Citrus in pots

[Alan Farmer]

Help, this last summer I purchased an Olive tree and a Citrus tree (Lemon), supposedly suitable for Uk. I live at about 800 ft above sea level at Woodcote. In Novemeber I purchased a greenhouse heater (propane) and moved the two relatively young plants in their pots into the greenhouse. The thermostat is set at 5 degrees to 15 degrees C (not very accurate), which I check witha min/max thermometer. Both plants have recently shed about 25-30% of their leaves, its now Jan 25th. Is this normal? They otherwise appear healthy. Can anyone advise please, thanks, Alan

[shirlthegirl43]

My olive tree lives outdoors in all weathers - it is all of 6 inches high and seems quite happy. It lost all its leaves the first winter but has had no special treatment since.

My orange, lemon and fig have all lost their leaves over winter - they didn't cost much so I will wait and see what happens as the weather warms up. Hope yours make it.

[Hermit]

I have 2 pygmy orange trees and a lemon tree i my bedroom window the orange tree has 2 white flowers blooming. I have an olive coming in feb but i wont put it out till april.

[hooraynana]

I have two lemon trees in pots
The first year i had them, they shed every single leaf and i was horrified thinking i had murdered what had been my most expensive plant type purchase to date.
But don't panic - they grow back :-)
I now apply a top dressing of citrus compost and a feed in spring and they seem to be perfectly healthy.
I think i read somewhere that they drop due to extreme changes in temp - I don't bring them in the house anymore as that really aggravated it. They now live in the unheated greenhouse

[starloc]

Dont wory too much about it, but if there are no leaves make sure you let it dry out very dry between waterings as it will not use much at all till it warms up, theres always a good chance citrus die with no leaves, usualy they die due to overwatering

Its known as WLD , winter leaf drop, The main reason citrus loose there leaves in the winter is the root temperature, air temperature is not important as long as theres no frost on them, root temperature needs to be kept over 70F to prevent most leaf drop preferably about 80F, the best is 88F.

The worst thing people do is put them somewere in a warm room,cold roots, lack of humidity , and in a nice bright window, if they have cold roots they need to be dark like in a cellar or shed! light is not a problem but direct sun is, so in cold weather, even with the heater the roots will be cold, the light through the greenhouse is too much for it and the leaves fall off.

If you keep the roots warm they can stand any light level apart from totaly dark citrus especialy lemons do not need a lot of light

The best thing to do if you have a citrus plant, get a small heater mat and keep the roots warm, i use heatermats, but also pet bed heaters work fine

I cant fit all mine on the heater mats as they are too large ,i have them outside wrapped up and freezing cold, they are fine as they get no direct light in the winter

Others on the window sill are heated up on top of the radiator to 80+F at about 8am, about 6 pm and about 11pm , they are growing rapidly, use a meat thermomiter down into the soil to check the center of the pot, it drops in between to 65F

[Flobalob]

The lemon tree (as with all citrus trees ) require & benefit from a winter feed, as well as a summer feed starting in spring.
The soil should become as dry as possible before watering & feeding during winter months. I keep my citrus that are in flowering/fruiting stage in a heated conservatory. Others are kept unheated. They go at least a fortnight between watering. I have just returned from holiday after 5 weeks and the plants were all left unheated & unwatered.
Your leaf drop is likely to have been caused by the shock of temp.change or overwartering. Also try to give as much ventilation as possible...moderate days I would leave the door/window open.
The small olive trees I have indoors are quite content left unheated with plenty of light..I have watered them once since overwintering them in November. I have olive trees in the garden that are coping well since I planted them two years ago.

[bobleponge]

As has been said, leaf drop probably due to extreme temperature change. My lemons did this in their first year.
Since then no problems. Mine are kept in an unheated greenhouse all year round, and in the winter hardly watered at all. The soil in the pots is bone dry, I dont water really, I merely spray once a week with a very light comfrey tea.
Good luck, and dont worry too much, there is every chance they will be fine.

[Rossa]

I'm in Yorkshire in foothills of Pennines. I bought a lemon tree 2 years ago and the advice was to bring indoors before first frosts and out after last frost, around May time. It tried to fruit in first year but they all dropped off. Last year most dropped off but we did get 3 lemons !! In fact one of them is still on the tree and the other I used last month. Took ages to turn completely yellow. I've never used citrus feed but am going to try this year as I'm going to put it into a bigger pot. Never had leaf drop, sits on windowsill facing South and doesn't mind the central heating. Think the idea is to keep a constant temp all year round and we don't have the heating much above 18-20C anyway.