Citrus Winter Leaf Drop, Root Rot, any Hope. SOS
H everyone,
I love this forum and have gotten some good information. I hope today to get some more.
I have a Meyer Lemon tree I got as a gift from Fast Growing Trees. It is about 4 feet tall. I have no idea what it's age is. I repotted the plant immediately when I got it (broke up the rootball a little and put it in a bigger pot with Miracle Gro Citrus potting mix about 16" diameter). I almost immediately (2 weeks later) read that I had put it in too large of a pot and used the wrong soil. (Everyone seems to agree that MG stays too wet too long). I also read that I had probably been overwatering it. All of this in about 3 weeks time. So I repotted it in heavily amended potting mix (2 parts organic mix, 1 part vermiculite, 1 part perlite) in a 12" pot. Only watered it once since then after my moisture reader read 2 on a scale of 1-10.
The tree sits near a South facing window. It gets about 5 hours of good light in the morning. Then, I turn grow lights on it in the afternoon for about about another 3 hours.
It seemed to be doing fine for a while and then it started dropping leaves. They weren't curled or yellow. They just fell off. The big bushy tree I got is now looking kind of spindly. The leaves are still green, bit I have seen a few that have curled and look dried out.
I'm in southern Virginia, and the heater has been on more lately, so I've been misting it. Also, the tree is sitting on a pebble tray with water, but not in the water.
I'm afraid it may have root rot, but I don't want to pull it out of the soil again. Plus, every time I move the tree more leaves fall off. It's frustrating because I was soooo excited to get this tree, and I'm afraid it won't make it through the winter.
Is there anything else I can and/or should do. Maybe help with a diagnosis and prognosis. I'm not good with patience, so does anyone know how long I should wait to see if I have irreparably damaged this tree?
Thanks for any and all help
Comments (19)
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Rotting roots (or leaf base)
Comments (2)If the roots haven't rotted, you might be able to save the whole plant as is. One of my first Sans, a Hahnii with plenty of healthy leaves, broke off and toppled right over last fall. I cleaned off the stump to make sure no rot remained and stuck it a bit into the dirt in a new pot, propping it up with chopsticks. Now, 4~5 months later, it has made new roots and new leaves and is standing on its own, while its original roots, still in the pot it fell over in, have produced the beginnings of 5 new plants, the tallest one already about 4" high. The vitality of these plants never ceases to amaze me. Re watering, I do less in the winter, though my Sans are indoors, and I never decide to water just by the time that has elapsed, so I don't know if I am doing it every few weeks or once a month. Even my different plants in different pots differ. I use one of those dry-moist-wet meters that you stick into the soil, and don't water until the meter says that particular plant is good and dry. This meter has worked for me so far. I don't use it when the plants are outdoors in the summer, however....See MoreWhen to remove winter protection so it doesn't rot, basically?
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Comments (19)To help you figure things out ...... if you're watering when you can still detect moisture in the soil with a finger, you can't be under-watering. If you can eliminate under-watering based on the above, it pretty much leaves you with over-watering or a high level of dissolved solids in the soil from the fertilizer you applied. What did you use for fertilizer, how much did you use, and how did you apply it? Was the plant dry at application time? I don't know if I mentioned this, but it's easy to monitor soil moisture levels with a 'tell'. A wood dowel (from any hardware or home improvement store) about 5/16" in diameter works best. They come 48" long. Cut it in half & sharpen all 4 ends in a pencil sharpener. Push it deep into the soil and don't water until the first day it comes out clean/dry. Did you read the thread I linked to upthread - the one that focuses on how to deal with unwanted water retention? The best advice I offered was to concentrate on making sure your plants are in a soil you can water to beyond the point of saturation w/o having to worry the soil remain soggy so long it limits root health/function. That means you either start with an appropriate soil of find ways to limit water retention, which brings us back around to the link that takes you to the thread about dealing with water retentive soils. It's hard to tell you precisely what to do w/o you having a basic understanding of what plants require to remain healthy. Particularly important and a prerequisite to a healthy plant is a healthy root system. All of the information you need to be an accomplished container grower fits together like a jigsaw puzzle under assembly. Each piece is connected to the other pieces - either directly or extraneously, but they ARE all connected. You probably remember that it’s easier to assemble a puzzle when you work toward getting the outer 'frame' together first. The outer frame is analogous to an understanding of the basic bits knowledge required for your success. Of the basic knowledge, most important is an understanding of how the soil/water relationship works & how the individual soil components interact relative to the whole. Basically we need to understand that a healthy root system is a requirement if the plant is to be healthy. Then, and easier to understand are a very few additional issues like the importance of light to your growing experience, how fertilizers work and what fertilizer is most appropriate ……. We also need at least a very basic understanding of how some of the other cultural conditions might affect plant growth/performance. Once this basic but essential understanding is part of your skill set, that is to say the framework of the growing puzzle completed, assembling the rest of the pieces will occur at a rate exponentially faster than the rate at which you progressed at the outset of your growing experience. Unless this basic framework is complete, you’re essentially relying on trial & error, which is probably never going to gain favor as a short cut to success. Al...See MoreCitrus tree cutting grew leaves but dropped them before growing roots
Comments (7)I was looking at the limequat cutting I took 10 days ago. I was about to give up on it because it turned 60% brown. I went to cut the brown part to the next closest green bud... I ended up pulling the cutting out of the cup to cut it better and it has 1 nice hair and a few smaller hairs. Keep in mind the biggest "hair" is 1cm and the smaller "hair" are a few millimeter in length. This "hair" I'm referring to are the roots.... which I am shocked to have after 10days... I don't understand why the cutting started to die back... I have two options.... Do you guys think it's better to just keep the 1 node above dirt or should I re-position to have another node above the dirt? When I planted the cutting, I put the bottom 2 nodes(hairs coming out and calloused) and than 2 more nodes about 2inches above the bottom nodes but it has no roots... under the dirt and above the dirt it has 1 node left because I cut the brown part back....See More
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poncirusguy6b452xx
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6 years agolast modified: 6 years agoponcirusguy6b452xx
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6 years agoponcirusguy6b452xx
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6 years agolast modified: 6 years agoSilica
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6 years agoSilica
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