Hi All,

New around here, and I've caught the JM bug.

I just bought my first house two months ago, I am in zone 9 (Southern California) I'm a total newb to JM's and gardening, but a month ago I started collecting JM's.

My favorite JM in a container, a 4-5 ft mature Mikawa Yatsubusa just started to show some yellowing of interior leaves that crisp up then fall off.

It it happening to only the interior leaves and on one side (the side facing away from my house). There hasn't been a lot of this, and it's just been for the past few days, but if it is something, I want to catch it early and do something about it before it gets worse.

There was none of this for the previous month that I've had the tree, all of the leaves were deep green, new growth was light green. I had it on my patio with about 30% shade and most of it protected from afternoon direct sun (some of it got direct afternoon sun but was not burning. I was watering it every few days, only when I noticed the soil starting to get too dry.

Then we had a heat wave a week ago combined with Santa Ana Winds (hot dry strong winds), and I saw some LEAF scortch... I wasn't sure if got wet from the sprinkler in the morning and it got hot too early and burned the leaves, or if it needed more water, or if it needed more protection from the direct afternoon sun, the hot winds, or that fact that it wasn't mulched, or if it needed fertilizer, so I did all of the following:

- I watered it everyday (during the heatwave and low humidity my plants needed it badly... water was evaporating a mater of hours elsewhere in my garden)

- Added mulch (but still a few inches away from the trunk)

- Moved it to a shadier spot on my patio that gets 60% shade.

I noticed no new burn or signs of stress for the rest of the heat wave.

Once the weather became mild again, I checked under the mulch and saw a number mite-like bugs! Ahh!!! I got rid of the much and replace the top half inch of soil with acidic soil. Well, actually I sent DH out for the acidic soil and he came back with Miracle Gro African Violet mix (he told me they didn't have the normal azelea mix I use and that the guy told him this was the same stuff).

I believe they ended up being just spring tails (they've been gone ever since)

Anyway, it was a day after that that I noticed the yellowing interior leaves.

I was worried it was for the violet mix... but the amount I used was incredibly minimal, only two handfulls at most. I didn't think it could be fertilizer burn, there is SOME fertilizer in the mix but not much. And I haven't read anywhere that fertilizer burn looks like that. There weren't that many little fertilizer balls in there either....

There aren't any other leaves doing this on the outer areas or at the buds, or new leaves unfurling, etc.

These pics are taken from the inside of the tree, looking up.

Is this normal...or is this something to worry about?

There is an article online that says yellowing on the interior leaves of a JM is zinc and manganese deficiency.

I am super scared to fertilizer since I know JM's are sensitive to it.

Or am I just paranoid and this is normal?

Pls help!