Please, Larry the Lemon Tree Needs Your Help

October 31, 2017 9:47 AM

My husband and I are very distressed about our meyer lemon tree, named Larry. We planted him about a month ago, and he's not doing well. Can you please help us save this tiny little tree we have become ridiculously attached to?

Here are some pictures of Larry.

A while ago, Larry's leaves were curling a little and turning yellow, so we got some citrus tree food for him. And then, a little bit after that, his leaves got real droopy, so we started watering him more. But then, as a result, he lost a lot of leaves, so we clearly overwatered him. Now he has a lot of curled up, yellow leaves. He also has about four flower buds that have started developing since we got him -- this surprised me, as I didn't think a tree would develop buds while clearly doing as poorly as Larry is.

We have a really bad track record of keeping plants alive. We shouldn't have gotten our hopes up, and we definitely shouldn't have given him a name (and a gender, even)... But this is where we are. Larry is the only living plant on our property, and we really, really don't want him to die.

What does this little tree need? Can we save him?

Oh, also, note: we're in Arizona. This is a reasonable time of year to be planting trees.

posted by meese to Home & Garden (9 answers total)

Cut back on watering and fertilizing. It takes time for new root growth to get going, and citrus trees don't need much support during this process (depending on where you are in Arizona). We water our lemon trees maybe once a month, and I only fertilize them a little bit after the first flush of bloom each year. Here's some general AZ-specific guidance. If you need more, call your local cooperative extension.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 10:23 AM on October 31, 2017 [5 favorites]

I bought my parents a lemon tree and it all but died the first year, then came back with a vengeance.
posted by greenish at 10:27 AM on October 31, 2017 [1 favorite]

How's your soil? Citrus likes good drainage and looser soil, it's very susceptible to overwatering.
posted by lydhre at 11:00 AM on October 31, 2017

Did the roots look healthy? If bare-root, were they kept moist before and during planting? Container-grown plants should have the potting medium washed off immediately before planting, especially if the surrounding soil contains a lot of clay (clay attracts water away from coarse mayerials).
posted by gray17 at 11:52 AM on October 31, 2017

Agreed on scaling back on fertilizing and watering. Do you get an actual cold winter of sorts? If so just let him be.

It's surprisingly easier to kill plants out of love than out of indifference.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 11:56 AM on October 31, 2017 [3 favorites]

Bad AZ gardener here: We killed several plants, and nearly continued our rampage for another season, before we realized we were drowning the top of the soil but not actually getting any water down to where the roots are.

Drip irrigation—at first by just leaving the hose on very low, pointed down at the soil, for long periods of time, and then by actually putting together one of those plastic drip irrigation systems for like $40 at Ace Hardware and feeding it around our back yard—turned our lives, and more importantly the lives of our plants, around. Our plants immediately looked better, like within a couple of days.
posted by Polycarp at 12:30 PM on October 31, 2017 [1 favorite]

Citrus trees can be very temperamental, and Larry is just adjusting to his new home. It's not uncommon for a miniature to simultaneously bud and drop lots of leaves after a move.
posted by Napoleonic Terrier at 6:21 PM on October 31, 2017 [1 favorite]

I agree that you should stop watering it so much. When you do water it, water it thoroughly so that the water gets down deep, and then leave it alone for a while.

Also, it's not that surprising that your tree started budding. Plants under stress often channel their resources to build flowers instead of building or maintaining more leaves. It gives them a chance to reproduce before they die. This is what herbs and lettuce are doing when they "bolt."
posted by colfax at 5:42 AM on November 1, 2017

My Meyer lemon tree (in Texas) was doing that. Weirdly, it all cleared up when we had a cold snap for a day or two. Now he's happy and his leaves aren't curling. My gardener put alfalfa on the soil too, which didn't hurt, but I did not see an immediate benefit.
posted by *s at 9:24 AM on November 2, 2017