Please help me. I received my Meyers lemon tree in February two years ago. The first year I had 30 lemons and because there were so many lemons, most of my branches broke (I did try to support them). After that my tree never seemed to come back to its beauty. Several times all the leaves dropped off. Finally I cut it back to try and start fresh. Now I have new growth, some beautiful and some (on the old branches) very small; those are not growing and the leaves are curled. I love one bloom and no evidence of future blooms. I have truly enjoyed my tree but now find myself very frustrated. Do I need perlite in my soil? Should I cut down on the water (I have two of the "bulb" watering glasses? I leave in Tidewater Virginia. Help. (MeyersMike feel free to call me 757-289-8899 with any and all advice. Thank you everyone for sharing advice.

Sean, as long as your Vigoro has micronutrients, that's fine, but I would also hit it with a foliar application of Grow More Citrus Growers Blend. It is something you want in your "citrus arsenal" here in S. California. With all the heavy, cold rains we've experienced in the last 2 years, you're going to run into the same issue I have with citrus in the ground (my soil is mainly DG here in N. San Diego county near the coast): a leaching of micronutrients, especially magnesium. So, start with the Vigoro, but do make a foliar app with some micronutrients. You'll see the difference, promise :-) And Tim's right, no pruning for now. Wait until you obviously need to do some MINOR shaping. Remember, with citrus, pruning equals no fruit. Citrus produce fruit at the tips of their branches, so you're cutting off your next fruit crop when your prune! And Tim's advice about removing suckers is right on. Just break them off if they're soft. If they've hardened off, trim close to the rootstock. Our water isn't too alkaline here in San Diego county - about 7 to 7.6. Fine for citrus. But, for your little guy, acidifying the water with some vinegar and pouring it over the fertilizer may help prevent the micronutrients from getting locked out due to the alkalinity. You guy needs a bit of a rescue. Tim's advice is good. Once recovered, you probably won't need to acidify your water. You can also achieve this with your foliar application - acidifying the water you use to dissolve your Growers Blend in. When you pick up your moisture meter, pick up a decent pH meter (don't buy the cheapest one). It's worth having these in your gardening tools. I've had both my moisture meter and my pH meter for many years. Great tools to have! Patty S.

Actually, I didn't make that implication. I mentioned that foliar applications of nutrients have a place and can be effective, usually within a very narrow set of parameters, and to varying degrees depending on plant material, what nutrient is deficient, what you're using, how it's applied, often WHEN it's applied. A grower's program might be described as 'willy nilly' when the grower uses foliar applications of nutrients w/o answers to critical questions and especially when they don't even understand the questions, the answers to which determine efficacy. That's simply flying blind, and makes willy nilly is a fair adjective. Foliar aps of nutrients can't/don't work unless there is actually a deficiency of the nutrients you are supplying. In the case where multiple nutrients are being supplied, it's possible that a deficiency mighty be corrected at the same time a toxicity is being introduced because you're supplying a nutrient that is already amply available, which means that more of same has only the potential to limit. A well-reasoned approach to nutrition would find the grower answering a number of questions related to the potential to improve things or add to the number of factors that are potentially limiting. Absent tissue and or soil analysis, if foliar applications have a notable value when used on plants that can actually absorb nutrients from foliar applications, it lies more in its ability to act as an aid in identifying a deficiency than actually relieving one, but the act of applying a number of nutrients all at the same time eliminates any potential help from that quarter because when all is done, you won't likely have fixed the issue and still won't know which nutrient applied. Linda Chalker-Scott is a horticultural scientist with a PhD. She is probably most noted for helping the growing community by debunking horticultural myths, one of which is the assertion that foliar applications are an effective/efficient way to provide plant nutrition. How well and how thoroughly we qualify our offerings with facts rather than observations/statements that are often very subjective or biased serves not only to illustrate our grasp of the topic, it also serves to keep our credibility intact. When we actually have the best interest of the grower at the forefront and are providing reliable, well-qualified information, what sells it is our credibility. I've always limited myself to operating only within the limits of my knowledge, which is why whenever anything I say is challenged, I have all the facts I need at my disposal to back my offering. I never have to rely on selling my offering by using statements like "It works for me" or it might not be the best way, but ........ Dr Scott takes on the topic of Foliar Feeding, here. If you take the time to peruse her offering, you'll find her and my qualifying information amazingly close to the same, so it's not as though I'm a lone voice in the wilderness on this topic or operating beyond the limits of my knowledge. The crux of the issue is, it's very unlikely you'll gain any real traction via foliar feeding, and more likely you'll end up worse off than when you started, even if the plant ends up looking prettier (I qualified that statement above, too). I hope Dr Scott's offering helps us get to the point where we needn't keep belaboring this and similar points. Al

You absolutely don't have a magnesium deficiency but I wouldn't rule out toxicity until half-past tomorrow. When you overwinter citrus indoors and keep fertilizing the plant it will continue to push out new growth. The plant will consume itself using mobile nutrients which will accelerate leaf drop and twig dieback. Zone 9 you can sprint through the winter months indoors but in Zone 6 you have to be a distance runner and pace your plant through 8 months. Your plant is going to go from a wet/cold/warm environment to a dry/hot indoor environment without much sun and it is going to hate it. Giving a plant too much fertilizer is like giving an athlete steroids. It provides a quick benefit but it has long-term effects especially indoors.