I seem to have the green thumb of death and it is affecting my meyer lemon tree. My friend bought this tree for me from Florida, it's about 12 inches. Right away I put it outside on the deck to let it soak up some sun. It was quite rainy here (Cape Cod) this summer so I hardly watered it. For a few weeks the plant wasn't flowering, nothing. The leaves and soil looked in good shape though. Then I decided to transplant it to a pot that ended up being smaller than I expected it to be. I then left it outside for another few weeks, still nothing. Because the weather is getting cooler here I have brought the tree in. It gets a little bit of sunlight from the window. Not like before though due to the fact I don't have a lot of sunlight going through my place. Almost all of the leaves have fallen off and watering it has done nothing. No one around here knows anything about lemon trees. I am extremely disappointed and would appreciate any help to bring it back to life.
Citrus trees are pretty sensitive and tend to freak out quite easily in my experience, whether it be new environment, new pots/soil etc. When I got my meyers lemon last Christmas it had tons of fruit and flowers growing, and in the next month or so it lost every leaf flower and fruit on it. After almost tossing it a few times I decided to wait until spring and leave it outside, and it sprung back to life very very quickly. My advice is keep it indoors and keep soil moist enough to keep it alive if it goes into dormancy, and wait out the winter and with luck it will be back in good form next spring. All is not lost! Look at mine, hard to believe it was a bare skeleton a few months ago!
Probably unknown to your friend, it was illegal for your friend to purchase a citrus tree in Florida, and take the tree out of that state. There has been a USDA quarantine on all citrus, for the last couple years due to the disease greening. However, to your question, the leaf drop to your tree, was probably not caused by your transplanting, nor was it caused by bringing the tree indoors. Citrus are actually, VERY hardy trees, and can withstand a lot of misuse. What most likely happened to your tree is commonly called Winter Leaf Drop or WLD. Use the words WLD, or Winter leaf drop, in the search function on this forum and you will find all the information needed to avoid this from happing in the future. The cause of WLD was due to the temperature of the tree's root zone, while inside. Don't toss the tree away, as long as the cambium stays green, there is always a chance the tree could survive. - Millet (1,169-)
Last edited by Millet; November 6th, 2009 at 10:47 PM.
I just wanted to thank you so much for your encouragement LobsterMan! I appreciated the picture you attached-it is hard to believe it is the same tree you described before. All the information was very helpful and made a lot of sense. Thanks again!
