The leaves of this Meyer lemon seem to be getting more and more yellow. This is the first year I have had this particular plant; I probably bought it in the early spring. It has had no new growth. It has been fertilized with citrus fertilizer; soil is on the sandy side. (The netting is to help keep giant swallowtail butterflies from laying eggs on it.)
Thanks!
Lucy
One more picture.
Last picture . . .
I have a larger one that is yellowing a bit too but I think mine is due to the heat and drought. I wonder if they can burn. My avocado is showing some of the same signs and it is in a pot.
Lucy, Yellowing over the entire plant is due to nitrogen deficiency. Generally citrus are fertilized 3 - 4 times a year following the given does on the package. Fertilizers, however, tend to leach out of sandy soil faster than they do in clay soils. I would take the recommended yearly amount of the fertilizer you are using divide that amount into smaller doses and feed ore often.
For such a little guy planted this spring, he is carrying a big burden — all those lemons. Usually, the accepted recommendation is to remove the first year's fruit to give the tree a chance to get established and develop a good root system. With all those lemons, this poor baby just doesn't have the energy to produce leaves.
I found a good site on citrus deficiencies. Although meant specifically for India, it is still of practical use. The photos in the PDF files are slightly blurry, but they are still usable.
http://www.ppi-ppic.org/ppiweb/india.nsf/$webindex/1C45F8E53990E2106525711A0016A748?opendocument&navigator=home+page
Thank you for the specific advice! I have cut off all the lemons and lightly worked in some citrus fertilizer and some additional nitrogen. I also cut off the lower branches - about 6" up from the ground. The Meyer lemon becomes a large shrub, not a tree, doesn't it? Is leaving about the bottom 6" of the trunk with no branches about right? It already looks happier!
The biggest threat to citrus trunks is sun scorch, but shouldn't happen if branches provide some shade. If left un-pruned, most citrus will look rather shrubby, but because of their eventual size, they are trees. If you want your lemon tree to look more tree like, you can prune off some of the lower branches as the tree grows in height. For now, 6" is fine. As you prune off branches, you may have to protect the trunk from sun scorch by painting it with a mixture of 1/2 white latex paint and 1/2 water. Sun scorch kills the cambium layer under the bark.
All great advice here. I would do one other thing. Add 1 to 2 tsp. of epsom salt to a gallon of water and mix well. First water your lemon tree real good, then pour some of your epson salt solution around the base. This should help also.
I'm new to citrus, but my kids gave me a Meyer lemon for Mday. It's doing well, recently flowered and is now setting a bunch of little lemons.
But I think it needs to be repotted into a bigger container. When is the best time to do this? It has to be in an container here in Zone 5, and while it's outside now, it'll have to come inside in the winter, where I don't have a good location for it, with much sunlight.
I'm thinking to repot it when I bring it in for the season. Is this best?
Thanks to each of you for all the help! I don't have any epsom salts, but will get some and treat with that (seems like that helps with 'basal breaks'?).
L. Tilton,
I would repot it now so it has time to get established in the new pot and start sending roots into the new potting mix. Soils without roots retain water much longer than soils with roots and can lead to overwatering problems during winter. You could set up some fluorescent lights a few inches above the uppermost leaves. If you leave the lights on at least 16 hours, it might be alright.
Thanks, bettydee.
I'm wondering if the transplant shock would cause it to abort its fruits. But maybe it's too young to be fruiting, anyway.
If you are careful, transplanting should cause a problem with fruit. If the plant is small consider removing any fruit that form the first year so it will direct its energy into growing. If you were lucky enough to get one in a 5-gallon container, you may get some fruit on it. One of the things I like about citrus are the wonderfully fragrant flowers. Only about 5% of the flowers will produce fruit and of those most will fall off as time goes by. Citrus tend to self-thin so it gets rid of any fruit it can't support. A mature tree should still give you plenty of lemons even though a bunch fall off.
There's a pretty sizable lemon growing on this one, very very slowly. It's still green. And a couple dozen that just set - I'm sure most of those will abort, regardless.
But it's a small pot. It needs a larger.
