hello all, i received a meyer lemon tree as gift last september or october. it was purchased through Williams Sonoma (who knew!) and came to me in a box. it looked like a stick with a bend in it, totalling about 14-15 or so inches high (can't remember exactly). it came in a six inch terracotta pot and i replanted it into the only larger pot i had at the time, a plastic eight inch pot, using scotts potting soil plus osmocote. during the winter we watered the plan only every week or so with water + miracle gro liquid houseplant food (as directed on the bottle). i don't think we were able to find citrus plant food at the time. now i water when the first inch or two of the soil becomes dry (which is fairly often, but i am afraid that after the last heat wave i didn't let up on the watering that was required at the time and i may have overwatered, as it hasn't really dried in a few days). currently it is 17-18 inches high.. the main trunk is about the same thickness as it was back in the fall, a bit less than half an inch thick. it has two or three "branches" that grow fairly vertically out of the "bend". there was a little shoot that came out about 3 inches below the bend of the main trunk which i took off because i thought ti wasn't supposed to be there. it's not a very pretty tree as of yet - it still looks like a stick with a bend in it, with about 20 leaves total. this is progress, i thought, because all winter it really only had five or so leaves on it (big green flat ones, though). it stayed in front of a sunnyish closed window (i live in an apt and only have two 8 foot windows that face the same direction.. northwestish, i think). it never really grew leaves until last month, after we had a number of 95+ degree days (a big deal up here in new england, i think). this month i noticed three small white buds. as i started to get excited, though, the big flat green leaves started dropping - i think at this point all of them fell. none were very discolored - one or two were starting to brown. the new growth generally looks good but about five of the leaves curl into themselves. the rest look fine. today as i moved the plant because it was raining like crazy and i wanted to close the window the buds fell off the tree. i am not sure what other information i can provide. i just generally don't know what i am doing with this tree! please help.
Commercial potting soils are not generally good for citrus. You need a fast draining mix that is somewhat chunky with lots of air space. I use 4 -1 pine bark-peat moss, others here use up to 50% perlite and some use Coconut husk chips. The commercial potting mix you used may have compacted and could be damaging your roots. It is not uncommon for a tree to drop older leaves, but when it is normal the leaves will usually drop with the petiole. You should be able to find a slow relaease fertilizer with trace minerals that would be better-try to find one with as close as you can get to a 5-1-3 NPK ratio.
thank you very much for your reply. i am going to print it out and visit a garden center to see if they can help me purchase these items. thank you!
