Brandon, Sevin (carbaryl) is labeled for wooly apple aphid. However, commercial spray guides indicate its effectiveness ranges from fair to poor. Mites are sorta different than other insects. What frequently works on other insects will not work on mites. Typically miticides are used to control mites. For home orchards, insecticidal soaps are generally recommended. However, once the mites produce the waxy white substance, no chemical control will be effective, the wax protects them from chemical exposure. It is recommended to attack them at the crawler stage before they produce the wax. However, since you're at the wax producing stage, I would strip off the wax, and if you wanted to go the extra mile, spray the trunks and branches affected with a summer oil spray. From my experience, once my trees got more mature, wooly apple aphid hasn't been a problem.

First, you must take care of the insect problem. I would first take the tree outside and hose down the undersides of the leaves to get rid of any insects and their eggs. If you can't bring it outside, take it into the shower and use the shower hose on it. Then, I would use some insecticidal soap on it (which has no bad odors). Once this is done you can work on improving its indoor quality of life for the winter. Do you have a place for your lemon that is really cool (enclosed porch, garage, etc.)? I keep my citrus in a garage where temps are between 60 and 40 F. Garages faces due south and the top half of the garage doors are glass so they do get a fair amount of sun in the winter. At these temperatures, I water very seldomly, rolling them out on to the driveway on mild days and hosing them down (maybe once a month). I will mist the leaves occasionally. My collection includes Satsuma mandarin, Valencia Orange, Washington Navel Orange, Merer' Lemon, Leureka Lemon, Citron, two varieties of kumquats, Calamondins, limequats, and a Persian Lime. I only have one citrus plant in the house over winter, a Kaffir lime. Keeping citrus cool reduces/eliminates any bug problems in the winter (citrus are vulnerable to insect problems under warmer indoor temps). I roll the citrus out in early April and they summer on the wall of the garage, in full sun, until the end of November. Although I water sparingly in the winter, summer is a different story. They get hosed down nearly every day--depending on temps and rainfall. In between seasons, I let the soil dry moderately between waterings. Right now the Washington Navel is in bloom so it must like the conditions. Good luck and Happy New Year!

Hello fegray, I am new to the forum but have been growing citrus in Connecticut (except for a decade spent in Florida) for about 35 years. My oldest tree is a sour orange I planted about 35 years ago when a young boy of 7 or so, and I have a large 4 by 4 foot Calamondin, a two by two Meyer Lemon (that had 25 lemons on it this fall, and still has 16 to go--2 lemons required per pie!), a two by-two Key lime, a 3 by 3 Buddha's Hand citron, a 2.5 foot tall and rather spindly Ponderosa lemon (on dwarfing rootstock), and a couple other smaller citrus, so I have plenty of experience with pruning, repotting, and dealing with insect infestations. I have had scale before, though not for many years. My citrus trees usually end up with spider mites during the winter: all it takes is a mite or two making it in during the move from outside to inside in October, and by Xmas I often have an infestation. The signs are similar to what you describe (sugary "sap", small spider webs, and sticky leaves). If you have mature scale insects of the kind I've encountered here in the northeast, they would likely be quite obvious and will often be clustered on the newer (say last summer's) shoots and should stand out from the green bark as they are typically brown or yellow or reddish brown. The nymphs or little scale crawlers move about, but the adults stay in one place. I am skeptical that Safer will do the trick for you if you have scale or spider mites, but it won't hurt to try, as long as you don't let them go on too long. In a couple weeks, in zone 7, you may even be able to move the plant outside where the rain and humidity will work against the insects. Note: If you have spider mites and your closeup eyesight is not the best, you may not be able to see the actual insects. The particular mites I get are so small that I can only see them when I have full sunlight falling on the leaves and can spot the mites moving around on them or their webs. They are smaller than periods in newsprint, and light reddish brown to yellow in color. The test is to take a white sheet of paper, hold it under the suspected site of infestation, and gently tap and shake the leaves and smaller branches. If you have mites, you'll have a few specs that slowly move on the paper after this. I have never had luck controlling mites with the friendly sprays many posters advocate, but as long as the infestation is not severe they will fade away in numbers once the afflicted plant goes outside. If the infestation is severe, they can weaken the tree to the point of no return, though with a large tree I think this is somewhat unlikely. There are other possible causes for sudden leaf drop as I'm sure you know: a cold draft, the natural dropping of old leaves, and uneven watering; this last is not necessary obvious. With your large tree, you may not be able to get it enough water if it is rootbound: you can water a citrus two or three times a week and still won't keep it happy if it is growing. Thus, if the tree gets too dry during the winter you can quickly kill it or cause a large section to die back. I make an effort to water my trees thoroughly up to twice a week in the winter if they are growing, flowering, and fruiting (and they often do all of this for months on end). By thorough, I mean until water comes out of the bottom of the drain holes. Having repotted and root trimmed a few times over the years, I can tell you that if a citrus plant is badly potbound and it goes into a growth phase you may need to water it every other day. I had to do this a few years ago. In other words, you may think you are watering enough, and you may even have water coming out the drain holes, but there may be too little soil to hold the water inside the pot long enough for the plant to drink it in. Of course, too much water can also cause leaf drop, so please check to see if your citrus is potbound. The quick test is to try to lift the rootball out of the pot. You may need help to do this! If it comes out and all you can really see is roots . . . well, that is a pretty good sign it needs to be root-trimmed and backfilled with new soil, or repotted, or both. Regarding your long-standing lack of flowers and fruit: I would say that this is odd. My 35 year old sour orange flowers and fruits profusely, and has done so since it was about 15 years old, and before then it did so to a lesser extent. I have kept it in a 22 inch plastic pot for the last 5 or 6 years and take it out and root prune it ever three or four. I think it is due for another pruning this spring. Including the container, it is about 6 1/2 feet tall: I prune it back a foot or two over the course of the summer (if it sends out suckers I tend to cut them before they get too unruly), and then I inevitably end up pruning it once more in October before it comes in. I regularly leave my citrus outside until the night temperatures drop into the low forties or upper thirties (I live in central Connecticut, and last fall I think the last citrus came inside on the 14th of October). In my experience, the only think healthy citrus trees need to induce flowering in the winter is a good sunny window: I've had them flower with west light, south light, and even west light in an attached garage that got down to 50 degrees at night where the light came in through the little garage windows. My advice is that as long as the tree is healthy you should try giving it a good pruning a week or ten days after you move it outside. Say a good 6 inches to a foot all the way around. Good luck! Don

I actually like the way my garden looks from my windows. The backyard is under tall old pines and is all flower beds surrounded by liriope. I have things planted in all of these beds like lamiums,Chinese ginger,tropical gingers, cast iron plants,Fatsia, Tree Ivy, Jap. painted ferns, Holly ferns, abutelons, lorapetalum, hellebores, Azaleas, Oak leaf Hydrangea, Camelia and many more. I have pots of impatiens, coleus and caladiums to add color. In fact the hummingbird checked out the caladiums several times recently. The Liriope is blooming now so is reminding me why I have it. I cursed it all winter as I dug it out of beds where it wants to spread. I recently bought Ruby Spice Clethra and the red hardy swamp hibiscus and put out there so I'm keeping them watered. I try to go out most mornings for about an hour. Yes, I sweat profusely and have to wear repellant and long pants but I pull weeds, pick up sticks and cones from the pines, and prune things back such as Eng. Ivy that I love but have to keep in bounds.I also water when things are dry but have been very fortunate this year that we have had enough rain that I haven't had to water very much. I'm making concrete stepping stones with imbedded rocks one at a time and making paths through beds. I have bird feeders and 2 bird baths for the birds.