

Yup, Mike, it's a double edged sword for us. Perfect weather to grow citrus, and my extremely neglected Meyer Lemon is a perfect example. I stopped counting the fruit on the 8' semi-dwarf at around 150-200. This is Lemon Country for sure, lol!! But, people aren't the only critters who love to live here :-) Because we don't have any hard freezes, bugs proliferate all year round. Rats hang around, too, along with ground squirrels, pocket gophers and rabbits. I have to put snake fencing up to keep the rattlers out, but that also keeps out our wonderful San Diego Gopher Snake, that is the #1 predator of all the rodent varmits, unfortunately. So, I have to take a multi-pronged approach to keeping unwanted harmful vistors from my trees, and without excessive harm to the environment, bees, hawks, snakes and my dog. I'm going to have to set up bait stations in my trees and on my chain link fence, and hope that the rats go under a bush to die. If a hawk picks up a dying rat or a snake nabs it, they'll also succumb to the poison. Not so great. And the water issues down here make it really expensive to have large yards or run a commercial orchard (hence the demise of the orchard behind me - they were fined out of existence by the Water Authority). My water bill is between $400 and $600, and I'm on drop, have water wise landscaping and almost no lawn. And, our entire neighborhood, every home having at least one citrus tree (more like 3 to 10) is battling CLM. I had to laugh about a the definition of serious infestation being at 40% of new flush. Mine is 100% as is everyone else in the neighborhood. But, regular spraying every 3 weeks with Spinosad and Volck Oil will get this under control. I'll have to do one round now, and then again, in spring or when I see a flush, which can happen if we get a little heat wave in the winter. I have complete respect for commercial citrus growers out here. I don't remember it being this bad growing up as a kid. Not sure why we're having all these issues. I'm sure it's linked to climate change in some way, and that stuff like this is cyclical in nature. So, "this too shall pass", I'm sure, eventually! Until then, it's sure a lot more work to grow a citrus tree in the ground out here. But,I could be hauling in trees to a greenhouse, so I really can't complain too loudly!! Once I get everything in and set up, I'll post a pic. Patty S.

No, 1-stop is Matt and not Derrick. I have ordered with buy it now or won the bid on Matt's plumerias for many years and have always been happy with what I got and when it blooms it is the right flower. Can not say the same for Derrick. Barb

kcandmilo - congratulations on the nice start to the spring flush! It appears that your young trees finally got some "traction" as I call it. I had a similar experience in that my young trees appeared dormant and did not attain traction until after I increased the fertilizer dosage (using AS) - and irrigation. Let me throw out a word of advice... save your money on the fancy specialty fertilizers by delaying their application until the trees start bearing some fruit. Most of their needs right now are N (from the AS) and water. When the fruit appears, and in years after bearing a heavy crop, the ratios mentioned in multiple posts above rise in priority and amounts. BTW: I just threw down more AS yesterday in anticipation that it be watered in by last night's rain. the 1/4" of rain was perfect! And, the coming warm days forecast (65-70F+) will increase the root uptake of nutrients... and subsequently goose the flush. However, I am nervous about the string of frosty mornings this week damaging the new growth... 31F yesterday, 34F today... 32F during the week in my areas. Its warmer in Palo Alto so you should be in great shape : - ) I will post a clarification to my earlier post of feeding with AS weakly weekly in your other thread... There are details I left out of my regimen - primarily for brevity's sake. - Happy flushing - George