disease doesnt EAT leaves ... you have a disease but bugs ate them ... look very close... any chance the culprit is still there??? there is a good possibility.. they are gone ... what does the growth tip look like.. if its clean.. that is usually an indication that the vermin are gone ... trees have different needs in pots ... you might.. IN THE RIGHT SEASON... get it into better potting media ... for trees ... it might help to know where you are ... and pic of the whole ... ken

Thank you, everyone. I appreciate your responses. I did think it looked like sun damage but I didn't realize that the damage can continue to appear well after the plant has been removed from the direct sun - thanks for this insight. My plan is to repot Larry (the plant) into a smaller/lighter pot with some proper soil mixture and to slowly introduce him back to the sun. I think the pot we have is too large anyway and my husband recently injured himself and can't help me move it - maybe why I rushed his transition to the outdoors over a few days as opposed to a week or two. We're at high elevation and the sun is very powerful here in CO so perhaps moving extra slow is even more important. A few lingering questions... 1. Does anyone have a conversion chart or recommended formula for adding fertilizer to such a young/small plant? The "dosage" chart given on the bag of citrus fertilizer I have seems to be for much, much larger trees and I want to make sure I don't overfertilize. 2. Any ideas as to what the initial few white spots/defoliation might have been from? Those spots did not progress like the sun burn spots and happened several weeks before moving him outdoors. They are shown in the first image. Thank you again! I am happy to hear that Larry should recover.

Hi all. I take care of a university biology department's collection of plants here in Connecticut and have grown citrus at home for over forty years. My take on the above issues follows. First, my Meyer lemons that get a good dose of cold before I move them inside (this year around Halloween) often drop many of their leaves and then soon break out into the same kind of flowering cycle seen on the second plant. They are more prone to dropping most of their leaves in November than any of the other citrus I care for. Next, when the tip of a branch begins to die back as in the photo, you should use a sharp pair of secateurs (sterilized in bleach solution) and prune it back to green wood just above a leaf node ASAP. Leaving the dying tip is only causing more tissue to die. Next, I think both the plant that shed all its leaves in a week and the one that consists of just a single stem are in pots that are much too large for them, especially given that they are in regular potting soil and seem to be in cool home environments without a great deal of sunlight. The single-stemmed plant would probably be quite happy in a five inch diameter pot. Over-potting makes the cooler conditions the plants encounter in the fall and indoors more likely to cause root rot which can kill a citrus tree quite quickly (I've done it to a couple of my own trees: they drowned). The test I'd do is to get them out of their pots and see if there are a decent number of roots spreading through most of the soil. If a plant that has been in a container for several months is lifted from the pot and when this is done large gobs of soil simply fall away, that's a good reason to put the plant into a smaller container. There's no good rule for this, but I'll note that most of my older citrus (15 to 30 years old) are in containers that are about 1/3 as high and 1/3 as wide as the plants. A typical example: I have a Key lime in an 11 inch wide and 10 inch tall pot (with soil to within three inches of the top and an inch of bark chips on top of that). The Key Lime has a 1 inch diameter trunk at the base and is roughly 2.5 feet wide and 2.5 feet tall. Soil considerations. At home, I long used regular brands of potting soil picked up at Home Depot (non-moisture control) with success for decades but then had a bad experience when I used a more expensive brand from a garden center that had too much ability to hold water--the bottom of two pots turned to mud. In the aftermath of that experience, I researched my options. For what it is worth, I've adopted the following mix at the greenhouse: 1/2 Al's Gritty Mix plus 1/2 ProMix BX. Al's Gritty Mix consists of three ingredients 1/3 Turface (the stuff used on baseball infields), 1/3 Grani-grit (rough granite chips for chickens to grind their food in their gizzards), and 1/3 fine bark mulch. I do not sift or sieve any of these things but simply pull out any overly large bits of wood from the bark mulch or mix if I see them. I found that Al's mix alone drained and dried out far too quickly in the greenhouse. You can obviously vary the amounts or omit one of the Al's ingredients and still have a much better mix than what you'll buy at Home Depot. A cactus might get 1/3 ProMix BX and 2/3s Al's, etc. I use the 1/2 and 1/2 mix for most succulents and cacti, including Desert Roses. Oh, and I've found that covering the soil surface with larger bark chips is a great way to reduce the fungus gnat population, but that problem is also helped by shifting to a mix that has less peat in it or by NOT repotting your plants just prior to bringing them in for the winter (the fungus gnats are particularly attracted to new potting soil with its fresh peat).

Hey guys, I have further researched what may be wrong with my lemon tree. The last leaves that fell actually persisted a while. They were withering but still hung on to the branch for a day. My branches are dying back. I think these symptoms indicate that the tree has experienced some frost damage. Right now, it's in a really sunny spot and the weather is hot in Toronto. It is 27 degrees Celsius in Toronto and will persist about 20 degrees Celsius for the rest of the week. I also understand that I will need to prune the tree from the dead branches. I understand about the fertilizer and the Nitrogen to Phosphorus to Pottasium ratio. This is my final question. Is it safe to prune the tree now when the weather is warm or should I wait a bit longer? Anyways, thank you for your help. I am still learning how to grow and take care of my own plants and wish to become an avid gardener.