I stopped carrying my plants to the bathroom to water and shower and spider mites took over..
A neighbor had a garage sale.. she had some ceramic plates left over and asked if I was interested in them so I took them for saucers for under my trees figuring I'd skip the every other week trip to the bath tub and just give them sips of water..
At first I thought it was regular spiders.. When I realized they were spider mites and not good spiders I got some safer soap bug spray.. I guess it was too late for this to be effective.. Several of my younger trees lost all of their leaves. When I realized the safer soap wasn't helping I carried all of my plants to the shower for a good over haul.. And so far so good.. I will do again next watering..
It is a bit more work to carry all the plants to bath tub and shower them down but I think in the long run it will be worth it.. It makes my trees look healthier.. the leaves are clean and pretty...
My Aus. Lime (what ever it is) has been trimmed up.. It was tearing other plants close to it.. so I took about two inches off each little branch.. it is more compact and it will branch out more..
Several other plants are putting on new growth.. Blood orange, Lemon (Meyer and Eureka) and the Key Lime.. The Meyer is also Starting to bloom!! It vacationed over at a friends for the summer and didn't grow or flower while there.. I think I need to get her involved in the forum so she knows better who to care for citrus.. I gave her a dwarf lime I picked up at local nursery.. I need to get a hold of her and ask how it is doing..

Guess it is better than killing it.. My Manderinequat is suffering root rot.. I put a layer of pet bedding shavings that were shipped with it.. rather than sprinkling it amongst the soil mix.. anyway.. while the rest of the soil was drying out the shavings stayed wet.. felt like it needed watering but the shavings were still overly moist.. I should have just skipped the shavings all together.. Oh well.. More mistakes I make the more I learn.. LOL Not sure if it is going to make it.. I don't think I got enough of the rot off and it continued to spread.. There is about 3 inches above the graft line that is NOT brown.. It looks like there might be buds about to start growing.. but I'm not holding my breath.. I thought It was looking better when there were still green branches on it..
Speaking of.. the Cal orange still has a green trunk.. but brown came up from the roots and it was brown on one side of the tree.. but only brown for about 3 inches up.. I shaved bark away to where it was green.. the brown only progressed about 1/8th inch since.. I used a disposable blade and disposed of it directly after.. I also cleaned the cut and area I worked with rubbing alcohol. now to wait and see..
Aside from those glitches.. everything is doing well.. New growth on the plants that are putting on new growth is giving me hope for those not doing so well..

Gina *BabyBlue*