Also wanted to add, when I got it there were two tiny starts of lemons but I think those died too.

could be cold damage if the leaves werent brown. after a few hard freezes this winter, the leaves on my oranges dried and fell off, still green.

is it in a south facing window? it'll need maximum light.

You need to figure out if your plant was over or under watered, or if the problem comes from another direction. The kind of potting soil you use can have a direct influence on proper watering, for example.

Chicago, a few photos helps if you can post them. I would make sure your container is large enough, and it has well-draining potting soil. Lots of discussion on this forum about the best potting soil for citrus, both commercially available and mix-yourself. Also, it is well worth investing in a moisture meter. You can get a nice one just about anywhere - big box stores, Walmart, your local nursery. That way, there's no guessing. If the moisture meters reads below 50%, it's time to water. I would carefully re-pot your little tree and carefully look at the roots to make sure they're in good shape, not rotten or circling the pot. If they're in good shape, but circling, you'll want to trim them, as they'll just continue to grow in a circle and strangle the tree. Placing it in a nice sunny window is a good thing, and eventually when the weather allows, you can move it outside to filtered sunshine, then full sun as it atclimates to the outside and full sun.

Patty S.

I forgot to mention this is a dwarf meyer lemon...

I did repot it because I thought that the pot size might be why it had lost its leaves.

I don't think it's cold damage as it was inside the warm house.

Here are two photos of it:

http://www.chicagocanine.com/photos/meyerlemon.jpg

http://www.chicagocanine.com/photos/meyerlemon2.jpg

Yikes. Looks like it might be buried too deeply, for one thing. I can't really tell much about the potting medium from the images. Does this ceramic pot have adequate drainage holes?

I repotted it after the leaves fell off, so I may have planted it to deep then but the leave were already gone.
The pot has a hole in the bottom, I also put some rocks in the bottom to keep the drainage open.

Hi, I think you should be able to see the top of the major roots right where it comes off of the trunk. The soil should be a well draining soil too. I would put large pieces of pine bark and a lot of perlite into your soil mix. I bought my first citrus a couple of years ago and did the same thing. I bought the home depot miracle grow citrus mix and repotted into a larger pot and the meyer lemon tree dropped all its leaves and that spring had nothing but flowers that dropped the next day. I put it back into the original smaller pot with good draining soil and it eventually recovered.

As for those rocks in the bottom, they won't improve drainage. I know that sounds strange but it's a matter of soil physics.