BLOOMS!

pic of the whole tree. i don't know why this forum posts the pictures sideways. sorry

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:557416}}

Is there water in the saucer? The potting mix looks pretty wet and heavy, and perhaps a touch too large a volume for a tree of that development. Hard for me to differentiate between the effects of a soggy soil or lack of nutrients....but it certainly looks as though there's a nutrient issue (lack, imbalance, et cetera). Hopefully others can offer advice.

Josh

Thank you for your response. There is water in the saucer, but the pot is elevated above the saucer so the pot/plant is not soaking in the water. It's been on the colder side as of late and foggy mornings have kept the soil moist/wet. I haven't water in over 2 weeks because of the moist soil. It is beginning to bloom even more now. Easily over 20 blooms. I'm hoping the transition into more hours of sunlight per day that is coming in the next couple weeks will begin to help. Any other advice is appreciated. Thank you.

Yikes. Looks to be way too wet to me. You should not have a saucer under the tree, it causes the roots to sit in water. You should also have very well draining potting mix. I use a cactus mix with 2 parts of mix, 1 part of small pine back (I use a reptile bark product from Petsmart), and 1 part perlite. You're little tree is drowning. I would definitely re-pot with a better draining mix, and I would also fertilize with a water soluble fertilizer such as Dyna Gro's Foliage Pro as well as put down a time release fertilizer formulated for citrus. The blooming to me is a sign the tree is thinking it's dying, and is making the attempt to reproduce itself with fruit before its demise.

Patty S.

Thank you hoosierquilt, but the potting mix is a citrus mix and drains extremely well. There is no problem with draining. Water runs right through it and out the bottom. I live near the coast. Some mornings are foggy, and as I said temperatures have been cool as of late and not getting much sun so the soil in all my plants is not drying at all. You can even see the moisture on the leaves. These pictures were taken early in the morning. Also, the roots are not sitting in water. The pot is elevated above the saucer so the pot (nor the tree) is even touching the saucer underneath. Both those issues are not the problem. I'm hoping it's just sunlight and once the sun starts shifting further north in a few weeks it will be fine. Thanks again.

This post was edited by ariel.s on Tue, Jan 21, 14 at 22:55

What is your "citrus mix" composed of?

Kris

It's not so much whether the water runs through or not, but that the mix itself retains too much moisture. It looks very heavy.

Josh

I can tell you this....

Look at all the people here trying to show you the concepts of a good draining mix...Thank goodness for people like this here.

If I had learned of this place years ago, I would of never bought this Cactus mix and so thousands of others uninformed people would not who kill their trees day after day with this junk...

I hope you find a way to help your mix dry out much faster than it does before it kills your trees and then use a much better mix in the future....

Good luck

Mike:-)

My apologies if my response came across as snarky. It wasn't intended that way. The 'mix' is E.B. Stone's Citrus & Palm Planting Mix, which contains Aged Fir Bark, Lava Rock, and Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss. I'm not an expert at this, but the reason why I don't think that the 'mix' is a symptom is because it was drying out perfectly fine in autumn '13 before things started to cool down and direct sunlight wasn't an issue. All of my plants aren't requiring water at the moment because they are slow to dry. Any other solutions would be greatly welcomed. Thanks.