[quote]Originally posted by Bob Hobden
[b]You don't say what sort of Lime you have, tropical or Tahiti? Anyway, Limes
don't like the cold and are more sensitive to this than most citrus.
I keep all our citrus at a min of 50°F during the winter, only water when
the soil seems dry, and feed every third watering making sure I flush the
soil through with pure rainwater (at room temp)every now and again to stop
any build-up of salts.
Never leave a citrus in a water tray, it must be allowed to drain any excess
water away. Wet roots are the main cause of problems with citrus (that and
Scale Insect) especially in the cold/low light of winter.
If you can't get rainwater and have hard tapwater then you should repot your
citrus in Ericaceous Compost with added inert grit (I use orchid type bark
chips) as they don't like too much lime, indeed, prefer a slightly acid and
a well draining soil. If you remove your plant from it's pot and the roots
look damaged or the soil looks like it's breaking down then repot
immediately as above. Using E C is an old trick to get sickly citrus to pick
up.

p.s. if you don't know if your grit is inert then pour some vinegar on it
and see if you get a reaction. If it froths don't use it. (old fishkeeping
trick) :-)

thanks Bob, i'm afraid i've no idea whether its tropical or tahiti, thou i remember when i bought it, it said 'american bartenders lime tree' for description. its still in plastic pot that i bought it so i hope it was originally potted in E C

haven't got garden big enough to store any rainwater properly though manchester is a sofwater area and as i said my lemon is very healthy

do u think a temperature of 70F is too high?

will check roots @ weekend when i have time to repot