My first observation is that the pots seem way too small for these trees!

Yep, bigger pots are needed and it looks like there is some salt build up on the soil. How much sun are the trees getting? These look like the typical trees grown from seed.

If you give us a very detailed description on how you care for these trees maybe me can help?

To start with.

Is that tree in a pot that does not drain?

Is that mix very dense and does it take a long time to dry out?

Do you flush your soil on a regulaer basis?

How much sunlight do they get?

Do you fertilize them?

What kind of temperatures do you provide?

How often do you water?

When was your last re pot?

How long have you had them?

Do you let them grow outside?

Have you ever checked for spider mites?

Do you ever spray the leaves with anything, pest spray, or even wash them off?

Just a few to start.

both of them are in the pots that drain

i water it every other day, because it dryes every other day.

the mix i bought is four foliaceous plants.

they sit near the window that looks south but it live in eastern europe so at the moment sun rises at 8:15 and drops at 16:50 and days are mostly cloudy.

Yes i fertilize them with some kind of fertilize sticks i do it every 6 months.

Temperature is mostly 21/22c degrees at winter and 23/24 at summer

last re pot was at previous summer somwhere on may.

i had them for about 2 or 2 and a half years maybe 3 im not sure.

They grow inside, never outside.

I sprayed both plants soil because some tiny flyes startded appearing on the soil or from the soil i dont know really but they are gone.

And i spray the leafs with water really really rarely like one time in 2 months.

They both grew from some seeds of a lemon i bought in the supermarket.

And yes pots sits in the effluent.

ps. what does it mean flushing your soil?

Thank you for your replays i hope i answered all your questions

will be waiting for further information.

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Steve

Benas, it looks like you have our work cut it for you but diable))

Tapla, above has helped me to get where I am today and I will add a few things to that.

From your description it sounds like the soil has gone sour, to compacted and suffocating your roots. This in itself will self destruct your trees. The fine roots are not healthy do to what Al said and other factors.

Also, leaving your trees in the effluent is also not a good idea which can lead to several issues.

Flies is a bad sign and a tell tale of a poor mix that your tree is sitting in.

A lack of outdoor sunlight does not help either. Why do you keep it inside all year long? Can you summer it outside for a bit?

if you would like to know what we would do based on what you explained, please let me and the others here know. Would be thrilled to help you do great with citrus the way we all learned. Just let us know ok?

Happy gardening over there. Hope you weather is better than mine))

Mike

Your pot size should be according to the scale of your tree. Avoid too large or small planters, keep in mind to use a container that is one size bigger than your previously used pot. If growing lemon tree indoors, use grow lights to provide adequate lighting inside.

I would really appreciate if you tell me what you would do. Thank you.

And from now on when the weather is warm and sunny ill keep my plants outside.

"And from now on when the weather is warm and sunny ill keep my plants outside".

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That is a big one there. Make sure you look up acclimating citrus to full sun. There is an art to that. I don't know how to help you with the growing problems. I don't grow lemons.

Steve

Some of what I'll post are replies I've left on other threads and decided to save as a document because the topic so frequently arises; so, if you might see some info that seems just a bit off topic.

both of them are in the pots that drain That's good.

i water it every other day, because it dryes every other day. I suggest you stop depending on a finger or a cursory glance at the top of the soil to determine when watering is appropriate. Even when the top couple of inches looks/feels completely dry, the soil deeper in the pot can be 100% saturated. You need to be able to assess what the moisture content of soil deep in the pot is. The best way to do that is by using a "tell".

Using a 'tell'

Over-watering saps vitality and is one of the most common plant assassins, so learning to avoid it is worth the small effort. Plants make and store their own energy source – photosynthate - (sugar/glucose). Functioning roots need energy to drive their metabolic processes, and in order to get it, they use oxygen to burn (oxidize) their food. From this, we can see that terrestrial plants need air (oxygen) in the soil to drive root function. Many off-the-shelf soils hold too much water and not enough air to support good root health, which is a prerequisite to a healthy plant. Watering in small sips leads to a build-up of dissolved solids (salts) in the soil, which limits a plant's ability to absorb water – so watering in sips simply moves us to the other horn of a dilemma. It creates another problem that requires resolution. Better, would be to simply adopt a soil that drains well enough to allow watering to beyond the saturation point, so we're flushing the soil of accumulating dissolved solids whenever we water; this, w/o the plant being forced to pay a tax in the form of reduced vitality, due to prolong periods of soil saturation. Sometimes, though, that's not a course we can immediately steer, which makes controlling how often we water a very important factor.

In many cases, we can judge whether or not a planting needs watering by hefting the pot. This is especially true if the pot is made from light material, like plastic, but doesn't work (as) well when the pot is made from heavier material, like clay, or when the size/weight of the pot precludes grabbing it with one hand to judge its weight and gauge the need for water.

Fingers stuck an inch or two into the soil work ok for shallow pots, but not for deep pots. Deep pots might have 3 or more inches of soil that feels totally dry, while the lower several inches of the soil is 100% saturated. Obviously, the lack of oxygen in the root zone situation can wreak havoc with root health and cause the loss of a very notable measure of your plant's potential. Inexpensive watering meters don't even measure moisture levels, they measure electrical conductivity. Clean the tip and insert it into a cup of distilled water and witness the fact it reads 'DRY'.

One of the most reliable methods of checking a planting's need for water is using a 'tell'. You can use a bamboo skewer in a pinch, but a wooden dowel rod of about 5/16” (75-85mm) would work better. They usually come 48” (120cm) long and can usually be cut in half and serve as a pair. Sharpen all 4 ends in a pencil sharpener and slightly blunt the tip so it's about the diameter of the head on a straight pin. Push the wooden tell deep into the soil. Don't worry, it won't harm the root system. If the plant is quite root-bound, you might need to try several places until you find one where you can push it all the way to the pot's bottom. Leave it a few seconds, then withdraw it and inspect the tip for moisture. For most plantings, withhold water until the tell comes out dry or nearly so. If you see signs of wilting, adjust the interval between waterings so drought stress isn't a recurring issue.

the mix i bought is four foliaceous plants. Soil choice is one of the decisions that have a huge impact on how much of their genetic potential (for vitality, growth, appearance, .....) your plants will be able to realize. My personal thoughts on what delineates between a good soil and a not so good soil is weather or not you can water that soil to beyond the point of saturation w/o having to worry the soil will remain saturated so long it wrecks root health and root function. Of all the aspects that go into making up your growing experience, there is more traction to be gained by getting the soil right than anything else I can think of; so, if you're serious about increasing your proficiency at growing in containers, I urge you to consider setting some time aside to gain and understanding of how to get your soil to work FOR you, instead of at cross purposes.

Just as a point of reference, this is what I use for all my trees and other woody plants, succulents, and almost all houseplants:

Yes i fertilize them with some kind of fertilize sticks i do it every 6 months. How to fertilize efficiently is very difficult when you can't water correctly, and you have very little to no control over how much fertilizer your plants get when you put a year's worth of fertilizer in your pot (the sticks), then wait for it to dissolve.

I sprayed both plants soil because some tiny flyes startded appearing on the soil or from the soil i dont know really but they are gone. Probably fungus gnats.What did you use?

And yes pots sits in the effluent. In the piece below, you'll learn why it's not good to allow your plants ti sit in effluent. In brief, the reasons are two. It ensures the soil remains soggy for an extended period; and, it ensures that the salts that are flushed from the soil have a pathway back into the soil. Your pot should be above the highest level the effluent will reach. Here is one way to ensure there is no pathway by which the effluent can make way back into the soil.

ps. what does it mean flushing your soil?

Flushing Soils

Water-retentive soils that can't be flushed during our regular water applications need to be flushed regularly to ensure salts from tap-water and fertilizer solutions aren't accumulating in the soil and limiting the plant's ability to take up water. To flush the soil of a planting: Water with room temperature water until the soil is completely saturated. Allow the planting to rest for 15 minutes to an hour to allow as much of the salt accumulation as possible to go into solution, then pour a volume of room temp water equal to at least 10X the volume of the pot the plant is in slowly through the soil. This will remove most of any accumulation of offending salts and resolve any skewing of nutrient ratios.

It's a good idea, no matter what time of year, to fertilize most plants immediately after flushing the soil. Try to be sure you're using a fertilizer that has a ratio as close as possible to the ratio at which the plant uses nutrients. The NPK % listed on fertilizer packaging is not its ratio. 7-7-7 and 14-14-14 are 1:1:1 ratios. 9-3-6, 12-4-8, and 24-8-16, are all 3:1:3 ratios. Container growers should try very hard to avoid use of fertilizers advertised as 'bloom-boosters', or any number with a middle number (Phosphorous) higher than either the first or third numbers (Nitrogen or Potassium). These fertilizers can badly skew nutrient ratios with even the first application). On average, plants use about 6x as much N as P, so there is NO potential for a positive outcome when supplying many times as much P as the plant requires. I, and a large number of other members, use Dyna-Gro's Foliage Pro 9-3-6. It's designed to closely mimic the uptake ratio of the average plant, and has many other attributes not commonly found in other fertilizers. It also has ALL of the nutrients essential to normal growth. Summarized, it makes fertilizing as easy as it can be, and from 1 container.

Al

My 30 gallon pot is to big. I will use an 18 inch tree saw to prune the roots in the pot.

Fukushu kumquat on C35 roots.
This pot is too big but I plan to bare root plant in ground next spring.

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Meiwa kumquat on Kuharski citrange. This pot is too big but I plan to bare root plant in ground next spring.

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Seed grown Meiwa kumquat in a 4 gallon pail is size right for a freshly up potted citrus tree.

Room to grow into.

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Steve

Choosing an Appropriate Size Container

How large a container ‘can’ or ‘should’ be, depends on the relationship between the mass of the plant material you are working with and your choice of soil. We often concern ourselves with "over-potting" (using a container that is too large), but "over-potting" is a term that arises from a lack of a basic understanding about the relationship we will look at, which logically determines appropriate container size.

It's often suggested that you should only move up one container size when "potting-up". The reasoning is, that when potting up to a container more than one size larger, the soil will remain wet too long and cause root rot issues, but it is the size/mass of the plant material you are working with, and the physical properties of the soil you choose that determines both the upper & lower limits of appropriate container size - not a formulaic upward progression of container sizes. In many cases, after root pruning a plant, it may even be appropriate to step down a container size or two, but as you will see, that also depends on the physical properties of the soil you choose. It's not uncommon for me, after a repot/root-pruning to pot in containers as small as 1/5 the size as that which the plant had been growing in prior to the work.

Plants grown in ‘slow’ (slow-draining/water-retentive) soils need to be grown in containers with smaller soil volumes so that the plant can use water quickly, allowing air to return to the soil before root issues beyond impaired root function/metabolism become a limiting factor. We know that the anaerobic (airless) conditions that accompany soggy soils quickly kill fine roots and impair root function/metabolism. We also know smaller soil volumes and the root constriction that accompany them cause plants to both extend branches and gain o/a mass much more slowly - a bane if rapid growth is the goal - a boon if growth restriction and a compact plant are what you have your sights set on.

Conversely, rampant growth can be had by growing in very large containers and in very fast soils where frequent watering and fertilizing is required - so it's not that plants rebel at being potted into very large containers per se, but rather, they rebel at being potted into very large containers with a soil that is too slow and water-retentive. This is a key point.

We know that there is an inverse relationship between soil particle size and the height of the perched water table (PWT) in containers. As particle size increases, the height of the PWT decreases, until at about a particle size of just under 1/8 inch, soils will no longer hold perched water. If there is no perched water, the soil is ALWAYS well aerated, even when the soil is at container capacity (fully saturated).

So, if you aim for a soil (like the gritty mix) composed primarily of particles larger than 1/16", there is no upper limit to container size, other than what you can practically manage. The lower size limit will be determined by the soil volume's ability to allow room for roots to ’run’ and to furnish water enough to sustain the plant between irrigations. Bearing heavily on this ability is the ratio of fine roots to coarse roots. It takes a minimum amount of fine rootage to support the canopy under high water demand. If the container is full of large roots, there may not be room for a sufficient volume of the fine roots that do all the water/nutrient delivery work and the coarse roots, too. You can grow a very large plant in a very small container if the roots have been well managed and the lion's share of the rootage is fine. You can also grow very small plants, even seedlings, in very large containers if the soil is fast (free-draining and well-aerated) enough that the soil holds no, or very little perched water.

I have just offered clear illustration why the oft repeated advice to ‘resist potting up more than one pot size at a time’, only applies when using heavy, water-retentive soils. Those using well-aerated soils are not bound by the same restrictions. As the ht and volume of the perched water table are reduced, the potential for negative effects associated with over-potting are diminished in a direct relationship with the reduction - up to the point at which the soil holds no (or an insignificant amount) of perched water and over-potting pretty much becomes a non-issue.

Al

Al, I could not of said it better. Thank you. I love the point you bring up about growth in larger pots with the right kind of mix. I find I can do that with the 5.1.1 mix that I use or even a very porous mix other than that . My plants are not so limited in size when I do.

Mike

Thanks, Mike. The closer a medium is to not supporting perched water, the less potential there is for over-potting. One could start the tiniest seed or smallest cutting in a 55 gallon drum filled with gritty mix or a soil similar, if so inclined.

Al