Matt, I assume Upland is a bit warmer and drier than Glendale. I would guess that sun overheats black nursery pots the same. I have potted a bunch of Citrus. About half of them will stay in pots and the rest will be added to the old orange grove behind my house. Several have gone to friends. I currently have 46 citrus in pots. I'm mostly learning from things that did not work out well. It's too early to tell what works well over many years in this climate. For the dry inland areas of SoCal I would just use Armstrong Cactus & Citrus mix IF that citrus will be repotted in a couple years or will go in the ground,. I would use some of Al's wicks, particularly if the pot isn't terracotta. The actual "Al's Gritty Mix" worked better in the extended rain that happens occaisionally in SoCal. Typical SoCal "winter", we might have rain for 3 days straight and then a week later it is 80 degrees and dry. The problems happened when the days got long, with temps near 100 and dry. The needed LOTS of watering on hot days. On the few sizzling days that were dry, I came home mid day and watered those in addition to every morning and every evening. I started collecting citrus two years ago potting some permanently and some to plant after the grove is ready for them. I read lots of info on water flow in containers, most of it from Al and his patient answering of questions. The guy is a genius and a saint. I tracked down Laguna Hills Nursery that had helped me so much 30 years ago. His soils are 1:1 Pumice & Peat and 6:3:1 Pumice, Peat, Sand. What he calls sand is coarser than the sand you find at the local BORG. I ended up doing an entire range of potting techniques, and documented each in order to see how they worked. For citrus going into pots that will stay in pots semi-permanently, I have settled on a mix. I probably won't know how well it works until it has gone a few more years. I'm using a mix of 2:1:1 of Turface, Armstrong Fine Orchid Bark, and a third component. The third component is fine gravel at the bottom of the pot but is gradually replaced by pumice at the top for more water retention at the top. In the big pots I'm doing I am blending components 4-7 times for one container so the change is very gradual. Pay attention to Al's advice on not trying to use all gravel at the bottom followed by a potting mix above. I remove the loose nursery organic mix and loosen the roots but I don't bare root it as I was having too much shock, at least in hot weather. I'm gradually adding mix and using the hose with a water breaker on it to loosen the roots and blur the nursery mix into the semi-gritty planting mix. I ended up getting tired of screening Turface AVP. I did some testing on Turface Pro League and found the particle size is slightly smaller than Al suggests. It has no fines that fall through insect screen. I did testing to see if it had any perched water table as Al warned against. The particle size, which seems to mostly be from 1/12" to 1/8", will perch less than 1/4" of water. That becomes zero in Terracotta but plastic and sealed concrete get Al's wicks to remove that. I would have had to screen one ton of Turface AVP to get the 1000 pounds of Turface that I'm using. After testing AVP and Pro League, I bought a pallet of Pro League. This is clearly not Al's Gritty Mix but it is gritty-ish. There is way too little fines to plug up the gaps in the large particles and the very small perched water table is dealt with. I have no doubt Al's Gritty is a better choice in most of the country.

Yes: My Opinion is that due to too much warm in the Garage they leafed too early,and fig that leaf too early develop all kind of Problem later. I had trees in my unhited garage but they are still dormant now. Falling first crop figs is normal for most varieties. Get allarmed if figs that appear on new grouth,fall off.Regards

Hi mistymorn & deejaus thanks for your responses. As I said, we did the kelp solution and then followed deejaus' suggestion with gypsum. I'm pleased to say the trees are doing fine - the new growth at the tips(which I thought would've been most vulnerable) survived well, and more has started. Also, regrowth is occuring where the leaf stalks fell off the branches. Even 2 of the foxtail palms seem like they'll survive - same thing new fronds and the growth spear survived while older fronds truned brown and died. They didn't get much exposure at all, but since they are a mountain/rainforest plant maybe they are more sensitive. Anybody know why the new shoots weren't affected? Regards Greg

Thanks everyone for pointing me towards some major causes, specific comments below: Tim - I hear you on the watering. I wish it drained better. The soil is incredibly dense clay. When it's dry, it's rock-hard, and it takes some effort with a mattock to slowly chip away. It holds moisture like nothing else (the opposite of sandy, fast-draining!). I can brush away the thin layer of bark mulch after two weeks and the soil is still damp underneath. I'm worried about root rot if I water more often, and not providing deep soaks if I cut back on the quantity to match the increased frequency. Thoughts? John - I think you are right on. The alkalinity is having a major impact. Interestingly, the iron deficiency will cause foliar absorption of other micronutrients to suffer as well. I was reading up more, and I need to find out what semi-dwarfing rootstocks these trees are on. The Meyer lemon is on a standard rootstock, and it appears really healthy and pushing out new growth (with nothing else different from the other trees). The standard rootstock tolerates slightly higher pH and salinity. The trifoliate rootstock (if that's what they're on) wants sub-6 pH if the literature is accurate, but the soil around the rootball is up around 8.5 (and the tap water is pushing 9.5). Have you connected fertigators into your irrigation system to inject vinegar at some consistent rate? Brett - Good suggestion with the Azalea/etc-type fertilizer. Long-term, I'd really like to move to almost fully organic approach to tending the trees. In the near-term, I recognize I might have to correct some serious imbalances. I'm working some Azalea fert., elemental sulfur, and (recommended by a horticulturist acquaintance who deals with the local landscapes) soil conditioner in the form of humate (which should add more sulfur/iron). Michael - I'm also planning to pick up some EDDHA chelated iron to use as a soil drench to help get the trees through their current struggle while I work on adjusting the soil. Seems the other, more common, forms of iron chelate are less effective (EDTA, HEDTA, DTPA all get bound by soil above pH 7 according to http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/m/#publication?id=SS423 ). And long-term synthetic usage is a challenge to soil ecology. Again, thank you everyone. I'll update as things adjust from these attempts to improve the conditions.