formagaritas
New Member
Hi everyone. I'm a first time poster and in a dire position regarding my lime tree.
A little background - I received this lime tree as a gift about 10 years ago. For the first 5 years, it was indoors all of the time. For the last 5 years, I've been putting it outside for about 4-5 months during the summer months (I live near Toronto). It has continued to grow well and when I brought it indoors this fall, it was over 6 feet tall and about 4 feet in circumference. It was planted in a 12 inch pot.
Normally when I bring it in for the winter, it does experience some leaf drop but usually very minor (between 5-10% of the leaves).
This winter, the leaf drop was quite dramatic beginning shortly after the new year. In the first 6 weeks of the year, it lost about 35-45% of the leaves. I removed the plant from the pot to examine the roots and found some root rot on the outer roots. I trimmed away all of the rotted roots that I could and replanted in a slightly larger pot with new triple mix. I also added a seedling heating mat under the pot as it felt as though the pot might have been too cold due to the frigid winter we have had. For the first 3-4 weeks, the tree seemed to do well with virtually no leaf drop. Over the last 2 weeks the leaf drop has ramped up dramatically and this tree now seems to be hanging on by a thread.
I'm attaching a couple photos of the remaining leafs, all of which now seem to have brown marks on them. I have no idea what this might be and I'm pretty much out of ideas.
Help!
A little background - I received this lime tree as a gift about 10 years ago. For the first 5 years, it was indoors all of the time. For the last 5 years, I've been putting it outside for about 4-5 months during the summer months (I live near Toronto). It has continued to grow well and when I brought it indoors this fall, it was over 6 feet tall and about 4 feet in circumference. It was planted in a 12 inch pot.
Normally when I bring it in for the winter, it does experience some leaf drop but usually very minor (between 5-10% of the leaves).
This winter, the leaf drop was quite dramatic beginning shortly after the new year. In the first 6 weeks of the year, it lost about 35-45% of the leaves. I removed the plant from the pot to examine the roots and found some root rot on the outer roots. I trimmed away all of the rotted roots that I could and replanted in a slightly larger pot with new triple mix. I also added a seedling heating mat under the pot as it felt as though the pot might have been too cold due to the frigid winter we have had. For the first 3-4 weeks, the tree seemed to do well with virtually no leaf drop. Over the last 2 weeks the leaf drop has ramped up dramatically and this tree now seems to be hanging on by a thread.
I'm attaching a couple photos of the remaining leafs, all of which now seem to have brown marks on them. I have no idea what this might be and I'm pretty much out of ideas.
Help!