We inherited about a 7 year old Meyer lemon tree (outdoor, in the ground, on the border of our yard very close to our lawn) when we moved into our home in northern California about 4 years ago. At that time and even now, I'm still learning how to garden. For the last 3 years, it's been doing great with very little maintenance. However, this year, we started losing leaves and the leaves got more and more yellow in color as the year has gone on. We did a couple of different things to the area surrounding the tree in the spring of this year - we put down landscape fabric with mulch on top and watered the area 30min three times a week (I now know, it was overkill with the watering). After doing some research, I realized we were watering too much and the local nursery suggested I fertilize and put iron in the area around the tree and quit watering. That was about a month ago. I did notice more new branches but no new leaves and now, the remaining leaves look even worse (more yellow, more droopy) and they are now curling upwards. I'm figuring we have root rot. If we do, what (if anything) can we do to save this great lemon tree? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I would reccommend taking up the landscape fabric and the mulch as they will only make the root rot worse. You might be able to treat the soil with a fungicide to help kill the fungus. The only other suggestion would be to prune the top back to balance the root loss and stimulate some growth provided it will not be exposed to frost. Skeet
