I think John is right.....It looks like past disasters that i have had......leaf drop from the ground up and then twig die back......Too much water......In fact i would go as far as saying poor drainage. what happens is the mix compresses and stays wet and the roots suffocate due to lack off oxygen......It is often caused by over watering and the compacting of the soil. I found adding inorganic particles to the mix helped provide air spaces and excellent drainage.....Perlite was my choice.......I once read an article from Israel where they grew citrus in large pots with different grades of perlite and thats all....it was at a shopping centre. The question now is.....can your tree be saved? If you get some fresh mix(this mix will be going stale)....some of the roots will be brown and smell......prune any yukky roots off.Still should be some good ones...prune the dead twigs off in relation to your root prune and mix some fresh potting mix with perlite.....repot.....water once(see how quick it drains) and leave it alone.....do not add fert to new mix.......keep out of direct sun for a couple of weeks and do not feed until you see some new growth and then only with a weak solution....always water first....then liquid feed after that....keep pot up off a tray with pot feet to aid drainage. If this fails....buy a fresh plant and learn from the experience....i killed so many citrus trees like this.....too big pots and soggy soils......the inorganics help prevent compaction when first transplanted and give the roots the channels they desire to fill out into the pot.....once compacted....there is very little air spaces left...another option is terracotta as the breathe but they also dry out very quick in the heat......Give it a go...hope this works for you..... Little tip....make sure the pot is 2 to 3 inches bigger all around than your rootball.....once you have completed the pot and before you water...lift the pot to feel its weight.......then water and feel its weight then. Dont water again until it feels light, like when you first lifted it up.This,plus the perlite in your mix will keep you out of trouble.

Thank you, everyone. I appreciate your responses. I did think it looked like sun damage but I didn't realize that the damage can continue to appear well after the plant has been removed from the direct sun - thanks for this insight. My plan is to repot Larry (the plant) into a smaller/lighter pot with some proper soil mixture and to slowly introduce him back to the sun. I think the pot we have is too large anyway and my husband recently injured himself and can't help me move it - maybe why I rushed his transition to the outdoors over a few days as opposed to a week or two. We're at high elevation and the sun is very powerful here in CO so perhaps moving extra slow is even more important. A few lingering questions... 1. Does anyone have a conversion chart or recommended formula for adding fertilizer to such a young/small plant? The "dosage" chart given on the bag of citrus fertilizer I have seems to be for much, much larger trees and I want to make sure I don't overfertilize. 2. Any ideas as to what the initial few white spots/defoliation might have been from? Those spots did not progress like the sun burn spots and happened several weeks before moving him outdoors. They are shown in the first image. Thank you again! I am happy to hear that Larry should recover.

You have probably made some of the classic Meyer lemon errors. First, when you dramatically change the light conditions a Meyer will drop most, if not all its leaves, to replace them later with leaves better suited to the new light conditions. To move a Meyer from outside to inside without the leaf loss, you need to move it from full sun to partial sun for 2 weeks; then to full shade for 2 weeks; then indoors; reverse the process when putting it out in the Spring... and please DO put it out, if you can; you will be rewarded with a happy, healthy plant. Second, when you bring it indoors to a sunny window, the plant gets warm; but the roots generally stay cool; and citrus roots don't like to grow into cool soil... the solution is to put some sort of heater to warm the soil, or to put the plant a little further from the window. pH of 7 for the soil (neutral) is okay; but Meyers prefer a lower pH (5.5-6.5) Try adding a little vinegar to your water/fertilizer to lower the watering pH to about 6..I will assume you have already done what is recommended here by so many; i.e., planting in the 5-1-1 mix and using Foliage Pro and Osmocote Plus for fertilizers.

Hey everyone, the tree is starting to really look nice and green with about 30 micro blooms beginning to form all over. It almost makes me nervous with that many blooms popping out as it could be that last hurrah that occurs with trees acting in a desperate way to reproduce. Still cautious until i see some new foliage but honestly this is about the best turnaround I could've hoped for. I'll wait some time before taking pics next as it would be cool to get more of a dramatic time lapse as it changes for the better. This process has motivated me to purchase about 5 cubic feet of fir bark and plan on slowly moving my other trees over to the 511. Feel like I've seen enough to know what's better for the trees. Have also had an issue with leaf browning on my key lime that I'm suspecting may be due to soggy soil. Why not take that variable out of the equation? On the inorganic vs organic topic , really interesting stuff and makes you think. My philosophy has been to go inorganic on the non-edibles and organic on anything edible, but with a container garden that does complicate things a bit. Looking at the EB Stone Azalea's soil packaging, they do include "essential" microbes and mycorrhizae as a bit of a risk hedge for an full organic gardener. Not sure at the end of the day any of that matters and will keep an eye out for any issues. Dan