Several ideas from the dry Central Valley of California....
Try shading the plants and their pots from the hottest sun of your day. Also, double-potting can help too -- put the planted pot inside another stuffed with sphagnum moss between the two pots.... the heat in the pots can get super hot from the sun hitting them, thereby killing the roots.

Your situation with your in-ground plants is bad because ALL the ground is dried out except the little bit where you water. The root system to the trees is much larger. Also, the drier ground is "robbing" the watered areas. What you really need is a deep watering.... which you probably aren't allowed to do.

Something we do in our outlands that seems to help the Oleanders planted there.... we've saved 20 of the 5 gal. plastic water jugs. We cut a big hole in the top; fill them with water (and a little Miracle Gro, but don't fertilize heavily); surround each plant with several jugs a ways out from the base; and turn on the spigot to a slow dribble; collect and store the jugs when they're empty. It seems to work out where the soil becomes adobe in the summer.

Hope some of these suggestions work.

Sorry to hear of the limb dieback--I wasn't aware of drought conditions in FL, of all places. Branch dieback in massive amounts like that is signals something serious, and I'm sure it is the lack of water that's doing it--the wilting is very stressful. We here on this forum are all so cognizant of overwatering and all that stuff, but underwatering is just as harmful (and I am a pro at that, lol). S**ks tho when it's state-mandated underwatering.

The suggestions to double-pot and move to shade, or at least away from heat sinks like concrete or masonry, may be very helpful to minimize heat stress if that's an issue at this time for you, though I think it can be difficult of your trees are in larger containers. You could also shield the pots with just some aluminum foil, but I don't think that looks very pretty. Painting pots to lighter colors is another option--there are spraypaints that adhere well to plastics if needed. Another thing you can try is to mulch the tops of the containers or the dripline of your in-ground trees to minimize evaporative loss--a good layer can help and then you can always take it off your containers later on if you want if you use something chunky: I use whole abalone shells, river rock, and chunky bark for containers. Of course, you may wish to keep it from touching the actual trunk. Also, maybe altering your watering habits so that you water during the warmest part of the day may help if you're not already doing that.

In my experience, tho in a dry climate and in a heavy clay soil, I do find slow drip irrigation to be very helpful to my trees--plus it's water-conserving. Not sure if this is what westelle was talking about. I drag the hose out to within drip line and set it to literally drip water at the base and leave it for a few hours. Doing this in our dry season has *really* helped my trees and I don't end up using as much water. Plus I only need to do it a couple of times per month, maybe every 10 days if it has been particularly warm. If you're on sandy FL soil that may need to be more frequent and of course if you have lots of in-ground trees that could be another practical issue.

Last, for your container trees, perhaps a wick system to wick water INTO your trees may be helpful? Maybe setting things up to have a narrow-open reservoir like a milk or water jug (once again to minimize evaporative losses) elevated *above* the container with an absorbant wick leading down into the container soils might be able to provide extra moisture as needed.

I make an effort to collect rain from gutters and whatnot to use for my plants too. (Tho, in California I think that that is technically illegal unless I cough up some money for that water since it *belongs* to the state. Ridiculous.)

HTH.

I agree with HTH that slow watering for a LONG time is the ticket, but.... I was under the impression that you aren't allow to water for those needed long slow soaks, thus my suggestion for the water containers because they could all be filled all at once, put to use, and the rest of watering time could be used elsewhere.

(OH! I just had a sneaky idea. What if you filled these containers on watering day but left them sitting aside. Then water whatever you can with whatever time you have left. Then, on the days you can't water you could put out the water jugs to let their water seep slowly into the ground. Or, would the water-police frown on such an endeavor? )

Last night I was reading about a container that permanently sits on the ground and wraps around a tree. You fill it with water and it slowly waters the tree from the base out. That might be an easier, altho' more expensive, option to my water jugs.

HTH: I am not aware that saving rain water from/on your own property is illegal in California.

Hey Lisa...Long time no talk..How have you been?
Sorry about your citrus, how awful..You guys in Fl are having your share of problems..And to find out we can no longer buy citrus shipped out of Fl is devestating.
You got great advice from the above posters. Perhaps saving water in containers would help..
How are the canines? Sam's getting up there in age..

Illigal saving water in CA!! Absurd..State water my a$$. Toni

Who's HTH?
:o)

Here is a link that might be useful: ASAIK....really and truly not wanting to hijack. Please feel free to disregard me.

hey Lisa,

bury a hose running from your neighbor's yard to yours, water all you want. You get healthy citrus and maybe the water police get rid of your neighbors (more land for your trees). Mwah hah hah.

-Ethan

Since I am now in a desert climate, I have most of my containerized fruit in large square cedar containers now. It really helps keep the roots cooler as wood is a poor conductor of heat. I think the cedar has actually helped with pests as well. The pots do not dry out as fast as when I had them in plastic so I can water less often. The roots are no longer cooking like in the plastic pots. We made the wood containers ourselves and they are much sturdier than the half whiskey barrels I have seen around here. It cost about 12 dollars a container, I figure, to make. We sprayed the inside with Pruning Seal to further extend the life of the container and prevent excess water loss.
I had some serious branch die back on some new citrus I got this spring that was in pots, when it started getting up into the 90's and 100's here.
The die back has completely stopped on the ones I have gotten into the wood pots, I was really scared for awhile there. I still use a well draining soil and have good drainage holes in the bottoms.
Your trees in the ground, I agree, need some deep irrigation. Can you water them deeply at night or in the early morning? It greatly reduces evaporation so more water goes to the trees. Sorry to hear of your drought situation I hope you get some rain soon.
*Will do the chicken rain dance for ya * :D
~SJN

SJN, what exactly is Pruning Seal? What is it used for?
Your pots sound exactly what Liza needs to survive their summer..Toni

What great, helpful suggestions! I would love to do deep irrigation, but we are allowed to water only 1 day a week, between 4 and 8AM. That is not enough time to do over 100 varieties of fruit trees.. The lawn, I don't care about. We never water it. It comes back though, when the rains finally stop.

My Citrus look so awful.. I finally solved the Leaf Miner problems (Admire Pro) and now the dieback is making them ugly again.

My potted trees are looking better. We are reclaimimg dishwashing water and using it on them. Every drop is precious! We rerouted laundry and gutter (yeah, like we have rain-Ha!)water to the Banana/Bamboo beds. That is working great!

I won't even talk about the stress my Breadfruit, Cacao, Jaboticaba (all water lovers) are experiencing.. So sad.. I mist them daily and water by hand, but they are suffering terribly..

Lisa

LOL! Sorry about that, Rick, since I guess I was referencing to you. Thank you for increasing my knowledge base.

hopefulauthor,
Pruning seal is used to seal off trees where you prune/cut the branch. It comes in a spray can you can get a walmart, HD etc. -Not hard to find. Someone told me about it at the American Brugmnansia Society forum. It can be used seal the inside of clay pots for fountains, wooden planters etc. It dries faily quickly and does not seem to hurt the plants at all. It has worked great for me so far. I really love the planters so far they don't tip when the wind blows either, an added bonus :)

Lisa,
What a great idea about re routing the dishwater, and laundry water etc. to water plants! I wish we could do that here. That wouldn't work here for us because we have such hard water that there are water softeners in most homes here. It isnt routed to the hoses though, luckily.
We have such salty water here naturally too. It burns the avocados and some other plants. Trying to find a solution for that now.
~Lenette

hello Lisa,
at various spots (grocery stores, etc)we have water filtering machines where people pay $ and fill their 5-gal water jugs. If you still have these available there, for your precious tropicals (esp slow growers like jabos) maybe 1-2 a week purchase 10-15gal of water. The machines here (non drought conditons) are not that expensive to use.

Worse case scenario you could start making multi graft (cocktail) trees and water them more intensely. There is a gentleman named JoeReal that has some impressive trees. Check here and citrus(dot)forumup(dot)org for his posts.

I wish I could mail you some rain,
-Ethan

Hi Lisa

Bill in Houston ( whiskey barrells without bottoms). I am glad you posted because I experienced the same problem with 3 of my trees. We go for long periods without rain and I have been warned so often about over watering that I think I let some of my trees go to long without watering them. I use the finger test, but oft times the coolness of the soil gives a false indication of moisture. Now I know. Thanks.

Bill