Mv wife gifted me a meyer lemon tree as a tribute to my brother who passed unexpectedly in 2023. He was growing three lemon trees from seeds in North Carolina and I was unable to save them when we had to pack up his house.
A few months ago, my wife finally found a lemon tree in Canada at a plant nurserv. We put it outside and it did okay for a while. But summer was cooler than usual here in the GTA and it slowlv started losing leaves.
I eventually brought it in and realized that it loved the plant led grow lights and flowered like crazy. But it is still slowly losing leaves, just slower than it used to and I don't know what to do.
Do they normally drop all their leaves and regrow the in the wild? It has four lemons. It started with onlv two and thev all are decent sized and havent dropped. Also, all the branches look fine, they just dont have any leaves anymore. Should we pluck the lemons so the tree stops feeding them all the resources?
The tree is small still, a little more than a foot off the ground. We also are planning to move and I am definitely going to have it in a warmer room (hopefully it isn't too late). We have it in our bedroom now because it has the largest window and most light. But that also makes it the coolest room as well.
by lumumba_s
1 Comment
> Do they normally drop all their leaves and regrow the in the wild?
Meyer lemon trees are evergreen and do not seasonally drop their leafs. Leafs hang on the tree for their individual 1.5 – 2 year lifespans before they are naturally shed. Mass leaf drop like this is a major setback to container citrus growing.
> flowered like crazy
Flowers all over the tree including on brown wood are “stress blooms”, regular blooms are only on the tips of recent growth (green wood). Not saying its one or the other (can’t tell without more info or photos) so just sharing this so you can look for it next time. Meyer lemons are also an everblooming tree that can flower/fruit any time of the year if growing conditions are good.
> Should we pluck the lemons so the tree stops feeding them all the resources?
1. Yes! Strip all the fruit as fruit development is an energy expensive effort. This tree has 3 leafs, is almost entirely defoliated, while it hangs onto fruit it prioritizes them over vegetative growth and refoliating. If the tree flowers again, strip fruit when they get to be about pea sized for the next year, maybe longer. Normally I recommend stripping %100 of fruit for the first 2 years, %90 on years 3-4, and cease stripping on year 5 or 6 when trunk diameter is close to 1″ and branches are thick/strong and capable of holding a heavy load of lemons. You’ll get more fruit in the long run by stripping fruit on young citrus trees, letting them bulk up first instead of wasting their sugars/energy on fruit production as young immature trees when thin weak branches are also more prone to snappage under weight in high winds or when pots are being moved around for seasonal indoor/outdoor migrations.
2. I can see the edge of your blurple lights — they are not intense enough for much more than a tiny seedling citrus tree. Aim for 150+ watts of full spectrum light (more is better), which is probably 5-10x more light than what you have. You can use a [light meter app](https://growlightmeter.com/) (any smartphone + a [clip-on light diffuser](https://lightray.io/diffuser/)) to confirm its receiving 600+ PPFD for 12 hours/day, and use this tool to calibrate the distance between lights and trees so you know they are being used effectively. Consider getting lights like these: [ViparSpectra P2000](https://www.viparspectra.com/products/p2000) 250w $129 USD [Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/VIPARSPECTRA-Spectrum-Upgraded-Dimmable-Seeding/dp/B085W3LY4Q) $119 USD — this wattage for this price is a great value I think, pardon my USA-centric links. Video: Adrian Poe [Light: Measuring PPFD with Photone app](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOq-5e-UeqQ)
3. I think it would be helpful for you to see a few reasons why citrus drop leafs in mass defoliation events like what your tree experienced. Deploying a hygrometer can be a game changer for detecting the invisible gremlin in northern homes with constantly running furnaces that is VPD shock (common cause of mass defoliation indoors), but I wouldn’t overlook that your soil mix may be retaining too much moisture (another common citrus problem). You have a dark cloud hanging over your citrus growing project until you can determine the cause of the leaf drop, it will likely continue happening until you figure things out and fix it. /r/Citrus/comments/1o4c4nz/key_lime_moved_inside/nj1kdtw/
4. If a container citrus tree is kept warm indoors under grow lights you can give it fertilizers all year round. Have a good fertilizer regiment. /r/Citrus/comments/1ohp0dl/overwintering_advicehelp/nlri9op/
5. Be careful with those outer/inner pot setups. Citrus hate wet feet and are more susceptible to root rot. If the bottom of the pot sits in water runoff for too long, especially if the soil mix retains too much moisture, root rot can wick up into the soil and take hold which can trigger those mass leaf defoliation events. Add some hockey pucks, pot feet, or some other spacers under the inner-most pot to elevate it a few inches above the outer-pot, so the drainage hole of the inner pot does not touch the water line of runoff water that settles into the bottom of the outer pot in the days after a major watering. My suggestion for citrus trees is not using outer decorative pot covers so you can keep an eye on water runoff, just use a black/dark colored pot (for the thermal advantage when the tree is outdoors in Canada), have a [drip tray](https://www.amazon.com/SAUCERHOME-Plastic-Planter-Saucers-Outdoors/dp/B09Y2V1QDT) when overwintering indoors, and something to keep the pot out of water runoff like a [pot elevator](https://www.amazon.com/Grow1-Pot-Elevators-6-Pack-18-5/dp/B083F5GC9Q) or simple [rubber planter feet](https://www.amazon.com/Pack-Pot-Feet-Outdoor-Planters/dp/B07TVKSH23). My preference for containers are [superroots air pots](https://air-potbros.com/collections/air-pot-kits) which have built-in risers/elevators and they are well optimized for drainage and air porosity, or cloth pots + risers/elevators or wire shelves. Videos: The Fig Professor, [Pot Risers for Healthy Potted Figs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqHhTKofq8M), AlboPepper [Air Pruning Plant Roots! Superoots Air-Pot vs Ultra Oxy Air Pruning Pots: Review & Tutorial + Hack!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erd3rjOW1XU), Majestic Trees [How the Air-Pot works](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N03Wi5vB0Uo)
6. Defoliated citrus trees drink less water, so take care not to maintain the same watering schedule you used when the tree had leafs and was outdoors in the late summer. Watering frequencies should also otherwise be increasing/decreasing with seasonal temperature changes. Roughly something like twice a day at 100F+, daily at 90F+, every other day at 80F+, weekly at 70F+, bi-weekly at 60F+, monthly below 50F. If your tree is indoors and probably kept around 65F, but without leafs and under low light you might be watering around every 3-4 weeks. Stick your finger into the top 2 inches of soil to feel for moisture, and you might also consider getting into the habit of just lifting the whole tree + container and guaging its water weight by feel (takes time to develop this skill).
7. Often when citrus are purchased or shipped from a nursery they will be in the smallest pot possible to save on soil costs and for ease of transport — while they might not be root-bound they may already be root wrapping a bit when you get them. Usually citrus trees get up-potted soon after they are acquired but this can wait until mid-late spring if trees are purchased in fall/winter. Anyway, plan on up-potting, and also **for citrus its super critical to use soil mixes optimized for drainage/air porosity that do not retain too much moisture**. If regular potting soil is used then add an additional %50 perlite by volume, if citrus/cactus soil is used then add %25 additional extra perlite. My suggestion in the north are soil mixes that are mostly inert, with small volumes (%15-35) of slow-decomposing organic matter like peat moss/coir, pine bark fines based mixes are good too, and **no compost in contact with citrus roots**. Mixing your own Gary’s Best Top Pot (%35 peat, %30 pumice, %20 perlite, %10 sand, %5 biochar) or a variant of 511 like 521 (5 parts pine bark, 2 parts peat, 1 part perlite) are my preferred citrus soil mixes. The trick to 511-like mixes is getting pine bark chunks to be over 1/8″ but under 1/2″ in size for it to work as advertised. Some people just purchase mesh screens from the hardware store, sort the sizes they want for citrus mixes, and use the larger chunks in mulch. Others buy different bags of pine bark until they find a product that has appropriately sized chunks that do not need to be sorted/screened. There also are many other mixes one can make using decomposed granite, pine bark, sand, peat, and perlite depending on what is available.
8. Because your wife purchased this tree a few months ago at a plant nursery, my recommendation is that instead of putting too much effort into recovering your defoliated tree in a sub-optimal environment in canada (its going to take more than a year to recover), that you consider a hygrometer and more powerful grow lights, buy a new lemon tree, and avoid making the mistakes that put your current tree in the state that it is in. The tree can be recovered, is probably still alive, but I don’t think its worth the time/effort. You could continue growing the old tree for educational purposes to learn as much as you can about recovering citrus in your growing environment if you want but foward progress in the quest for fruit is going to be very slow unless changes are made.