Need help with Meyer Lemon!

[Marie2020]

I have a 3 yr old Meyer Lemon. It was repotted into a larger, self-watering container in Aug 2020. It was also fertilized at that time. I kept it outside until November when the temperature started to drop. The tree was flourishing...

I brought it inside for winter and it has been downhill from there. I noticed in early December that it was losing a few leaves. I thought maybe the water reservoir was low... I filled the water reservoir and also gave it some Osmocote slow-release fertilizer. It seemed to get a little better for a week but then started losing more leaves again.

I went online and started doing research into what might be happening. I found two possible culprits -

1) overwatering
2) winter leaf drop

I immediately bought a hygrometer to check soil moisture. It pinged off the chart. I tried to dump as much water as possible out of the container which is far too big for me to really lift. But I did try to drain as much excess as possible from the overflow drain.

As for the WLD, I put a heat lamp on the soil to try to warm up the roots. The tree is inside in my south facing sunroom. Room temperature is consistently around 68 degrees. I also turned on a warm mist humidifier.

Despite these efforts over the past month, the leaf loss has greatly accelerated. But despite the leaf loss, there is also new growth.... So I don't know what to think?

Considering the stems are still attached to the limb, I'm thinking the problem is WLD. But the soil is warm so I don't know what else to do? I put my finger down in the soil today... It is bone dry for at least the top 3 inches. It does get a little moist about 4 inches down but not "wet" by any means.

My tree back on December 30th

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My poor tree as of today...
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New growth
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More new growth
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Bumping up this post.

I lost two lemon plants about a year and half ago. They thrived in my hallway then suddenly died.

 

[ninnymary]

I'm in Zone 7B but on the edge of Zone 8. We rarely get snow but usually get Temps at night below 30 degrees AT LEAST a few weeks (adding up individual days in total) in January and February at night. For most of the winter, daytime temps are in the 40s and 50s.

I have about 5 lemon seedlings that I started a few months ago. They haven't gotten very big either being in my sunroom. I was going to transplant them outside in the spring in a south facing location that is right next to my husband's shop in order to protect the trees from the north. I have some pomegranate seedlings to put out too... I was going to use these seedlings to see if the lemon trees would survive the winter weather here before transplanting this tree since it is 3-4 years old and I have yet to get a single lemon from it. I had high hopes THIS would be the year....

Forgot to add... I have also toyed with the idea of putting a removable greenhouse with cow panels around the seedlings I'm going to transplant outside in the spring. They would only be covered in the winter to protect from frost.

I have heard that Meyer's can take low temps but not too many days of it and that they should be covered. Perhaps you can cover with row cover cloth?

Mary

 

[Niele da Kine]

The lemon trees here never drop their leaves so maybe lemon trees default to making new twigs when they want more leaves?

We have fairly high rainfall, somewhere around ten feet annually, but there's also excellent drainage so they don't seem to mind it.

Also, if you cut the thorns off, they won't regrow. My spouse howls if there's stickers on plants so all the stickers are cut off the Tahitian lime by the back door.