Tahiti (Persian Lime) questions.

[mike.sendrove]

Hi - in the UK, I have a Tahiti (Persian) Lime in a pot on the kitchen windowsill plenty of afternoon sun - It's in citrus soil ( well draining mix) and is watered every 1-2 days, basically when the medium feels dry. I am feeding with citrus fertilizer twice a month. Any idea why leaves have been dropping recently and I'm not seeing any flowers or fruit this year? This is the second year I've had the plant, and I've had very little fruit at all so far. What might I be doing wrong? Any ideas? Crossposted to rec.gardens. Thanks for any ideas, Mike

[Penelope Periwinkle]

Could you be over-fertilizing and building up too many mineral salts in the soil?

You might try repotting it if you think that might be the problem. Be sure and remove as much of the old soil as possible. I don't know how sensitive a lime tree might be to water; but to save the over fertilized house plants I rescue from my friends, I just put the whole pot in a bucket of water and let it soak for several hours. It leeches the worst of the mineral salts out.

Penelope

[Loki]

I have a lime in a pot too but mine sits out on the porch as it is far too big to sit on a windowsill. Check your plant doesn't need a bigger pot. When you feed it, is it a liquid feed or grains?, cos twice a month can be a lot. They also like about 50% humidity. Your windowsill could be getting too hot. Aren't you in spring? Maybe yours is still young?

Leaves yellow and drop because they are either too dry, too wet, too much fertilizer, too little fertilzer, no iron (also affected by cold), or no magnesium. Always a problem trying to work out which it is, if not all. Good luck!

[mike.sendrove]

Thanks both for the suggestions. I'm fertilizing with a liquid feed, the label on the bottle suggests twice a month in the growing season, and once a month in the winter. I think I'll halve the amount in the growing season and not fertilize at all in the winter, and see what happens. This weekend, I'll give the soil a real good soaking to try to get rid of the built up salts. I'll report back here in a couple of weeks if there's any change. Loki - do you get much fruit? At the moment, I have 0 flowers. Thanks again, Mike

[Loki]

The first time I put it in a bigger pot, shortly after buying it, it had a million flowers. Most of which fell off as teeny fruit. But each year it seems to be having more stay as it gets used to its growing environment. Our winters always slow it down. Your plant is possibly too young still. How big is it?

[Jim Marrs]

Your tree is probably losing leaves for lack of light. Its called the leaf drop syndrome. Move the plant to a better lighted location and reduce the fertilizer to once a month. Citrus is extremely sensitive to the amount of sunlight it requires.

Have Fun Jim

[TheBadGerman]

It's about 2 feet tall. I have had 1 lime from it before, but this year, I've only seen 1 flower, which fell off. I've given it a good soaking now, so we'll see what happens with 1/2 rations of fertilizer. I'll let you know - thanks again for your help.

[TheBadGerman]

Thanks Jim - unfortunately there's nowhere in the house that I can move it to. But I am going to cut the fertilizer down and see what happens. However - your post set me thinking - there must be some way of reproducing the chemical reaction of photosynthesis without actually providing more light - I'm thinking of some sort of additive that could be made available. Are there any microbiologists etc. out there that might be able to comment on this? Thanks, Mike

[Loki]

I had a look at my lime and it had a lot of yellow leaves and some scale. it seems I haven't been looking after it properly. Altho with winter on the way I can't do much about the colder days. They prefer warmer weather and not below 15°C. But it has lots of limes :-)

[Loki]

Just buy some lights.

[mike.sendrove]

Get this - I gave it a good soak over the weekend, and already, new shoots have started popping up and even a few flowers! This suggests to me that teh position is good, as is my watering, but it was teh fertilizing which was the problem. Question is then, how often to fertilize with a liquid feed? Thanks, Mike

[Loki]

I would interpret it as not enough water. But that's the tricky thing with plants. You can assume that if it's putting out new growth it needs more fertilizer than it would in winter. If it was in a clay pot the excess salts would be visible on the pot.