Two things strike me. 1) the pot is too large. The orange should be in a smaller pot to contain the roots in a bit more and the small pot could then be plunged in a larger pot for effect, if you wish. 2) the compost looks as if it has too much humus and is holding too much water. The orange tree would prefer to be in a well drained soil-based compost.

ok thank will try a smaller pot but it is well drained compost

thanks mike

Putting it into another pot will probably compound the problem as it seems to be stressed enough.

The problem looks like it is lacking in nutrients. Are you feeding it? The best thing to feed it with is a feed specially formulated for citrus plants. I use one made by Orange Growers, they sell two different types, one for summer feeding and one for winter.

I would certainly add a magnesium and Nitrogen feed as the leaves should be dark green and their current condition is a sign of that. You will need to bring it in before the first frosts of course.

thank you for your help.
i am feeding it with multi purpose feed i will go and buy the citrus feed.

thanks mike

I'm no citrus expert and have seen many failures with them. Yes, too big a pot, soil-based free draining compost needed and too wet. I would leave it in the pot that it is in for the moment. Bring it indoors in reasonably light position as being left outside it is getting too wet when it rains and the little root system cannot deal with excess moisture. When it dries out, then feed, as suggested with a weak feed and keep on the dry side.

Hi, when t&m say dwarf, they really mean it don't they!!!! Derek.

If this means anything to you, I grow citrus seeds each year to use as root stock for grafting. Last year I planted about 30 orange seeds and just about everyone took.

Today I noticed that about 60% of them are suffering the same symptoms as yours. The majority of them have already lost their leaves and I have discarded them. I usually have a few that don't survive, but for some reason this year has been the worst. I can't really understand why this should be as all the seedlings are treated exactly the same way.

My lemon seedlings have suffered even more, as most of them are going the same way. I need to find out what's going on here as I've never suffered this amount of loss.

Hi this is the first time i have grown citrus tree to start with i had them in the greenhouse but the leave went limp so that's why i put them outside but then this happened so i have had to take my orange tree inside the house and its looking better already so i don't know if its just to cold for them or not but my lemon tree is doing really well outside so i cant understand why the orange isn't so fingers crossed their going to work.

thanks mike

I had a similar problem. I put mine in the greenhouse to give them what I thought was more heat to encourage growth. This is where the problems started and I'm beginning to think that it's due to too much heat as we have had some hot weather recently.

Two days ago I moved them out onto my patio. We have had quite a bit of rain where I live and opposite to what happened to yours, they seem to have perked up a bit.

Maybe the hot arid greenhouse was the wrong place for me to start them off in? I will let you know what happens in the next few weeks.

sorry that's what i meant to say too much hot weather i think its because it is usually cold weather. we had a lot of rain as well for a few days their but i was reading up that they only should get watered when the soil is dry to the touch because they don't like a lot of water but i don't know if that's true or not.
thank i will look forward to see how you get on.

It will never be too cold for them in the summer, they need to be moved indoors to a frost-free location for the winter.

With regard to watering, they should be given a good watering and the soil left to almost dry out between watering.