I wasn't sure how to get multiple pictures in my original post.

another picture

mandarin orange

washington navel

Gosh, I see no one has responded to you! Well, if you get a lot of rain in your area of Hawaii, then gritty mix will be a good choice for you. If you're in a more arid Hawaiian climate, just be sure to water enough to provide adequate moisture. You can use a wooden dowel inserted into the pot to see if you still have moisture at the bottom of the pot. If not, water well. And fertilize frequently, probably for you with every watering, 1/4 strength in the winter, 1/2 strength in the summer, due to your very mild climate and long growing cycles. What's eating your citrus? Not sure, don't know what bugs you have in Hawaii. I am fairly certain you do not have snails, so it would not be snails, but could be earwigs, grasshoppers, or some other sort of chewing insect. I would contact your local ag office to ask what it might be. Is there a reason why you are not putting your citrus in the ground? They will do exceptionally well in the ground for you. Lastly, don't be surprised if your citrus do not color up well. Coloring is dependent upon a certain amount of temperature variance from day to night. If you're closer to the coast and do not get temp swings from day to night, your citrus may stay greenish even when ripe. Not at all uncommon in Hawaii, Jamaica, Bahamas, etc.

Patty S.

Thank you for the answer Patty. I'm not putting it in the ground because the soil I have in my yard is very rocky. When they developed the area they leveled the coral ground and put maybe 18" of top soil over the top. The soil turns into clay over the wet/dry cycles. So I decided that I could control the growing environment better in the container. I also wanted the trees to remain on the smaller size.

Do you think it would help with the bugs if I spray some rosemary oil mixed with the pro-tekt on the leaves.

You can try the rosemary, but don't know if it will help, this is new to many of us. I'm using it for mites and happy with it, but we don't know what's affecting your plant? In case you decide to try it for any reason, it's rosemary ESSENTIAL oil, I put 1 tsp per quart of water in a spray bottle, add an emulsifier like castile soap or ProTekt ( I added 1/2 tsp). Shake bottle often. Spray both sides of leaves and branches while in the shade, or on a cloudy day or after sundown...sunlight may burn leaves treated with oil products. I keep my trees out of sunlight for 18 hours, overnight may be good enough. Do not use the oil without diluting it in water....

Aloha from Mass and hello to Patty and Mary!

Do you have earwigs in your area? Do you know what they look like? Do you have slugs or grasshoppers?

When earwigs bite my trees, they usually take the edges off working their way into the center of the leaves and the same with grasshoppers. They eat the edges off.
I've seen slugs do that kind of damage though.

As Patty said, familiarizing yourself with the bugs in your area is the best investment you could do.
I am not sure either if Rosemary Oil will help with anything other than spider mites since I am still figuring it out too.

Have you ever invesrtegated your trees under the cover of darkness with a flaslight to see if you see anything?

Personally, I do see spider mite damage in the distortion of the newer leaves but as for the holes, I wouldn't worry.

In gereneral your trees look amazing and if you are getting the spider mites under control, you have a great head start.
Try using something that attracts slugs and see if they exist.
MIke..And nice to meet you.

Forgive me if I seem to be a skeptic; I am more commonly described as a curmudgeon. I honestly think the "affect" of the rosemary oil is more about the attention than the "snake oil". If you pay a lot of money for something that you are "sure" it is going to work; and you watch every day to see how it is going, it may well be more about the attention than the product. I have an entire folder called Practices and Secrets; and the truth is it is more about Practices than about Secrets. One of my favorites under Practices is "Someone looks at every tree every day; his supervisor looks at every tree every week; and I look at every tree once a month". For that we have no surprises and no epidemics; we do not wake up one day and find that all our trees are infected or infested with something.

I speak skeptical fluently, and I think it can be a very good thing :-)

To my knowledge, no one on this forum has claimed to be "sure" about anything, as far as I am concerned this is just an ongoing experiment. After trying Bonide Horticultural Oil, Safer, Organicide, Fish Emulsion and Neem (one at a time of course) over several cycles, and over many months on my citrus trees, and years before that on citrus and other plants, the Neem with rosemary was the most effective. By far. For me. On mites. I shared that mites came back on only 1 of 4 trees after a month. That's a tremendous difference, for me. Now I'm trying rosemary without Neem, diluted in solution of course. I'll continue to share my experience if there is any interest, and hope others will do the same, so we all learn from it. We should all add a healthy dose of skepticism. I'm not one for jumping on bandwagons, they're usually disappointing.

I am getting concerned, though, that people are not using "essential" oil, not diluting it, not keeping wet leaves out of sun, and not spraying every 3-4 days at first for the mites. Not only may this not work, but it could harm their plants if these details are ignored.

For me it doesn't matter what anyone thinks, except for me and what it does for my now healthy plants unudulterated pest free trees.

Mike:-)

I use a couple different products for mites, aphids and other crawleys. Azamax or azatrol for preventative works the best. The rosemary oil works but there is a great product called SNS 217. It has worked wonders for me and my friends. Most of the time though I prefer using "Take Down" Pyrethrin spray because i hate the little bastards. the day after i spray this i will use a mild wash mixture or just water.
Another trick I read was to keep the leaves moist, so a spray of water daily tends to keep them from wanting to take up residence.

Raphen, great suggestions!

But this I can tell you,mositure does not keep mites away. In fact I see them drinking and swimming in the drops of water with their bathing suites. Yup you can see this if you are using a magnifying glass...
High humidity in greenhouses and the tropics still harbor mites. I wished they hated moisture and wet leaves as many say.

Mike:-)

This post was edited by meyermike_1micha on Thu, Feb 21, 13 at 18:56

Thank you for everyone's input. I have noticed that the bushes that are closest also have leaves that are being eaten by something, but I haven't noticed any bugs hanging around. I do see some spider webs every now and then but no infestation. I don't see slugs in the area either. I suppose since there isn't an overwhelming amount of damage, I can just monitor the situation. I may just try the rosemary essential oil, pro-tekt, and water solution just to see if it works. I'll keep you all posted.