Hey guys, my Meyer lemon dropped all but about 12 leaves when I brought it in for the winter. Since then it has dropped about 5 more (over the course of 4 months, not bad) so I have it pretty much stabilized, but I just want to make sure I have it in the right conditions so that it will live until the Spring.

It has two branches left, each with a few leaves, so I cut off all of the dead wood and put it in a cool dark room. It's in chc and I water it twice a week and fertilize with Jack's at half strength every 2 weeks.

My question would be is this a good situation to preserve the leaves (and therefore keep what's left of the tree alive until Spring) or is there something more I can do for the tree to ensure it's safety? Thanks.

It sounds like what Millet has described as Winter Leaf Drop. Look at some of the other posts that mention this for more info.

Ray, if you don't want to just leave your tree in a cold dark room until spring, but would rather get the tree to begin leafing out, you can put the tree in an area where the tree's container is setting in the direct rays of the sun, to heat up the roots system, and place a curtain, or large cloth of some type, between the sun and the foliage, so that the leaves receive only indirect lighting from the room. This will raise the root zone temperature up for good growth, and at the same time keep the tree's foliage cool. This should produce new growth in 2 - 3 weeks. If you have a south window, with a pull down shade, just pull down the shade to keep the foliage portion of the tree out of the sun, but the container in direct light, this works well to control WLD. - Millet (1,055-)

Thanks for the reply millet. I have a seedling heat mat, and I had it in a room with a grow light on it, but after the stress bloom after the leaf drop I've had nothing but branch die back on all of the leafless branches. I'm guessing the light wasn't strong enough.

I have sliding glass balcony doors, and that's the only place I would be able to put the tree, but the problem is at night I get a little winter microclimate in front of the doors, which would undo anything the sun did that day. Do you think that would still be ok? Maybe the heat mat combined with being in front of the door would work?