Hi everyone, I'm new to Victoria BC, and have been enjoying the wide variety of plants I can now grow compared to where I was living before in Northern BC! I'm growing citrus for the first time this summer. I have a Persian lime tree growing in a ceramic pot outdoors, which receives full, hot sun from 8am-8pm. The pot has multiple drainage holes in the bottom. Fertilized once when I first got it two months ago (forget with what but I'd researched it before doing so). Watering every 2-3 days. I haven't changed my gardening habits but lately some of the leaves have started looking yellow, like in the photos here. I have 3 lemon trees in the same growing conditions and none of them have this issue! Otherwise, the lime tree's bark looks healthy, and I see no bugs or mold. What am I doing wrong here? My suspicion is the lemon trees like water a bit more than the lime tree and I'm overwatering. Should I let the little guy dry out more?
To me the pattern looks like fairly normal senescense that can occur when the citrus plant is about to start a new flush of growth. It seems like the citrus re-absorbs the nutrients from the older leaves and allows them to fall off, then a new flush of growth occurs. This is one of the common causes of leaf loss I have listed in "Problems and Treatments" page ( Problems and Treatments | Aprici ) of my growing citrus pages. Leaf loss is minimized if the citrus is fed properly, but even then it can occur a bit. I would suggest giving your citrus another dose of fertilizer to help the new growth and keep the leaf loss to a minimum. Something like regular Miracle Gro works fine.
