Thank you hoosierquilt, but the potting mix is a citrus mix and drains extremely well. There is no problem with draining. Water runs right through it and out the bottom. I live near the coast. Some mornings are foggy, and as I said temperatures have been cool as of late and not getting much sun so the soil in all my plants is not drying at all. You can even see the moisture on the leaves. These pictures were taken early in the morning. Also, the roots are not sitting in water. The pot is elevated above the saucer so the pot (nor the tree) is even touching the saucer underneath. Both those issues are not the problem. I'm hoping it's just sunlight and once the sun starts shifting further north in a few weeks it will be fine. Thanks again. This post was edited by ariel.s on Tue, Jan 21, 14 at 22:55

Welcome Emily and Hello John! Emily, first and utmost, where do you live? When can you put your tree outdoors? That tree is small enough to wipe every leaf off with warm milk and water often. If it can't be oudoors for a while, I would watch your watering closly as John says. I must say it looks like it is in a great mix. Is that the 5.1.1 mix many here use? Mostly bark? Very porous? That was a great catch on your part, finding the mites. Most would not be aware of this factor so my hats off to you for controlling it. I would make sure it gets lots of sunlight at this point. even if it should drop all the leaves, at least the roots will stay strong and still push new growth accustomed to new light levels. I have many times actually plucked every leaf off just to have the tree come back bushier than ever. They are more resilient than one might think. I would of held back on fertilizing after an attack as so, because you don't want to encourage new growth in your warm , dry conditions unless you can figure a way to discourage mites from coming back to eat the fresh foiliage about to grow with 'constant' air movement aimed to blow towards under the leaves. Never shut your fan off and see if you can use a small table one with low speed. If I have had a mite infestation,I would actually snip of all the new growth until I can almost put them outside to be on the safe side from stragglers then treat and treat all summer so I don't bring them in the following fall. I always make sure the environment for mines are just right to reduce mites infestation possibilities. For instance. >If they are indoors, in my house, in a sunny window, I like to keep the room very cool with fans and moisture in which mites or any pests detest. >For those in the greenhouse, I fertilize regularly for new 'strong' growth along with moist air, and air that is constanly being moved my fans. I am not worried about spindly growth in this case or tender desirable leaves because they are getting all day sun and grow tougher. In there, I deliberately let temps drop to the 50's at night though again which mites despise. >At work, where conditions are very dry, I constantly wipe the leaves off those with warm milk and water, and shower them once in a while to keep the leaves clean. Keeping your tree in a well draining mix, in a full sunny south facing window, leaves clean, fertilizing very lightly to discouarge fresh tender foliage until you are ceratin you have no mites, will help your tree make a full recovery in time for outdoors. Please, don't fret if those leaves fall off, since many citrus shed leaves anyway for various reasons. As long as you are not loosing branches due to root issues caused by over or under watering or a poor soil mixture, it will come back strong once it sees the great outdoors if not sooner:-) Mike

I think the comment about a new thread was directed at hottina44 and their question about indoor lighting. That was off topic. alex_g76, Some of those metals are perhaps toxic to mammals when ingested in too high a dose, but that is not the same as with plants. The plants will only take up what they need and leave the rest. Besides, if you look at the actual amounts of metals it is very tiny. Most are MICRO nutrients anyway, and are only needed by plants in very tiny amounts. They might be build up in the potting soil over time, but potted plants should be re-potted with fresh soil every few years anyway, long before the micro-nutrients will build up to any noticeable levels. So you need not worry about that imo. Btw, it's not commonly known, but almost all organic fertilizers are made for and will work best in In-Ground plantings. Organic fertilizers are made of raw ingredients, such as blood meal and bone meal, etc. Those components cannot be used by the plant as food itself. The fertilizer relies on the micro-organisms in the soil to ingest the raw ingredients and convert them to chemicals (yep, chemicals) that the plant can then uptake into it's roots. If those organic fertilizers are used in relatively sterile potting medium, not much happens. They pretty much just sit there. And your plant can starve while there is lots of food sitting right there. The components (nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus [NPK] and other macro and micro- nutrients) that the soil organisms produce from the raw ingredients in the organic fertilizer, is the same at a molecular level as what you find in a standard non-organic fertilizer. The benefits of organic fertilizers in the soil is that they feed and therefore increase the soil micro-organisms, which is great for the soil structure and the roots of the plants. Unfortunately this dynamic is very, very hard to reproduce in potted container plants. Therefore I always recommend standard non-organic fertilizers in container plantings, preferably a liquid type, or a slow-release pelleted type, such as Osmocote. Also, as a side note; the metals and minerals in fertilizers cannot by law be called “organic” because the law states that a component has to have Carbon in it and be derived from a once living source to be labeled “organic” Of course these items do not contain carbon and have never been alive. So if you see a fertilizer labeled “organic and natural”, the word “natural” is in reference to the mineral and metal ingredients only. In reading the posts on the thread that bmelz linked, about fertilizing in containers with organics, it does look like some have done it with success but do note that most of what they are talking about is seasonal vegetables and some short lived ornamental plants. Those are often re-potted annually with fresh mix and compost. That works quite well as there is a lot of micro-organisms in compost and manure. But that type of mix also breaks down very quickly, usually be the end of a growing season. When mix breaks down the speed of water drainage slows down a lot. If you're re-potting every spring that's no big deal and the old soil mix just goes back on the compost pile and new mix is made. But with a long lived plant like a citrus tree that soil break down is problematic. Citrus are very sensitive to soggy soil. Most will say they're sensitive to over-watering, but it's not really the water that's the problem, it's the lack of oxygen in an overly saturated, soggy soil. Plant roots need both water and oxygen, so in a long lived plant like citrus using an open and airy mix that lasts a long time and doesn't break down fast is very important. Unfortunately the components of those kinds of mixes, such as Al's Gritty mix and the 5-1-1 mix are pretty sterile. Hence the recommendations of standard non-organic fertilizers. Now if one was to re-pot their citrus trees annually or semi-annually with a compost based mix, then I do believe an organic fertilizer would work. But for myself, I would find that way too much work.

John hello..See if you can try to grab the concept of growing trees in a pot? Your goal is to keep your mix open and porous as much as you can for as long as you can until your next re pot. It also helps to aerate the mix often which allows oxygen to get to the roots more often. In turn you avoid root rot, fungal issues, gnats and a host of other surprises.. If you use 'Organics' in your mixes, not only is it not readily available to the tree, but it will eventually clog your air porous mix and catch you off guard. It will not provide all the important nutrients your tree needs at once but only certain kinds and in the end, you will be caught of guard and your tree will decline in vigor all of a sudden. My goal is to ALWAYS use water soluble fertilizer which provide nutrients right away without the fear of clogging up my mixes, and trust me, 'Organics' with clog up your mixes and will further speed up decomposition of an open mix which can cause compaction...Do you understand where I am coming from? Those 'Organics' seem to work for a while, and then like a firestorm, always catch people off guard with a host of nutrient problems for 'containerized' trees... Most here have found out that' Organics' do much better in the ground with reliable microbes to make them available to life in the dirt.