Hello! Here is my tale of woe, the story of me and what used to be a healthy, happy, Meyer lemon tree. I'm posting the info and photos in hopes that someone can take a look and advise. I will try to keep it brief - this has been a four-year saga so far. I hope this is not the end!

Here it is now:

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The trunk is pretty big:

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How it got this way:

2006: Moved into the house and inherited a beautiful, happy, established Meyer lemon tree from the previous owners. I don't know how old the tree was at that point. It had beautiful foliage, blossoms, green lemons and yellow lemons all at once.

2007: Since the tree is wedged between a fence and the deck, I decided to cut it back a little so that I could walk around the tree more easily. I researched 'pruning' on the web and mis-interpreted some info. I read that thinning some inner branches was good to help more air circulate throughout the tree. I started pruning, and pruning, and pruning...

And way overdid it. The tree lost most of its leaves after that. :(

I started feeding the tree every 3 months with this:

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2008: Spring - some new leaves grew and the tree put out blossoms. But it did not have many leaves, and the flowers did not set fruit.

2009: Tree blossomed again and started setting fruit. I was so happy! I finally went to a nursery to ask if having yellow wood was normal. The tree still did not have as many leaves as it should, and they were never dark enough:

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2010: Spring - Many of the flowers did turn into yellow lemons, but the tree still did not have many leaves, and it only put out TWO blossoms. Back to the nursery. I bought different fertilizer:

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Put the fertilizer on two weeks ago and watered thoroughly. It seems like the result has been DISASTROUS. The remaining few leaves have dried up to crisps and fallen off:

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Also, the fruit on the tree changed texture, becoming a bit spongy:

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Poor tree! I am watering it once a week. Our soil drainage is not great and I know how important that is, but the tree was very healthy before, so I think it is still recovering from the severe over-pruning (I have since been told that citrus don't like to be whacked).

Speculation? Advice? I took most of the fruit off the tree today and will probably remove the rest so that it can focus on growing some leaves, I hope.

Thanks for reading!

Trisha