I wish my trees even came close to looking that good. The tree should not stand in water as the sauce suggests. sitting in water kills citrus trees. Is your pot made of plastic. The pot has to have drainage and aeration holes for winter time growing.

Typical pot of mine.

Greenhouse and bucket lights · More Info

New Zealand lemonade on US897 rootstock. · More Info

Steve

Remove the tent. It is not necessary and may be deleterious. Your tree looks good. The leaves that dropped were probably old and plants discard old trees that are no longer of any use to them. Make sure it gets lots of sun.

It looks healthy. Just make sure your soil isn’t soggy and I would spritz it regularly while it’s still inside. It will be so happy once it gets outside.

Ok, it sounds like I should remove it from the tent. The soil is Miracle Gro moisture control, which I realize is not good, and soon I'll be able to afford a good mix.

Silica - what is toped?

I just removed it from the tent and there's mold!! I guess I'll have to buy new soil now. This is awful.

Topped means to cut off the top inch or two. Doing so removes the apical bud, therefore the tree will start to produce side branching. Most seedlings tree are topped at 25 to 28 inches.

I doubt that the mold is harmful, so just ignore it.

You can also remove the top layer of the soil and add the same amount of fresh soil.

Ok, I will just change the top layer of soil.

Silica - this tree is only 17 inches, would you recommend cutting the top off? Is side branching desirable?

Also, is there something else I can do to prevent dropping/yellowing leaves? The lower part of the trunk looks so bare already. What is a recommended watering frequency for heavy soil?

This looks like a tree grown from a seed, since there is not visible graft. Do you know what kind it is? The mold is not harmful and can be ignored. Ditch the tent and don't let the tree sit in water in the dish. What zone do you live in? That will affect how you care for your tree. I'm in zone 10 and all my citrus is outdoors.

Laura ask" "is side branching desirable"..

Laura, don't you want your tree to have branches?

I would say it doesn't look too bad - do you have a bunch of fungus gnats? they chew at the roots and can hurt the plant. But yes your soil looks too heavy - if its good rich soil, I'd add at least 1/4 perlite and maybe 1/4 peat moss by volume to help with aeration and drainage - and do a pH test too. Don't water too often - Once a week, give a nice slow watering. Citrus need a good strong light too, esp if kept indoors. Spritz with water once or twice daily, and keep some dishes with pebbles and some water in them close by.

Are they kept outdoors ?

losing a few leaves is normal after any change in environment or repotting. My guess is the soil is too wet since the leaves are droopy.

Wow, if that soil mix is not suffocating the roots then I don't know what is. This can have a profound effect or good growth.

Laura if it's in Miracle Gro moisture control, I suggest you don't water at all until you do the skewer test and see that it's dry halfway down the soil. Since its specifically "moisture control" as well as Miracle Gro, it's best to assume that the soil will retain moisture much longer than you'd expect it to.

With regular bagged potting soil like that, seeing the soil surface become dry is really deceiving and can still be very dark and moist further below. I haven't grown in 511 or gritty yet, only peat/perlite so far and that's something I stay aware of constantly for my overwintered Meyer. I'd go with Silicas suggestion and provide lots of light. If the soil is staying too moist, giving it more light in a toasty area will spur the tree to absorb more of the moisture and dry out the soil faster. Otherwise the tree will just sip at the soil and probably stay too wet since it was recently tented. Let us know what you end up doing and how the rescue progresses!

Wouldn't that be funny if the ML inter-stock had bad affects on the quality of the oranges grafted onto it

Hi all,

I just wanted to say thank you for all the advice, and update you on the tree!

It seems to be doing fantastic. The leaves are all green, and there are four new leaves at the top. I will probably repot it in June with a gritty mix. I might also stake it, since it's not very straight at the moment.

Thanks!

If you don't see graft mark, i would use it for rootstock. Laura, like your hairdo in one of the pictures.