Hello everyone, this is my first time on here, hope it goes well. We have lots of lemon trees and lime trees and an orange etc as we love citrus fruit and have always had no problems with them. Now we are having lots of problems with them! They hated winter. They are meant to have had loads of flowers and leaves but they have none! They have brown tips on nearly all of their branches!They just dont look happy and I guess we are not sure if it too much water, being too cold, or maybe the mulch is too high, we have 6 like this so if someone can tell us what environment we should have for our trees and what dead tips and not many leaves represents, it would be much appreciated. Many thanks.
Brown tips? My advice would be to check the roots carefully for signs of disease or rot. I hope they turn out ok :)
Hi, thanks for the reply. I have removed all the mulch to help them dry out and hope that we get some sunny days. Today has been raining alot and I am sure the wet cold winter has contributed to the unhappiness of the lemon trees. I just hope they all live and begin to grow, have leaves and maybe give us some much loved fruit! I am not going to water them for a month!
First, citrus do best when grown in bare clean weed free ground without any mulch applied. However if you do add a mulch, NEVER EVER let the mulch touch the trunk of the trees. Keep all organic material (including grass) at least a minimum of 1 foot away from the trunk. Before any additional advice can be given, it must be known if these trees are planted in the ground, or in containers. Also a picture would be of help. - Millet
your area is comparable to zone 10 here in the us and they should have come through your winter with no (or very little) frost damage. i'd agree with millet that the mulching is the issue. it's never a good idea to let any mulch touch the trunk of the plant (except when you are overwintering in a cold climate and then it needs to be removed in early, early spring so no issues develop). in your area, i wouldn't think mulching for winter would even be necessary. if the browned tips don't start showing growth soon, you may want to prune back to good, healthy wood.
+Thanks for the advice, I am hoping that the summer will allow them to recover or maybe we will have to dig them up to check the roots? They are in the ground with bark chips over them. Thanks again*
