Potted Lemon Tree Losing Buds

[mamagardener]

Hello! I have a new young lemon tree in a large pot. It gets hot sun most of the day (we live in So. CA)..

we went out of town and it seemed to suffer from not being watered, when we came back all the little buds were gone. But after a week or so, with* a little watering new buds & leaves were growing.

But shortly thereafter, the buds are gone... could bugs be eating them? I don't see any bugs, and the leaves are green..

Also, the part of the tree that grows straight up, and is staked, as it came from the nursery, is very bare of leaves, and is where most of the buds were..

There is one healthy looking branch growing new leaves with a few buds,,,

but no buds have opened yet...

thanks so much for any tips/ thoughts,, we need some lemons!

Best, Kim

[Newt]

Hi Kim,

It's possible that your lemon tree suffered from lack of water while you were away.* Citrus likes to dry a bit before watering and then a deep watering is a good thing.

You say it's in a large pot and it's new.* I'm wondering how long it's been in the pot and if you transplanted it from a small one into a large one.* Generally when repotting, the new pot should be about 2" larger then the pot it came out of.* If it was rootbound and you didn't tease out the rootball, it could be having problems taking up water.*

Since this is a young tree, expect that you will have some bud drop and fruit drop until it matures.* It's common with citrus.* You should find this helpful.
http://www.fourwindsgrowers.com/solver/drop.html
http://www.fourwindsgrowers.com/growing/containers.html

Newt

[greeness]

I agree with Newt. Think of what happens when you have a flowering plant that gets too dry. The first thing to go is the flowers. My brother has a dwarf orange tree in a barrel on his patio and says he has to water it more frequently than his* lemon or* lime trees, which are in the ground.