I would not remove any damaged leaves because the plants need as much of their photosynthetic capability as possible under these circumstances. Your decision to repot is a good one but try to do it as gently as possible to minimize root damage. You might want to consider not doing a bare root and just putting them into new pots with holes in them. If you do bare root them, try to do it so as to minimize root damage. Soak the root balls for a few hours before bare rooting.

Thanks Vladimir, going to do it right away, I will update on their progress.

Oh my sunshine...what a gift! I am sure you are keeping them away from your other trees. I’d do what Vladimir says but be careful with that scale. They are tricky to get rid of.

Yes, Laura, they are completely separate from my other trees and plants in the other room, the gift of scale pests came right to my door :))

I feel bad for my neighbor, I will see if I can make one tree for her in the future (with instructions of cause), she simply freaked out seeing the scale and sticky trees.

I recently discovered to my great horror that in spite of my vigilance and seeing this tree in front of my chair every day, my big persian lime (Seth) had scale. I freaked!!! There was one branch in the back that was totally covered for about six inches. I cut it off, but when I looked more closely, there were scale all over many other leaves and branches. What a nightmare! I am sure that I will need to spray many more times, but for now I have sprayed with a mix of neem, rosemary extract insecticide, protekt, alcohol, and HO...oh and I also add several drops of rosemary EO. I have also removed any scale I see with a paper towel drenched in alcohol, and have trimmed back several long branches to open up the canopy more. I have not seen any in the last couple of days, but will spray again maybe tomorrow. I HATE scale and I can’t isolate that tree. I just don’t have any other place to put it where it will get light. I feel your pain sunshine!

Nice late xmas gift! I think they look pretty darn good considering the scale and the no hole pots. Why not try and just stick them into draining pots rather than do a whole repot? From the pics they seem to be doing fine.

For the scale I would skip the neem and go and get a horticultural oil. With repeated treatments I think hort oil works faster and more reliably, especially with bad infestations.

Also I would get rid of that pepper plant, I tried to overwinter pepper plants in my room one winter with my citrus and the pepper was a perpetual vector for aphids. No matter what I did the aphids came back, so I wouldn't risk the citrus but up to you of course.

Oh no Laura, they can sneak up on you right? Sounds like you have it under control as usual.

My peppers always get aphids and whiteflies.

I always try to get a new plant out of the pot to look at the rootball. If you can see good/bad roots, that can help decide if you need to repot now.

Nice looking tree's Sunshine I know that you will have them real pretty in not to long of time . Happy New Year' to you Sunshine and your family.

Brian

Definitely get rid of the pepper.

Thank you guys for all your support and guidance. I already discarded the pepper plant, but I saved one red tiny pepper for seeds to make another pepper plant for my neighbor.

Amy, Hobby I will definitely treat them many more times with different pest deterrents to get rid of the scale.

Hibiscus, the soil is so wet and today I had to go and get containers in a hurry, first thing tomorrow going to repot them, they still smell like vinegar, I think the soil stinks, she sprayed them with straight undiluted vinegar, half of the leaves are damaged badly and will drop.

Brian thank you and thank you all, my very best wishes for all of you in the coming New Year!

I will keep you updated.

Lovely looking trees Sunshine! It looks like you are doing everything right and under your care they will do very well. Happy New Year to you! :)

Thanks Jinny, Happy New Year to you and your family as well!

Trying my best to care for my new additions:)

Sunshine, if one is a Tahoe Gold manderin, it is suppose to go to my address.

Have a prosperous and fruitful NEW YEAR!!!!

Bob, definitely will do, no problem :)

Actually there are four trunks in total in this "mandarin" pot, I have repotted the lemon, but not the mandarin yet. All the crazy busy things I have to do today, have not gotten to reporting this bush tree( or trees).

Happy New Year to you and your loved ones!!!

Thanks, keep warm!!!

Sunshine......Oh my. People are always bringing me scaley, mealy bug and aphrid ridden orchids to save, and of course I try but put my own plants at risk of infection. Sounds like you got a lot of good advise here. Laura, I have found a tree badly infected with scale like you that I thought I inspected carefully every day and notice what seems to be an instantaneous outbreak. It spreads so fast too. I hope you can get it under control. So much harder in this cold weather when not able to take it ouside and hose it down. Some trees seem so much more prone to it too. Good luck. I hate scale.

Have a Happy New Year everyone.

Cory

Cory, Happy New Year to you and your family!

Hi everyone, haven't talked to you since last year:)

The trees are repotted, I separated the four mandarin trees, they were all from cuttings, very tangled, turns out they were rootbound twice, as I was separating them in a bucket of water. They lost half of their leaves due to the vinegar damage, the soil was not too wet, here are the pictures:

As for the lemon, it was sitting in a very bad soil, looked like garden top soil and soggy mess, there was pool of water at the bottom. The roots at the very bottom were brown and broke off, I had to bare the roots and wash them, the rootball was small for the size of the tree, the tree was planted way above the root crown before, when I replanted the tree, it could not stand on it's own, had to propp a stick next to it, it only lost 6-7 leaves, because it had less vinegar damage. Here are the pictures:

Here is the aftermath:

To the newbies who are reading this post: the most important first thing to remember in container growing is to have lots of holes in the containers! If you have plants growing in containers without holes at the bottom right this moment, run to your trees and save them from the slow decline and death!

Please, do not plant trees/plants in containers without holes at the bottom! Do not spray your trees with vinegar or other harmful substance that can burn them, do your research first!

I hope you all enjoyed and learned something from this process, I sure did :))

Looks like you did a great job sunshine! I think you have a great shot at recuperating them.

I have no doubt they will be green and lush in no time!

Looking really good Sunshine!!!! and a very Happy New Year's to you and all here on the citrus forum :) Just wondering Sunshine is that a grafted lemon and what variety do you think it is ?

Brian

Thank you Brian, it is a lemon, when I crushed a leaf and smelled, it smells like lemon, it has small thorns on some branches and not grafted, by looking at roots it is a cutting , I am not sure about the variety. Meyer lemon? I would not know until it gives fruit.