well, a couple of things come to mind based on what you have said here. First, you said "we use citrus fertilizer a few times a year" That may actually be to much, especially if this is in a lawn area and you are also fertilizing the lawn. once in spring and once in fall is plenty. To much fertilizer, especially nitrogen, will make lots of green growth and little fruit. Just stop using the citrus fertilizer for the rest of this year and use it sparingly next year, maybe half the rate recommended on the bag. Or better yet, convert now to a mulch based system. Mulch is better for the tree, doesn't risk polluting the water table, is cheaper and uses the material you already have from your yard so cuts down on waste going to the land fill. Best of all though it just grows GREAT citrus. Second, since you say it gets water from the lawn sprinklers, I'm guessing that the tree might have grass growing fairly close to it. I recomend removing all the grass out to at least 2 feet out past the reach of the branches. Citrus does not like grass growing under it. Again this is where a good mulch can be helpful, covering the ground where you don't want the grass. It also helps keep weeds out. (Note if it's bermuda grass though, mulch alone won't stop that. Lay paper and cardboard down first to create a barrier then mulch over that.) One other factor may be important. a year and a half ago we had a really hard freeze. If your lime got hit, it may still be recovering from that and need one more season before it bears fruit again. If so, just keep doing what has always worked, including the improvements mentioned above, and it should be bearing again next year.

I grew some basil a few years back that got the same thing. I just picked off the afflicted leaves and removed them from the area before disposing of them and it cleared up on my plants. I believe that it is a fungus of sorts which is why I say not to just drop the leaves at the base of the plant but to remove them from the area completely. You may also want to watch when you water it for a bit to make sure that you are getting the leaves too wet which would make for an ideal habitat for things to grow.

I think the experts are going to want to know what species of palm you're talking about. Can you post some pics? You say "several of the leaves are turning yellow"... are they the oldest leaves? That would be natural. Any idea of how established the palms are? Were they recently transplanted by the seller of the home for curb appeal? If so, its possible that you have too many fronds/leaves for a newly transplanted palm. You say you had them "trimmed"... if that meant removing the oldest leaves, that is the right thing to do. But recently transplanted palms should have only two or three newest leaves emerging. All others should be cut off. By the way, the "needle palm" makes a wonderful under-story shrub palm and is completely dependable. It grows as a clump and only gets to be about 10 feet tall. There are both blue and green varieties available.

Hi everyone. Kamereone - Regarding the treatment of de-hydrated plants using the sugar and water method. I soak the whole plant (or as much of it as possible). As plants absorb moisture through their roots and leaves alike, it stands to reason the more of the plant that can be soaked the quicker the fluid will be absorbed. Usually I soak the whole plant, but with tall plants where they whole plant won’t fit in the bucket, I place as much of the lower half as possible in the mixture and fill the centre well of the plant with the mixture as well as occasionally taking the plant out and inverting it so that I can dunk the upper foliage as well. The ratio quantities of sugar to water aren’t critical nor is the amount of time immersed, but I like to keep them soaking for at least 2 -24 hours (or even up to a couple of days) depending on how severely dehydrated they are. Usually the plants I’ve treated were plants that came in the post and they had been wrapped in newspaper and packed in a box for several days; in one case, a little over two weeks when the parcel went astray, and even those plants after a couple of days of this treatment responded well and after a week or two you would never have known they had been severely dehydrated. When the plants first arrive and were unwrapped, they look a bit like a butterfly when it first comes out of its cocoon; all squashed up and wrinkled. After an hour or two in the mixture the wrinkles seem to gradually disappear as the leaves straighten themselves out again and return to their normal shape; again the comparison with the butterfly fresh out of its cocoon is a good example. You mention those, "spikes that supposedly are just stick-and-forget and claim to address Mealy Bugs”, I’ve never seen or heard of them here. But I did read where as an alternative to toxic chemicals, you can sprinkle “Fossil Flour” (Diatomaceous earth) on the top of your potting mix and water it in and it will kill Root Mealy Bug. I did a trial with this last year when I found a plant with Root Mealy Bug after knocking it out of the pot in preparation for dividing and re-potting. I cleaned off as much of the potting mix that I could and removed about half of the roots that were covered in the root Mealy Bugs and re-potted in fresh potting mix and new potI sprinkled about ½ teaspoon of Fossil Flour over the top of the potting mix (it was a five inch pot and as the fossil flour is very fine you don’t need very much, just a dusting) and then added a topping of fresh mix and watered in well. When the plant was knocked out of the pot again after six months, there was no sign of any active root Mealy Bug (even under a microscope) and I was so pleased to have found a natural insecticide that didn’t harm other insects, It’s now become part of my normal re-potting routine and I use it on every plant I re-pot as a preventative. To read more about this natural product, go to : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatomaceous_earth CAUTION: As it’s a very fine powder you should take the same precautions you would when using any other dusty products and wear a dust mask with an appropriate filter to prevent inhaling this powder. All the best, Nev.