Cut your losses and chuck it on the rubbish heap. Yes, I know your passion for saving trees; but there is a time to surrender. One of my extended family had an old blind dog that fell off the stairs and broke its back... could it have been saved??? maybe; but at what point do you surrender?

John..lolol..You are way too funny..lolol.. I needed a good laugh! Listen if it does nothing before Christmas, it will be in a heap of plowed snow to be frozen to death...I have a feeling it will pull through very fast in all that sun and warmth and you won't recognize it by Christmas..It has that long to prove it's worth..hahaha

Why should he cut his losses? He can't go buy a tree with that good of branches. Leaf loss is no reason to toss a tree.

If you want to toss it send it to me. I have no doubt it will come back.

Pip, exactly! The whole yard wreaked of vinegar..I am surprised he thought it was just water.....I'd hate to think what he drinks without knowing it..lol

Pip if it comes back, then I will have done something right and then others will come to us for hope and salvation..lol

Best of luck; but I will still put Agricultural Science ahead of Hope and Salvatiion.Will it live with a mountain of attention??? Maybe. Will it ever be a good, hardy, productive tree?? Much less likely.

John, where the heck is your ability to have a good time here, your sense of humor? I guess I am the only one laughing..Do you ever push the like button or even laugh with fellow citrus growers here? Life is too short my friend) If I lived in a place like you, I would be a much happier person here..It's hard enough being so happy living in a cold crappy place like mines and I still share what joy I have with others.

I happen to enjoy the challenge and many others do..So let's see what happens. If it works then I will be able to help others to do the same.

I don't have thousands of trees like you do and maybe that is why your so cut and dry..Maybe that's why you don't care...Thanks for the Best of Luck part anyways..

I hope you flushed the pot several times through with clean water? You don't want the vinegar hanging around.

Your tree definitely does not seem dead. I would have avoided repotting and instead simply let lukewarm water run through the soil (assuming it is porous) for a few minutes.

I see your new location gets sun. Please make sure the sun heats the pot as well as the leaves. You don't want roots to remain cold. Water with slightly warm water maybe.

I agree with you trying to save it Mr. Mike, especially if you can scratch a limb and find green underneath. Given good care, in the long term temporary leaf or even root loss should not significantly hamper the tree since they regrow both regularly. You must get your olfactory senses from your mother lol. I assume you did flush the root zone, and it may take till spring to put out (not sure what your winter light situation is up there) but doesn't seem dead, but is a very nice structured tree so would be a shame to lose. Is that 5-1-1 its in?

He said he repotted it. I'm assuming that means he changed the soil out completely. Which is why he felt comfortable watering with a tbs of vinagar

Good luck Mike. I think it will make it. It will probably all sprout out at once in that sunny warm spot.

Cory

Cory, thanks a bunch..You are probably right..I'll bet within a few days it will pop out every where..Just waiting...

Pip, you are right..I did remove all the old soil and use a new one..

Bahama, thanks! I agree too..They are not easily replaceable with that kind of a thick stump and a new one that size if they ever sell any would cost me over 100 bucks..It use o be so beautiful and the talk of my trees among my friends, so it has meaning to me. I believe the roots looked ok,so I figure a completely new mix, not a 5.1.1 but with the 'Fafard' mix that comes close to it it should do find with even more oxygen added to the roots in that fabric pot...Have you ever heard of 'white shark' root stimulator ? I hope it does the job...Lol To funny

By the way, it is in the most sunniest spot I can get it in..Usually when I have a plant in need of saving, it seems to do the trick there.The windows are a whopping 15 feet high and all sides of the building..It will get sunlight and very warm temps from sun rise until sunset and that particular corner gets pretty hot even in the shortest days of winter....Just goes to show you how much a huge amount of sunlight affects our trees and why mine are so far behind those of anyone that can use lots of sunlight to their advantage..I guess it's a good thing mines don't grow so huge every year or I would have no where to put them.lol Lots of sun combined with the right mix might be a recipe for an explosion...)

I will be posting to this thread at least once a week for progress on this one if anyone is interested in taking this journey with me...

Tushaar, some good advice there..I changed the mix completely because I wanted to make sure it was set into a fabric air pot to help boost root production in case many had died..I had to examine the roots anyways..I did not want to save it if I had saw the roots were goners..The vinegar had already done it's damage within the first 24 hours since most of it dissipates within a short time..

Mike)

I would have removed it from its pot, and soaked all the soil off in a large 5 gallon bucket and repotted with fresh potting soil. Maybe that is what you did. I didn't have time to read thru all posts. I'm sure it will come back!

Dave, great minds think alike)

That's exactly what I did...I actually stuck the whole root ball into a bucket full of rain water and whooshed it around until the root became clean..They looked ok. I figured it was not healthy enough to withstand cold temps on my porch and it would not get enough sun even in my greenhouse to pull through...So I am hoping that the environment at work will make all the difference..Thanks

I hate to raise the dead but seeing that you are still active on here I'm curious what ever became of your vinegar tree?

Geez Louise bahahaha I can't stop laughing that your dad didn't know it was vinegar lol. I am sure it will be fine you have a good green thumb !!!! Moral of the story don't let dad take care of your trees lmao !! You did good changing soil watering and feeding it.

Yeah Mike...did the tree live???

I'm curious too! I'm routing that it made it and is now thriving :)

Mike...oh Mike...I hope you see this!!!

You know, It did survive after all that!..lol It's out back right up against my house in full sun that has yet to come in.. I forgot about what that poor tree went through..I pulled it in last night because temps were dropping it no the 20's, so perfect timing to take pics..

By the way, my Dad thought I was using that gallon bottle as a water bottle..He did;t even smell the vinegar as he was pouring it.lol I sure did when I got home and I didn't realize he did that until it started to just crash!

Let me go and take pics, I'll be right back.

Ok, here it is...The leaves did come back after I cut all the daed branches off...They came back small and some now bigger, the lower part, but I have had this one in as much sun as possible to get it back to health fast since then fertilizing the heck out of it. It was sitting at work in ALL DAY sun all winter last year, and then I took it home and stuck it in the most sunniest spot here at my house..It is still playing catch up after all this time since it still has yet to produce flowers and fruit, but it's alive..That's all that matter for now!! Thanks for asking everyone..Wow

Notice the higher leaves smaller and tighter together? That a is what FULL sun all winter until now will do..The lower branches leaves are bigger because they got less sunshine...

The huge chunk of branches I had to cut off..(

Now Mike, go label your containers. Give your Dad a break.

Now Dave, it was labeled..It said 'Vinegar' in large bold letters!! I never took the original label off..

I'm so glad your tree recovered! I wasn't so lucky with my story of parental "help".

My mother poured what she thought was water into my goldfish bowl, but it was vinegar that I used to clean the coffee pot. I came home to them floating upside down. In her defense it was not labeled, but yeah, you would think they'd smell it? LOL!

She thought I was letting it "air" out to dissipate the chlorine, though I never used that method but instead used a de-chlorinator drops product.

My poor goldfish unfortunately didn't' make such a miraculous recover.

I'm glad the tree is alive and well...sorry your goldfish are not Barb!

A scientist used to keep an unlabeled flask of water in the lab refrigerator to keep cold for him to drink when he came in from doing field work. One day he grabbed the flask and started chugging it down and started gagging. Turns out that someone put another unlabeled flask just like it with sodium hydroxide (lye) in it. The guy died.