Where are you located? Must be somewhere near me. I'm in Alachua County and we had some crazy temperature swings here in late Feb and early March. One of my trees has also lost its leaves and I was thinking the temp. swings could have been a factor, though some here say it could be root rot. Citrus doesn't like temp. fluctuations. Did you have the wild swings from 80 to freezing and back over a few days?

hovegator, I noticed you're in NorCal. Where in NorCal are you? Do you happen to know your Sunset zone (see the Western Sunset book)? Depending on where you are citrus can do very well in your area. I'm not familiar with growing citrus in pots, but I would imagine they should do well enough in your climate. I would suggest a trip to a local nursery that knows about citrus (not the box type stores) and get some information about planting them in your area. I've seen many citrus trees thrive in large pots / 1/2 barrels and left outside. Depending on how cold it gets in your area, you may want to also consider a more cold hardy citrus like mandarin instead of lime. Lali

1.stop watering it until the top soil starts becoming dry. 2.You should repot it now to minimize the damage, it's better in spring ,but you should repot it know. Try Al's mixes either 1-1-1 or 5-1-1 some people have great results with these mixes. 1-1-1 is composed of pine bark or fir, crushed granite 1/8'' and turface MVP. For the 5-1-1 mix it's 5 parts of pine bark, 1 part of peat and 1 part of perlite making these mixes well drained. 3.You should remove every fruit to encourage the tree in growth instead of fruiting, it will help the plant to recover faster. 4.The side that is bare, remove some bark and look if it's still green if not, this side is dead ,so remove it. 5.Leaf drop might be caused by over fertilizing. Have you fertilize the tree recently? 6.You should not leave the tree indoor all year round, put it outside in summer. 7.You've overwatered the tree , some root rot might have form and there's no remedy to root rot. You could cut the dead roots to prevent the fungus or rot to propagate ,but that's all. Little question: Your soil just started to be damp right? Why so? You now water the plant more? Do you have drainage holes in the bottom of the pot? Hope this helps Samuel Forest

Hi Kate, Since they're all over 5 years old and have been healthy all this time, I'd think the drainage should be OK. Unless some changes have been made to the land around them. Since we're just coming into the rainy season I'd go ahead and fertilize them well. When new growth pops out I'd give the trees a minor element spray. And a few weeks or more later give them a bit of magnesium sulfate, either as a foliar or a granular application. (That seems to green up almost everything) All my old citrus have been struggling since the bad storm years. Thought the end was near. I recently gave them a good feeding along with an application of that Bayer product and there's new growth looking better. Hope yours respond quickly.