Expert: kathy crowley - 10/22/2009

Question
My lime tree does not give fruit.  It will blossom and tiny fruit will form, and then fall off.  Over the past few years some fruit will grow, but only a few pieces. The older leaves are somewhat curled, the new growth is not. It was originally to be a drawf lime, but is now about six feet tall.  It has not grown any larger.  There is shade over the tree as well.

My Eureka lemon tree is in a sunny spot.  It grows about three to four large lemons a year. It is also was to be a drawf lemon, but has stopped growing at about six feet.  All the other "unattended" trees in my area are full of lemons!

The Meyer lemon tree is truly a dwarf tree, it looks like a shrub.  The tree used to put out a good crop twice a year, the branches were loaded.  This summer there was a very good crop of lemons.  Late this summer the tree bloomed, but it lost it's blooms and no lemons!  Of course, the deer eating the tree did not help (no roses left either.  Will I need to wait until next summer for more lemons?

I live in Los Angles and have hot spells as well as cool ones.

Answer
Hi Judy, It could be two problems, one a fungus in the blooms or two an imbalance inside the plant.  The curling leaves are the leaf minor that lays eggs on the underside of the leaves, if you look under the leaf it will look like railroad tracks.  Pruning helps keep your trees small and they should be on a dwarfing root stock or on their own roots.  There is a product called Atomic Grow that is organic and made from food, that will correct all the above problems.  It will also clean the leaves to clean off all the pollution, black sooty mold, etc. off the leaves to help raise the sweetness of the plant.  Your fruits will taste better than ever, blooms will hold on, an curled leaves will grow nice new ones as the bug will stay away.  Bugs go to plants that are unhappy, sometimes we are fooled into thinking they look good when in fact they need help.  kathy