I know this'll mean nothing, but hey, maybe someone will think it's "good news"...

While the soil does appear darker to me, personally, a moisture metere that I hardly ever use reads the soil as a 5/6 on a scale of 1-10 from Dry to Wet. It's brand name is "Hold All". I hardly ever used it, mostly because I usually use weight and my finger to check plants to see if they need water.

I hadn't watered him at all in about 8 days, but my experience is a tree that size doesn't need water more than once every 2 weeks... unless I've been underwatering him.

Thank you for any advice. I thought I was well researched when I got the tree, but I guess I'll need to do even more. It's growing! That's a small testiment to me, right? That it's got more leaves now, than when I first bought it? -_- Thank you.

Apologies for the triple post --

it seems that the soil that my tree is in, is quick draining enough that it's less soaked now than it was a few hours ago. I'm not as worried about it now, as I was then.

I've been descaling it now with laytex gloves, q-tips and rubbing alcohol for something like four hours. Before that, I washed the tree down for an hour in the bath tub with a shower nozzle set to jet -- takes longer when you don't have the water pressure.

What got me in a panic, was a slight change in color when I finished spraying down the plant. After the slight paranoia wore off, it finally occurs to me what the *most likely* culprit for the 'color change' is. Cleaner leaves. :lol:

Many of the lower leaves were covered in a light crust of sooty mold, it hadn't killed 'em off yet, but it did curl them and make them very dull. Since the sooty mold was more or less removed, they appeared lighter. Not 'green', because the mold paled the leaves a bit.

It's hard to eye my tree for signs of distress, since it's pretty much been under distress since far back before I purchased it. However, I'll keep an eye on it for.. erm, further distress.

I will make a few casual observations about my tree after having examined each leaf, stem, and thorn repeatedly over several hours....

First, the leaves grow really really fast, and I'm not fertilizing. It's kinda impressive, a node of leaves I know to be new, has doubled and tripled in size over the course of a few days. Second, the tree perks up very very quickly as leaves are actually uncurling in front of me.

So, I guess I'll say one thing that'll help out fellow newbies, should they search for 'scale' or 'overwatering' in the future.

The best thing about descaling by hand, with a q-tip and rubbing alcohol, is you get to know your tree really really well. It becomes very easy to tell when you're getting new growth, and you're so familiar with it, you can tell just by looking if it's in distress or feeling better.

There, silver lining. How uncharacteristic of me.

You did not over water the tree from an hour of cleaning. Way to short of a time to worry about. I many times let some of my citrus trees (52) set directly in buckets of water for an hour or more and just soak. I have forgotten trees over night with no problem. - Millet

I imagine it depends on the potting medium, how long it'd take to overwater a tree. I watered him quite throughally last Monday, so it was 8 days ago I gave him a good solid water. I can't tell at a glance what his medium is made of, but it does appear sandy... and I'm tempted to say there's charcoal in there, but like I said, I can't tell just by looking.

I read on many sites that a meyer should be watered a few times a week, but I'm hesitant to do so. Since I don't know how well the medium drains yet, and I don't know what the medium actually is... and all the plants I've had that were this size, throughally resented being watered more than once a month... I wind up watering less. Maybe I should start using that awful moisture meter. This early in the game, I'll be experimenting a lot with watering.

Perhaps the unthinkable has happened and I'm one of the rare few that underwater?

Sounds to me that your tree wants to have a drinking problem LOL! As long as this tree of yours is draining good, it's being flushed out then thats a good thing! Like Millet said,you didn't over water your tree.And citrus liked to have their leaves sprayed down this will also help with the humidity it needs.***Suzanne

Grah, only a few hours until I leave town for 4 days, and white mould is growing on the top of the soil. I had fungus gnats recently in a couple of house plants, I don't want them going out of control while I'm away. I did what you did, Millet, I put them in a bucket and forgot about them, and they molded over and grew me some gnats. They didn't take over the house because I was right on top of them and sprayed for them daily, as well as made sure the soil dried out completely. I'm wary of the tree sitting here, ungaurded, while I'm away.

I've sprayed the soil with some water that contains a few droplets of dish soap, a couple table spoons of listerine, and water. It's the same thing I use on my orchids, since it's relatively mild (and I have it).

The tree itself is mildly discolored, but nothing seems to be crusting up and dropping off. Three new leaf sets are there today, and they seem just peachy. Bright green and glossy, just as they should be.

I use the listerine because it's a milder form of rubbing alcohol with a bit of antibacterial in it, in case you're wondering.