Thanks for that feedback; it is how we all learn here.

John, I've been helped by so many of you here that if I can return the favor, I'm happy ;-)

Nice summary and quite helpful. Thanks! Folks have commented they thought I knew a lot about growing citrus. I know some from personal experience but most of the meager knowledge I have retained came from here, reading posts like this one where someone generously donated some time to share an experience.

Laura, thank you for your post.

One of my problem trees had very fine sand in the root ball from which the water was absorbed by the 5-1-1 mix. But the result was the same - a dry root ball.

As I mentioned in recent posts, it is important to do a complete bare root repot and remove all old soil.

This is why I bareroot all of my citrus trees because I learned this lesson with my first three citrus that I aquired almost two years ago. I believe I stated and shared my experience in one of my past posts. This is also what Al was explaining/debating in one of his previous posts, why it was important to do a total bareroot when potting, to which a few individuals disagreed quite verbally with him at the time. Ahem, :D Glad you learned from this, Laura. Your trees will be better off now :)

Very good info!

Great job Laura of putting your experience out here for all. And thanks on endorsement for the explanation in the other thread.

These are my checklist for watering and potting to mitigate these and other problems:

• never have different types of soil. (OK that was obvious from this thread). If you have to repot plants with very dense mass of roots at the wrong time you can cut three pie shaped wedges and replace soil of a different texture in two steps.

• Thick lignified roots should be removed as much as possible, especially that twist and turn and those in the center core of the plant right below the stem. They serve no useful purpose and are barriers for water to reach the soil.

• Pack the soil with chopsticks, shaking, poking to prevent air gaps. When you think you are done spend another 5 minutes poking the mix.

• Tie the plant tightly to the pot against the soil below to again prevent air gaps and prevent any movement of the plant in the future. This is important especially if you remove the thick anchoring roots.

• Dampen not wet the soil while repotting. Use very hot water to speed up the wetting of dry ingredients.

• Water slowly and several times 10-15 minutes apart, water at an angle towards the core. Drain well before watering again.

• Every 2-3 weeks flush the soil very well. Use very warm water, no fertilizer, dunk the pot with at least an inch of water over the soil level. Let it soak for 10 min. Then lift the pot out fast (causes the water to to rush through the soil). Do this say 4-5 times in succession. (You see why I like small pots.) This will increase your chances of reaching every part of the soil mass with water. And then drain it very well. This has the added advantage of reducing accumulated salts.

• Dont forget to take deep breadths in between and hydrate with beer.

I am sure some will disagree with some of the things I said. May be not the last one. But I am all ears for your thoughts.

tropicofcancer, you should also have a sip of beer and not give it all to your citrus.

Great thread and yes, the logic totally makes sense. Keep us posted on your tree's progress. So, for my tree and maybe one more that may have the same problem, I wonder if I could just water them better by soaking them in the sink since I have one in my grow room and then deal with a proper repot in the spring?

That sounds like a good plan Hobby!

Hobby, if you suspect it has a dry core poke a few holes to core with a chopstick and then dunk it in the sink. Most of these problems show up in winter since I suspect most of us, including me, tend to water lightly to avoid having to clean up the excess from the saucers.

Hobby: just to add to what I said. Leave it submerged in the water for an hour or two just to give it enough time to soak. For large pots this becomes quite unwieldy.

All of my trees in 5's or larger have earth worms. I have also found that it is about impossible to transplant a citrus tree without loosing all the dirt around the roots so I end up with bare rooted transplants. I am up potting when the root just start to circle the pot.

Cuban Shaddock from cuttings · More Info

Steve, I see a lot of soil remaining on the root ball. Did you take that soil off? If not, thenit is not a complete bare root repot.

The soil is a mix of garden dirt and compost 50/50 by volume. It went into soil of the exact ratio. The soil is 1 year old on a tree with a 30 gallon root ball. It would be very damaging to remove all the dirt. It would not be possible to get dirt back in the center of the root ball in its new home. What I have is a root ball with all of the branch and feeder roots clean to accept new dirt. I guess my point is to transplant the trees before they are root bound around "concrete". On average I am transplanting my trees at least every year. Best time to transplanting is in spring when you put the tree outside in shade. The tree will adjust to light and its need to grow new roots then Half sun to full sun. The core root zone of the tree is structure that holds the tree and the branch roots and doesn't matter of its fertility or moisture. Technically you are right but the need of a total bare root transplant is met in my situation.

6b Steve

Steve, you are right. It went into the same soil mix so there was no need for a complete bare root.

Can someone explain to me why the tree APPEARED to be perfectly watered in that it showed no signs of dehydration?

Good question. The core dries and becomes larger over time depending on watering practices. I think what is happening is that initially there is a small dry core and as the plant takes up water the dry core becomes larger. If the next watering is insufficient then the size of the dry core may be reduces a bit but not enough. In the mean time the roots in the core that experience long periods of dry soil start dying off. If this cycle continues for a time then dry core keeps getting larger and the plant is forced into a drought response and start shedding leaves. This is my working hypothesis but perhaps there is something more to it.

Vladimir, that statement I made about the small container in my kitchen, not my potted kumquat. I said "appeared" because when I poured water over it, the top layer soaked it up immediately and changed color, then the water ran out of the pot. Many would have assumed that the water flowed through the entire mix. If I had not dug in to open a hole for the seed, I would never have realized that only the top layer was wet, not the inside of the mix. Does that make sense? I think what Pranab explained is exactly right. The more the rootball dries out, the more water repellent it becomes, causing a viscous cycle.

Then I misunderstood, Laura. I thought you meant that the plant did not appear dehydrated: i.e., drooping leaves. Did it look like it was thirsty?

Laura, just the opposite with me!!

I have some Hoya displaying the same symptoms as what your tree did...One Citrus tree doing the same...

The root ball of mine are staying to wet too darn long while the outer roots are drying out too darn fast. Because the 5.1.1 mix I use dries out rather rapidly, the root ball in the plants I have stay wet though..So now in order to water the very dry 5.1.1 I also have to keep re wetting the already wet root ball with the peat in it which is causing my much root loss and stem death..Ugh..I hate to re pot my Hoya this time of the year, since they don't take very well to even a general re pot...I will post pics soon,...

Vladimir, the signs the tree showed were leaf dropping (gradually worsening) and twig dieback. The leaves did not look curled the way some trees would show thirst, but then again, the kumquat has narrow leaves. The rootball was definitely much much drier than the rest of the mix, which was very wet. It has shed maybe four more leaves since the repotting, but it has definitely slowed down. Mike, I'm sorry to hear that! I don't know what to advice you, but am confident if anyone can, you will save the trees ;-)

Mike is it possible that roots in the inner core are already dead or compromised? That could explain why the inner area is always wet. Once it is wet there is probably very little active roots to absorb water. Sounds like before this happened the plant managed to send out enough roots to the outer 511 mix and sucking it dry. Just thinking.

My NZ lemonade was dropping leaves and exhibited branch dieback. I put it in 5-1-1 soon after I got it and it is now in my greenhouse which is kept at 60F. It was fine until two weeks ago. I decided that the problem must be with the roots, so I repotted it into gritty mix. When I put it in 5-1-1, I removed at least 85% of the old soil. There was no evidence of root rot. However, the bottom roots had reached the bottom of the pot and started to circle and all the other roots did not flare out of the root ball into the 5-1-1 but grew downward instead. I pruned all circling and L shaped roots and removed the residual old soil before putting it into the gritty mix. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Tropic, that makes a whole lot of sense!

Would you leave it as is and wait until spring..I have a feeling the inner roots are dead..When I did the re pot, I could not bare root because the root ball was so barren of soil and just a hard compacted root mass..I had to cut wedges and fill in those wedges with the 5.1.1 mix hoping something would grow into it.. Thanks

Everyone. would you take the roots apart and hope for the best or leave as is until spring? I can't believe this time around I have no faith in my decision...It seems half of mt citrus tree from the top down has died and my hoya is not loosing leaves as bad as it was for the past 4 months..It was perfectly fine outside...

I believe Al Talpa in similar situations has said to do as you did: cut wedges out of the root ball. I would be inclined to take the roots apart.

Cutting wedges is a great technique. But sometimes you will have a root system that is lopsided, that is there are areas where there are no roots and some areas with all the major ones. So I would take my time to figure out any pattern and cut wedges accordingly.

I ended up doing the same wedge technique to a guava. It had such a dense mat of roots (like hibiscus have) that is impossible to know where to begin. I ended up cutting three wedges with fresh soil. It was already in 511. But the new 511 was much more obviously porous. It filled it out pretty quickly and everything seemed like uniformly populated the next time I took it out and a hard time figuring where the previous wedges were located.

It is hard to say whether one should bare root now. I would take it out of the pot and examine the roots carefully. And only do a full bare root if you see a problem like a clusters of dead roots. I also would use this opportunity to prune some of the bigger roots unless they are the only thing that you can find.

When a peat moss type of soil becomes too dry, it is indeed difficult to re-wet by simply apply water from a hose or watering can. As Laura LaRosa wrote above just the very top will wet, while the bulk of the medium stays dry. However, those type of mediums are easily totally re-wet by soaking the medium in a larger tub of water.

My NZ lemonade is coming back. It looks like hell but at least it is still alive, I had to cut off most of the tree.