Well, maybe “Emergency” is a bit of an exaggeration. I don’t know. First let me say hello to everyone. I just signed up for the board. From what I have read so far, it seems like the community here is kind and well informed. A breath of fresh air in the world of forums, I may say.

As for the “Emergency”, I bought a semi-dwarf Clementine tree in a #5 pot from GrowQuest for my Clementine obsessed friend for Christmas. So, needless to say, I don’t know anything about growing citrus, or growing anything for that matter! I just received it in the mail yesterday morning (better late than never!). The problem is, it is looking pretty sickly (figure of speech, I don’t really know if it’s sick). The leaves look pretty dry and dull, and some are curling up like a scroll. It seems like the leaves toward the center o the plan are looking a bit better than the ones toward the top and edges. And when I got it there was a tiny bit of frost/snow on the top of the soil (I live in Chicago so the shipping was rather cold coming from California I assume). That’s about the best description I can give.

I gave it a little water and let it warm up in my house all day yesterday and today I put it by the window to get some natural light. I know I shouldn’t overwater it (I’ve been reading) so I watered it and let it drain pretty thoroughly.

So what should I do to make sure I am giving a good and lively (and alive!) Clementine tree to my friend? I imagine giving a tree to a friend for Christmas, three week late and half dead, would be a pretty sad sight. Any advice for me (or my friend) is much appreciated. Heat? Water? Cry? Fertilizer? Light? None of the above? Leave it alone? CPR?

Thanks,
Jim

Welcome to the forum Jim. First off you should have checked here before ordering the tree. Always check www.gardenwatchdog.com before ordering from any online nursery. If you had you would have seen this http://davesgarden.com/products/gwd/c/3143/ . Frost or snow inside the shipping box ? Best you can do now is supply bottom heat & see if the tree pulls through. Once spring comes, you will have to determine if you need to trim any dead branches and what course you will take with the tree. For now keep it warm & try to supply some bottom heat to get the roots going. Good luck with it.

p.s. In the future try http://www.fourwindsgrowers.com/, you will receive a high quality tree.

Like Lazz said the best thing you can do now is wait, but you have 2 choices--warm or cold. If you can keep the tree warm (mid 60's or higher) and provide enough light, you may see some signs of life and growth in a few weeks to a couple months. The other option is to keep it cool (below 60) and relatively dark--this puts the tree into a dormant state and requires little care and watering until the weather warms up and you begin acclimation to direct sun for the summer. During that time the tree will seal off any injured portions and you can trim it back to just past the point where limbs turn from green to brown. It can take several months to find all of the injured parts, so don't trim now.

I'm pretty new to this also but let me add I would probably go ahead and give the tree to your friend asap ! If possible I would probably buy one for myself asap too. If he hasn't grown citrus before you might want to give him a little better start with another tree.... I have been using big-not LED-christmas tree lights and they do keep the roots warm. I'm not sure about how you wind them around the bottom and up but so far they work great and are pretty cheap on electricity. This is my 1st winter and it has been very mild here for the most part so I take mine out side as much as possible. So far so good.Good luck and there is some great reading here.

Well, I was hoping for a quick fix before I gave it to my friend, but alas, nature does not work on my schedule

So basically, I should keep it warm and give it some bottom heat to stimulate the roots (I have no where cool but not cold to put it to make it go dormant). I will probably give it to him in a week or two. At that point, I will direct him to you guys

anything else i should od in the short term? water it occasionaly? warm water? I'm still willing ot do CPR if it will help...

If you warm up the roots you are going to need to get light to the top too.They, the top and bottom, have to be in balance with each other. This maybe more of a problem with Meyer Lemon-my favorite b/c it smells unbelievable when it blooms.

The fact that you got anything at all from Growquest amazes me.
It took me filing with BBB, local police and city, county and state district attorneys' offices and 6 months before I got anything for my money.