Meyers love to drop their leaves. Some pictures would really help diagnosing. You say it's 5 years old, has it ever been repotted?

Pictures for sure. Also please describe how you care for the tree, the soil you use, and how often you water.

That is exactly what has happened with my ponderosa lemon except for the scale insects. After it dropped all the leaves, I placed it outside in the sun. It had one lonely lemon start on the tip of a branch. The lemon is maybe the size of a small ping pong ball. The branch filled out again, it filled out some other branches as well, set some new flowers and produces a few tiny lemons again. I'm hoping it makes it through the summer now. During the mid day, when the full sun is on it (it's over 90 degrees here lately) it droops. I have it very well watered so it's not that, I guess it's just the head and sun. In the evening it picks up again. This sure is a difficult plant to keep happy. Any suggestions on care etc? Thanks...

Ken B Zone 7, it's been repotted once, about a year after I bought it; from a 1 1/2 L nursery pot to one about 3 gallons. I've been afraid to repot it since, as it always had some combination of fruit or flowers on it, and I thought it might be a bad time.

Meyermike, it's in Citrus soil and fertilized with Jack's Citrus Feed. Not every time, but at least every other watering. I water when the soil feels dry to the touch. We've had a lot of rain, not then, obviously. I'm more likely to let it dry out a bit after the rain.

The major leaf drop happened before I put it back outside. But the fruit drop happened just last week, after it had been outside about 6 weeks.

I have it in part day sun rather than full day sun: at least until it recovers from the scale insects.

here are some photos: The salmon flowers are just an impatiens annual that seeded itself there last year. I let them stay.

My tree got caught preparing to abort a fruit.

4 days ago they were the same size and color. The fruit to the right has stopped growing and is loosing its deep green color. It will soon drop.

Tree looks relatively healthy to me, I wouldn't worry much. Meyers are very finicky and drop leaves and fruit easily. I would remove the impatients, they are competing with the tree for nutrients.

The new flowers set fruit and dropped them almost immediately, when they were only about 4 mm in size.

I'm not sure what else to do.

I'm thinking, if it has no fruit now anyway, I should repot it. I have a nice big ceramic pot. Though that one is very heavy, so it be much more work to drag it in and out, up and down the stairs.

Though I think I remember reading somewhere that if repotted, it will not bloom for a long time. At least a year? Is that true?

Thanks again.

Plants have a defensive system that allows for aborting excessive fruit set. Stress due to high temperature, excessive fruit set, or lack of water can also trigger shedding of fruitlets. Cultivars differ in their sensitivity and responses to the various triggers.

Some cultivars are hypersensitive and shed more immature fruits than feasible. Other cultivars are reluctant to shed fruit and are prone to overbearing. This can harm the tree to the point of killing it. I've seen it in Japanese plums, as well as Persimmons.

Another phenomenon is the prevalence of alternative bearing, where a year of excessive fruit bearing is followed by a year of minimal fruit set.

In nut trees alternate bearing can be advantageous in the fact that squirrels are overwhelmed during the "on" years allowing much of the crop to remain uneaten and survive to grow into saplings.

Should be nothing planted inside the drip line (which is the entire pot). May not have been getting enough sun.

Anything else growing in the pot will definitely compete with your citrus for nutrition. Get rid of the impatiens. I had let two amaryllis seedlings grow in two of my citrus and in both the citrus were appreciably affected...stunted growth, smaller leaves, no blooms, etc.