Dwayne6/2/04 3:54
Martin, my wife is constantly fighting spider mites on hers. She mixes a
couple table spoons of liquid dish wash soap into a liter bottle of water
and sprays them once a week or so. She also places a fan blowing toward
them. Mites hate moving air.

She prunes off the dead wood on those what died back, and they came back.
She also waters then a couple times a week. Most of them grow in tropical
areas. They get a lot more rain from nature, than "letting them dry out and
then water them".

They sue smell good when they are blooming.

snip

Dwayne, no disrespect but if you're not posting from Britain, the winter
treatment of such plants would be very different here. This group is geared
to gardening in the UK and I think you're posting from California?
We have lemon and orange trees in greenhouses or pots here and in winter
they have to be kept in a frost free conservatory or greenhouse. Some, like
the OP, keep them indoors but it's questionable that central heating and
lack of natural light, such as most sitting rooms have, is good for them.
But if they get waterlogged by over-watering and then have 'cold feet' for
any length of time they will die, even in a glasshouse. Our Meyer's lemon in
a small conservatory only gets watered if one of us happens to think of it
and several panes of glass blew out in the last storm but it is around 5'
tall and is covered with fruit at the moment.
The advice you're handing down is not at all appropriate for such plants
over-wintering in Britain and is more likely to kill them.
My husband sells these plants and in almost all cases the problems customers
experience are due to over-watering but most especially in winter.
In the areas in which orange and lemon trees grow naturally e.g. the
Mediterranean, the ground they are on is often sharply drained so while they
will get rained on, the roots will not remain soaking wet, the rain will
fall for a shorter period than the all year round rain we get here and in
the Med. they will get a good, long, summer baking in hot sun that we very
rarely see here! The same applies to those growing in California.
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove the weeds to email me)