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Help - Key Lime Spontaneously Dropped All Leaves

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20legend:
Hi. I recently joined this forum due to my interest in growing cold hardy citrus in zone 7a.

I have a key lime plant that has been indoors since since November. It was doing fine and a month back even started putting on flower buds. I used to water the plant every 3 days.
Reading about citrus online, I found out that the plants do not like frequent watering so I decided to water just once weekly since mid March.
Yesterday, I noticed the plant leaves had turned light green and a little dry. So I gave it a good watering. This morning I woke up and saw half of its leaves had fallen. I gave it a shake and almost every leave on the plant fell off. The flower buds are still on the tree though.
Any ideas what could be the issue to cause such a drastic change overnight?

Thanks.

vnomonee:
This is probably root issues, since you were watering too frequently it might have developed root rot.

If you take the plant out of the pot and the soil falls away easily you will notice root rot right away mushy roots or a bad smell.
Clean the roots up and repot it in a new fast draining mix, in a smaller container preferably (not necessary if you watch the watering, just remember that a bigger pot will take longer to dry out) until it recovers. While indoors I don't water
for atleast a week or longer, if the bottom of the pot still has water in it (I gauge this by the weight of the pot, not just how the soil looks at the surface).

brian:
Yes, check the soil and see if it is too dry or too wet. 

Note that when citrus is too dry, the leaves curl to show this.  Then, when you water it, all the curled leaves fall off (unless the whole plant is dead, then they stay on)

From the picture, your tree looks healthy otherwise.  It should sprout new leaves soon if the roots are happy

Millet:
As Vnomonee wrote.  You can determine when to water just by lifting the container.  After you next water lift up the pot to feel its weight.  Then every 3 days lift again.  You will learn very quickly when it is time to water.

20legend:
Thanks guys for all the advise. I plan to remove the plant from the current pot, use 1/2 cactus potting mix and 1/2 regular potting mix with some compost and re-pot the plant. I have read that cactus potting mix is pretty fast draining. I hope it recovers and get some new leaves this spring. Might also use this opportunity to prune the plant a bit.

Do you think the fruit buds will continue to develop into limes or will they fall out eventually ?

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