What is wrong with my Meyer Lemon?
Donna R zone 6a
4 years ago
last modified: 4 years ago
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What's wrong with my Meyer Lemon tree?
Comments (1)The first place to look, in your job as plant detective, is the potting mix. Is it very coarse textured and fast-draining? Most commercial potting mediums are almost entirely peat, which can make them sludgy over a bit of time. Those potting mixes can cause over watering issues, as well as develop dry pockets from improper watering (little sips at a time)....See MoreWhat is wrong with my Improved Meyer Lemon Tree
Comments (5)Well, I see a few things that might be causing this. It looks like you've got a situation where you have a LOT of grass competing with both water and nutrients . You really do need to create a much large cleared area from underneath your little trees. Grass is a huge nitrogen hog. It will simply gobble up all that nice fertilizer you're putting down for your citrus. Not familiar with that particular fertilizer, but you'll want a fertilizer formulated for citrus, that is higher in nitrogen and also contains a good amount of micronutrients as well as your NPK macronutrients. And if your trees are being sprinkled by your lawn sprinklers, this is NOT good for the trees. This actually can eventually kill a small young tree. They don't like their trunks sprinkled. You'll want to put your trees on a drip system, and give them a long, deep drink one or twice a week (depending up on how hot it gets.) Doesn't look like sunburn, and yes, young citrus trees can get sunburned if you live in very hot, dry, sunny areas (like AZ, interior S. California). I agree with John's recommentations, fertilize at least 3 times a year - I fertilize 4 times a year - February through September/October. And, I use a foliar fertilizer especially if we've had a cold, wet winter and spring, which for me tends to make micronutrients unavailable since my soil is mostly DG. Grow More Citrus Growers Blend is a great product, and can be applied both to the roots or as a foliar spray. Spray in the evening. Patty S....See Morewhats wrong with my Meyer's lemon tree's fruit?
Comments (5)Your tree is infected with an insect called soft scale. The scale infection is also on the leaves of your tree. Scale is rather easy to control by spraying the tree with a horticultural oil solution, neem oil ( neem is rather stinky), or even a soapy water solution. With neem oil and horticultural oil sprays spray the entire tree in the early morning hours, at dusk, or during a cloudy day. Never spray a citrus tree during the heat of the day. The soapy water spray is the least effective method, but several sprays should take care of it. -Silica...See MoreMy citrus has been struggling ever since I have had it
Comments (44)@Al, I'll respond because I feel it necessary to clarify a few things, and because it does feel as though you have attacked me and tried to discredit me. If you did not mean to attack, I am sorry that I read it that way, but that is how it came across. My frustration is with going after a person for not expounding upon details when they have already stated that out of respect for an OP who has already said several times that they are getting confused by all of the technical information and want a simple answer, they were trying to avoid being too technical. I said already that if you would like to have a technical discussion, let's have a conversation about this, because I believe the confusion is in the two methodologies that can be followed in gardening. One is the organic or natural fertilizer method, the other is, for lack of better terms, the use of synthetic fertilizers. When you use synthetic fertilizers you need to be aware of the chemistry of your soil, you need to understand what's going on in the pot, and understand the specific NPK needs of your specific plant. You will also need to make sure that you know enough about fertilizing your plant to do so properly and at the right times, (I'm still trying to keep stuff simple on this, particular, thread) On the other hand if you are using "organic" fertilizers you need to be aware that these fertilizers need to be broken down by microorganisms to be available to the plant. These microorganisms need to be present in the soil and in the fertilizer (many are pre-innoculated) to be broken down over time and become available to the plant. If your soil is devoid of these organisms or otherwise imbalanced you will have nothing to break down your fertilizer and you are essentially just giving yourself problems. Hence my comment about treating the soil as an organism, you need to be aware that there are microorganisms in your soil that you need to maintain if you want your fertilizers to work (think fermentation, I won't get a good ferment if I have the wrong organism or balance of salts). Essentially, you need to understand the biological processes at work. The soil, in this case, is just as much an organism as the plant. I am writing this from a phone, and the interface is terrible so I can't expound as much as I would like but you get the gist. In both cases you need to start with the soil, make sure you have good soil and good growing practices and your plant will do fine. Ideally you can make your own soil, but if you can't there are a number of well draining bagged mixes on the shelf that work great. I personally like the G&B citrus soil as it is a very well draining mix with a good particle size, and I have found that bags that have shorter ingredient lists and have the ingredients I listed on the label (I could have listed all of the ingredients you want to look for but I didn't have time to list everything and still don't, so I listed the ones that are typically used interchangeably on the different mixes) are usually more well draining mixes, in addition others have already listed the ingredients in good soil elsewhere on this thread, and the ingredients on a good bag will be much the same. These well draining mediums help to avoid water collecting at the bottom of a pot which can lead to salt buildup, rotten roots, and all that fun stuff. Now some decorative plastic pots have a raised center and a donut shaped well around the base, a single hole is drilled in the center and water drains from that while collecting in the "donut" in the base (I apologize but it's the best way I can describe it) if you have one of these pots you will, essentially, have a collection point for water below the drainage hole which will not drain. If that's the case you need to drill some drainage into the plastic ring so that there is drainage where water is more likely to collect. I personally use terra cotta with a single hole in the base, and I've never had a problem, but I use a good and well drained mix. Unfortunately I've helped a lot of people who plant a tree in a heavy and water retentive mix, see problems, start adding a fertilizer per the instructions, see more problems, add more fertilizer, read that they need to use a different fertilizer, so they switch, but it has a higher NPK than the previous fertilizer and so they have more problems. THEN they decide that the inorganic fertilizers are too strong and maybe missing something so they douse their plant in fish emulsion or start applying chicken fertilizer to save the plant and don't understand that now they have a pot full of salt and totally dead soil and are now giving themselves more trouble. In THAT case this person needs to go find themselves a good bagged mix with simple instructions find a matched fertilizer that goes with the bagged mix, repot their plant and remove all the old soil, replacing with the new, and follow the instructions for some time. Stop looking at the plant, just get comfortable with watering properly and providing the right environment and let the plant recover. Once the plant is doing well and they've gotten comfortable with care, then, once they're comfortable and not jumping at every dropped leaf, start changing things to see if you can do better. The more factors that they control, the more possibility there is that they can make mistakes and have no idea what went wrong. In that case they need to use something that is known to work, take that off the table as a factor, and then learn the basics. All I was attempting to do was provide a simple path forward and a warning about trying to do too much when general plant care needed to be learned before diving into doing too much at once....See MoreMeyermike(Zone 6a Ma.)
4 years agoDonna R zone 6a
4 years agoDonna R zone 6a
4 years agoDonna R zone 6a
4 years agoDonna R zone 6a
4 years agoDonna R zone 6a
4 years agoMeyermike(Zone 6a Ma.)
4 years agoDonna R zone 6a
4 years agoJohn Merrifield
4 years ago
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