OK, will give it a good water, and pop it back into the kitchen, but with the shutters 50% drawn so that it covers the direct sun light.

Pics as requested:

http://upmyphoto.com/image/27660/74650cf
http://upmyphoto.com/image/27659/f85963a
http://upmyphoto.com/image/27658/6669f17
http://upmyphoto.com/image/27657/4232848

Fingers crossed!!!!

Thanks for your help.

Leaves still dropping, I live in hope

this process has started a long time ago , and this is only the response to that treatment .

For this treatment you are making now you will see the results in a short time after a week

Thanks!

It's blooming loads, smells absolutely lovely. What I want to know is shall I put it in the sun, or keep in shade until it's recovered? And for how long?

I don't know very well if this is available for citrus trees , but on fruit trees removing the flowers will help the tree recover faster from stress, but you need a second opinion prior doing that.

If it's flowering "like crazy" it's due to over-stress. From your pics, there is quite a bit of flowering, but I've seen many many more buds on my very stressed trees. You can pull 'em off, but I doubt it will help much (like the fruit tree scenario) since it will drop them quickly and probably all the fruitlets before they're pea-sized. But on mine, I did remove nearly all the flowers myself "Just in case it'd help".

Hopefully someone can post a real answer, who understands the citrus' physiological process involved enough to know whether it really does help -- not based on anecdotal or old farmers myths.

As danero stated, the process has been going for a while. In fact, your tree doesn't have to "drop them slowly" -- I bet you could moderately shake (not vigorously) the tree and a whole bunch would probably fall off immediately. Said leaves were guaranteed to fall anyway.

As I said before, you need to give it some sunlight to allow it to recover (morning light is best). Just don't put it in hot direct unfiltered sunlight (esp. if the ambient humidity is low). You're going to have to decide how to accomplish this.

How long it will take to recover could be a VERY long time... it could lose nearly every single leaf if many of the roots are dead. But recovery time is based on a number of factors, but I would guess the largest factor is how healthy the roots really are; this makes it hard to really guess any time line for recovery. No matter how long it takes, you need the existing leaves to help with the recovery so don't place it in full shade.


Let me share with you a recent example from 4 of my container citrus trees:

Cold weather severely injured several of my container citrus b/c I didn't protect the rootball adequately (just the foliage). All looked perfectly fine until warm spring hit, then said trees defoliated (about 85-95% loss); that was 7 months ago. I was inexperienced caring for "nearly dead" trees. I tossed my least favorite out but a few just for the learning experience.

Tree #1 fought back with immediate growth and steadily recovered; it is now 100%. Tree #2 put out a few leaves, did nothing for months, but when Fall came it finally (aggressively) flushed; it looks about 50% of it's former self. Tree #3 slowly died back, branch after branch, and never regrew any leaves. When Fall hit, it was down to 2 branches and finally grew a few new shoots with large leaves directly from the trunk, then died back the other existing branches and some of the new shoots; it now has only two young branches on a thick trunk. (That was my largest rootball before the freeze and obviously took the most damage.) The last tree #4 looks exactly the same as it did the day it defoliated: lots of leaf-less "sticks" and a few dozen leaves hanging off them, refusing to drop; it has zero die-back and zero re-growth. Very strange.

All trees were nearly the same age, about the same physical size, and all in the same media (a very fast draining mix). I gave all the same micros early on, with modest amount of Dynamite Controlled Release pellets for steady NPK, and only gave more fert when they started recovering and flushed.

It is interesting how each tree responded very differently over the last 7 months. I regret tossing out the trees I did, since I don't how they might have fared.

C4F it would be interesting to know what varieties each of the four trees are. I have noticed similar behaviors and it seems to be dependent on the citrus variety.

Thanks for your help and sharing your stories guys, I will hang in there and keep my fingers crossed for my tree.

I am so inpatient, I think that the tree will start to produce leaves straight away, which I guess wont be the case for sometime. It's a shame, if I had realised the poor soil, I would never have watered it so much and flushed the container.

beno: I should've been more balanced in my post. It sounded negative because I was trying to drop your expectations a bit ... and I got tunneled.

Because you took action by replacing the soil, you may very well have saved roots that would've been mush soon. The fact that it's in good soil now, and you will only water when it *needs* it (use moisture meters, wooden dowels, ask others how often they water indoors, etc) you are positioned to BE hopeful. Also be aware it needs WAY less water now that it's dropping leaves, on top of the fact it's indoors.

But yes, as you are realizing it's mostly a waiting game from here to see how it will fare.

Definitely keep your fingers crossed, talk to it, give it love, stroke it's leaves and all that. No reason to think it won't start growing *some* leaves in a couple months if the conditions are right (but it might go into acquiescence). But it's has to go through the cyclical process of root rebuilding, leaf flush, roots, and so forth which will now happen a lot slower than you're used to.

But who knows, I could be completely wrong and it will keep every leaf from here and start growing tomorrow!

Well another 7-10 seems to have dropped, leaving only about 30 left, maybe I was talking to it in the wrong language

Thanks again. Fingers crossed

jrb:

Tree #1 is Minneola / Trifoliate (aka c14) and had *some* protection of roots without any sides exposed to ambient air (it was fit snug centered between other containers)

Tree #2 is Robertson / Trifoliate (c13).

Tree #3 Washington / C35 (c15)

Tree #4 Washington / C35 (c11)

http://s975.photobucket.com/albums/ae233/C4F/Misc_Forum_Pics/2009_Freeze_Damage/ if you'd like to see a few pics I threw together (not finished). The cXX numbers in parenthesis are my own numbering system and are used in my photos online.

The only trees that suffered any damage in my entire collection were those in the "gritty mix". This was a lesson learned; the great aeration of the mix, which helps to avoid over-watering and increases oxygen at the roots, appears to make it more susceptible to root freeze in winter. That's my opinion from experience at this time, I have not confirmed the science behind that logic.

Thanks, C4F. That is very interesting. I wonder if the lower water capacity of the gritty mix played a role in the root damage. Water has to lose a lot of energy before it will freeze. The pots with the non-gritty mix probably have more water in them and may be able to take a longer cold exposure time before they freeze. It looks like the trees on C35 fared worse than the ones one trifolate.

Down to my last 2 leaves

2 branches are starting to go brown at the tips also

I never knew why do they start browning once there is no leaves on that branch?

I dont think it's related to the leaves, I think it's lack of o2 and water from the roots, hence the branch dying.