Hello everyone,

This is a great site and the information on it is hard to find over here in
the UK.

I have a Tahiti Lime that is about 3ft high.

It has lost some leaves all through the Winter, nothing too significant but
it did leave the bottom/middle of the tree slightly bare. 2 weeks ago it
dropped about 35 leaves in the space of about a week and stopped. It hasn't dropped any more (yet!) Most of the 35 leaves were from the bottom and centre of the tree with a few from upper branches.

What is more worrying is that the central part of the trunk and branches of
it have turned a dark brown colour. If you scrape the branches a little
they are green underneath and the ends/newer growth of the same brown
branches are green. The tree has plenty of new blossom and some small fruit left from last year.

Has anybody got any ideas on the cause of this and if it is a problem. I've
been told to cut off some of the tiny branches that are bare if they don't
get blossom on them.

The tree has been in a small greenhouse over winter and the temperature kept above 5 degrees centigrade (minimum), which is what people here in the UK say you should do. I've been very careful not to over water as I lost a lime last winter to this. I've been leaving watering until the leaves start to droop slightly - the leaves that seem to have fallen off seem to be the ones that drooped before watering (?). I've ventilated when possible due to temperature. The pot is plastic and 30cm across and 25cm deep. Compost is fine. I give it about 2 gallons of water with feed each watering.

But these brown branches are worrying me.

My orange and lemon trees are fine in the same conditions.

Has anyone got any ideas please and will the tree recover.

Hi Nick & welcome to the forum. A few photos may help... Are you sure it not just the bark darkening up ? My lemons & limes tend to drop quite a few leaves in the spring just before they start to flush out with new growth & blooms... The bark on the tree will turn from green to brown as it matures.

Nick:
If I were you I will not cut those limbs that has no leaves. You will just stressing the tree. Since it is winter your trees might act uncharateristically not to your liking- shed leaves, yellowing of leaves etc...but when
spring comes and the tempt goes up you will have new buds to those bare branches. And you will be delighted to see new growth. Don't cut them please.
I am also do not panic anymore when my trees show signs of stress and leave chlorosis. I just add whatever it takes and wait.
It takes time for them to react. And when Spring comes that's when you will see lots of activities wiith your plants- new buds new leaves and new flowers. Some of them will shed some of its old leaves..

Thanks for the replies.
I was speaking to someone yesterday who thought the pot size of approx 30cm is too large for a 2 - 3ft (1 metre max) tree and that I might have been giving the tree a bit too much water. And because the root ball is unlikely to be anywhere near the size of the pot and due to the temperature the tree has been over wintered at, that the water has been sitting around the roots at too low a temperature damaging the roots. They said the pot size should be 4 inches (8 cm) bigger than the root ball.

They didn't think I'd killed it.

This person was saying that as Limes are more tropical the temperature should be higher but someone else will say 4 - 8 degrees C is fine. I've also had different theories on how much water to give, it varies from 2.5 gallons being fine as long as the soil dries out in between watering to this amount being too much and to water little and often.

These people seem to contradict each other but are growing citrus commercially whereas I only have a small collection and can't create the completely ideal conditions.

I only have pictures in a normal PC folder - do you know how I can get these to you without use of webspace or website. I have about 4 photos that would show the problem and they are just over 2Mb each.

Thanks

Nick

Use http://www.imageshack.us/ , upload them & copy & paste the "direct link" here.

Pictures to show the problem - hope it's worked. I'm a bit of a novice at this,you can probably tell!

Pitcures are a bit out of focus but hopefully they are good enough to show the chocolate brown colour of the branches and some of the leaf loss.

On the subject of my last reply, I was also advised by someone to give the tree one pint of water to try and revive the roots (see above) which I have done and then let the soil almost completely dry out again.

Thanks

http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/6946/ssa500444bo.jpg

http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/4843/ssa500433tr.jpg

http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/7766/ssa500424eq.jpg

http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/9684/ssa500418xj.jpg


Pictures to show the problem - hope it's worked. I'm a bit of a novice at this,you can probably tell!

Pitcures are a bit out of focus but hopefully they are good enough to show the chocolate brown colour of the branches and some of the leaf loss.

On the subject of my last reply, I was also advised by someone to give the tree one pint of water to try and revive the roots (see above) which I have done and then let the soil almost completely dry out again.

Thanks

Hi Nick I fixed your photos. The tree looks fine to me, just needs some summer heat. The bark on all citrus changes from green to brown when it matures. The smaller branches are still green & the plant should be fine...

Sometimes there are some branch that dies. I don't know why. But I attribute that as natural occurrence. I just clip them to make the plant look nice.
As long as you feel that your plant looks healthy, don't worry about it.

Thanks Guys, it's re-assuring to know that everything should be ok.

The situation doesn't seem to be getting any worse and some tiny bits of this dark brown bark have come off and the branches are a deep green underneath which is good.

Thanks