@GregBradley: Thanks. Johnmerr made a similar point about my lawn possibly imposing harmful effect on my citrus trees. This is new info for me...Thanks. FYI, I use the black rings to keep the grass away from the tree truck, and not to keep the mulch around the tree. The ring also acts as a bumper guard for my lawn mower:). Also, in the photo you may have noticed the gray PVC trunk guard around the base of the tree used to protect it from my weed wacker. Now that I think back, several weeks before my Variegated lemon tree started to loose it's leaves, I did some heavy de-thatching on my lawn. After removing the thatch, I've been trying to bring the greenness of the lawn back with applications of lawn fertilizer (high nitrogen) every 3 weeks, and watering via sprinkler twice daily. In conjunction with the above, we've been had some heavy down pours caused by a passing hurricane. So as you said, it's most likely a combo of those factors (water, drainage, fertilizer, weak cultivar) coming together wrong for the lemon tree. Think I'll do as Johnmerr recommends, and see it shows any signs of coming back. If it don't, I'll replace it with something else. May even switch to planting a pomegranate tree. Aloha, Gadget

I look at it this way in simpler terms of course..... I am brain dead and bored, so here it goes..lol I if don't make sense, pardon me. If I can't or do not know how to grow anything in a pot with a Perched Water Table, which I mostly do not, then I won't use a soil that encourages it. Using bottom stones, or even water proof packing peanuts which don't weigh the pot down never helped me. By the way, if your determined to use bottom material, this is the way to go. No more heavy pots.:-) I have killed a many plants in the past this way. The bottom roots being wet ,stuck in that PWT above the stones, never drying out while the top half of the roots keep getting watered because I keep watering the top of soil that is bone dry. My roots can be thirsting for water even 4 inches down into my pots from the top, while the bottom half of the roots are in that PWT portion staying wet, never drying out. And rocks on the bottom of any pot does not get rid of that PWT. It just makes it higher. The Perched Water Table depending on the soil you use will be there, and maybe not if you use a wick or a fast draining soil. Of course this is not a concern to me in any pot smaller than 6 inches... They dry out fast, especially if they are in clay. I typically use something other than the gritty soil for these. But when I move up to a bigger pot, I am not willing to take the risk of root rot. Some people here can grown plants in any size pot with a PWT and have sucess. Some in 30 gallon barrels! I am not one of those..:-( This is why I use A'ls gritty mix minus the fines that could settle down at the bottom of pot and stay wet while the top of the soil gets dry. Bonsai have very shallow roots, therefore grown in shallow pots, and this is how a many of my friends including myself have killed our Bonsai. You can have a PWT in soil as deep as one inch. We can't afford to have a PWT at all in such shallow pots! On this we take NO chances. I can not afford to have a PWT also in big sized pots for regular plants. Since they and I changed to Al's gritty mix, we have been sucessful, with no Perched Water Table and bottom root rot, even in rainy everday weather if pots are left out all summer. We just have to water more often when because the soil dries out quicker. :-) Jean, I have done the same thing to most of my pots, especially the ones my Clivias are in. They are thriving!! I even drill bigger holes at the bottom of my plastic ones and hammer out a huge circle hole on the bottom of my clay ones, then use screen to stop the soil from falling through. I can only imagine the roots breathing all that air from the bottom!lol,and the water exchange because of this.:-) I love that Container Soils thread, at least what I can understand of it! One thing I did learn, I never knew what a PWT was until I read that thread. That was the culprit to the death of all my plants! Thanks for that thread Al! Thanks for all the great info everyone! Take care all! Mike

I have read most of these post...yet I still do not seem to see an answer for me...I have lemons, maybe a handful that have been growing for almost 10 months! and still are green as grass....Are they ripe? Can I eat them? Or do I need to just say "Hey, it will take a year and a half to get a yellow lemon?"..it is for sure a meyer lemon plant..*sigh* Oh I live in mid to north Georgia..Highs are low 90's and cools are 68ish..

By far the biggest problem with winter indoor container citrus is winter leaf drop (WLD) Below is the best remedy to protect against this major citrus problem. Many people seem to have problems during the winter with their citrus trees. There is a phenomenon that affects citrus grown in containers know as Winter Leaf Drop (WLD), which is what happens to the trees during storage in winter quarters. With the appearance of fall and a decrease in temperatures, the trees are brought indoors to protect them from freezes and frost damage. Unfortunately, the most common recommendation freely given for storing the trees indoors is as follows: "Give the tree as much light as possible, keep the medium moist, but never over water. Let the medium dry out more than in summer. Hold the tree at temperatures around 41 - 50 F (5 - 10 C)." If you have followed this advice and have had no problems, you are lucky because most people who did so had problems. The trees start to shed leaves, leaf after leaf drops, and in spring, after the last frosts, when the trees are placed outside again, many trees have few or no leaves remaining on the limbs, twigs and branches. The cleavage is often between the leaf petiole and the leaf blade, the petiole remaining on the tree. Often the dropped leaf shows no chlorotic patterns or any other discoloration. Our first thought is that Winter Leaf Drop was influenced by low-light conditions during winter times. But even with extra illumination Winter Leaf Drop continued. Often, after bright, sunny mid winter days, more leaves are shed than after longer periods of less bright light. So we tried to find out what might be the cause of Winter Leaf Drop. We chose five lemon seedling trees, all about one foot high. The seedling trees were placed in different locations with different conditions: The first seedling tree was placed in a cool and bright location at a south facing window, at temperatures around 43 -50 F (6-10 C). 2.The second seedling tree was placed in the same room, but at a north facing window. 3. For the third tree, we chose a temperate room with temperatures around 59 F (15 C). 4. The fourth tree was placed at the same temperatures but on a south facing window. 5. The last plant was placed in a warm room of 70 F (21 C) at a south facing window with extra illumination. All trees were irrigated as needed, just to keep the root ball moist, but not wet and not allowed to dry out. Only #5 was irrigated more regularly and fed evenly. After winter we found that #1 shed nearly all its leaves. #2 dropped some leaves only, and the others had only lost some (fewer than five) or no leaves. We found light may NOT be the factor causing WLD, so we thought about temperature. After a long discussion with citrus experts in Florida and Israel, it was found that temperature will cause WLD. The temperature tables from the book Biology of Citrus show that citrus stops root growth and root function if the soil temperature drops below 54.5 F (12.5 C). Leaf activity will be reduced if the temperatures drops below 64 F (18 C). Leaf activity means the full process of water evaporation for leaf surface cooling, energy transformation (photosynthesis) and starch reduction for building amino acids and other compounds for forcing plant growth and cell development. Citrus controls its leaf temperature by evaporating water from the leaf blade. This reduces the temperature even during hot periods and will maintain the leaf temperature at the optimum levels between 77 F (25 C) and 95 F (35 C). But even on cold days the sunlight can heat up the leaf surface quite quickly to levels beyond the critical temperature of 54.5 F (12.5 C). Photosynthesis itself works better in cooler conditions with high light radiation than in the warmer periods of the day, so most of the photosynthetic starch production is done in the morning before noon and less water is evaporated than during the afternoon. Optimum leaf temperature for photosynthetic activity for most plants ranges from 50 F (10 C) up to 90 F (32 C). Photosynthesis itself needs carbon dioxide, light and water to transform the carbon dioxide into starch and oxygen. During the night the starch will be oxidized to provide energy needed for plant growth and development. The whole process is called breathing. Water and nutrients for the breathing process must be taken up by the roots. Oxygen and carbon dioxide will be delivered from the air around the plant, taken up by the leaf surface (and to some extent by other green parts of the plant) so leaf and root activity must run in a balance to provide the best plant performance for growth, flowering and fruit development. If a citrus tree is stored at temperatures below 54 F (12 C) but gathers enough light for photosynthesis, this balance is broken. The leaf activity requires water, which the roots cannot deliver. The tree stops evaporation and water will be unavailable for cooling the leaf surface on bright days, so the tree reduces active leaf area by leaf abscission. This seems to be the best theory about what causes WLD. Partial or complete defoliation was never critical if the root ball was kept a little more on the dry side, but if it was too wet, a quick root decline developed even if Poncirus trifoliata was used as a root stock. Most of the trees recovered quite will in spring (if the roots stayed healthy and a heavy bloom was set). But in recovering the whole canopy, often the trees used up much of their starch reserves in the stock, which did not fully refill during the short summer times. After some years, many trees suffered, growth was stopped and the trees died because all of the starch had been depleted. So what to do about WLD? Irrigation during wintertime seems to be a recommended practice to slow down WLD. Irrigation with warm water 77-90 F (25-32 C) supports the root function, even the water uptake, so WLD will slow down. Irrigation reduces the plant stress during cold winter time and is therefore recommended. Keeping the trees in a room with high humidity seems also to slow down WLD but cannot prevent it. Also a place more in the shade, to minimize leaf activity, slows down WLD. Keeping the root temperature below 64 F (18 C) but at or above 59 F (15 C) seems to work best for stopping WLD. The plant functions are minimized, but water and nutrient uptake for leaf activity is high enough to support the breathing process and leaf surface cooling by water evaporation. If WLD persist, force the root temperature higher, around 70 F (21 C) this should stop leaf drop. Sometimes during the winter, fruits dry out on the tree and drop if the tree is stressed too much. So for fruit development and fruit maturity, higher temperatures and good leaf activity should be maintained. Irrigation with a nutrient solution should be done even in winter.