I lost all my citrus during the cold spell in mid February here in Houston. There were several days where the temps did not get above 22 Fahrenheit. It seemed my 25 yr old meiwa kumquat (20 years in the ground) would make it. Started making shoots from the branches within a month but now the new shoots are withering and dying. Is this plant toast?
your new leaf buds look green and healthy, his seems like a good sign.
I once had a Kaffir lime with severe frost damage , I pruned off all dead branches, even parts of the main trunk, it grew new leaf buds like yours but also red/brownish ones and a little later one of the side branches completely died off. When I removed that half, I smelled a yucky mould odour and saw the thick trunk core was greyish and just a little bit green dot in the center.
So in the end I had to dispose the entire plant because the new growth was on another side branch attached to the same sickly trunk.
Keep an eye out for weird trunk patches and new growth, branches with sudden leaf death may be a sign of that branch having died from the cold long ago.
