u/Natural_Photo7226

I’m in Houston and today was a high of 97, which it’s been hovering around for a couple weeks now if not more. I keep having the same issue with fruiting in that I’ll have a beautiful female flower with a big green unpollinated pumpkin that will wither away and die a day or so before the flower will open. Last time I inquired whether the heat may be an issue and it seemed likely that was the case to a certain extent. I put up a 40% shade cloth to protect it from the hot August sun and the issues continue.

So, now I’m asking whether anything else can be done to help the plant focus its energy to the fruit?

I’ve also already mixed in some bone meal to the top soil. Nonetheless, another withered away on me.

I’ve been pretty consistently removing the secondary vines that start to grow off the main vine but not every single one. I’ve let some grow where it needed to fill back in with leaves. Should I continue removing all of the secondary vines? Should I also start to remove a majority of the flowers? In removing flowers, I’d make sure there are some close to the fruit for pollination but I have tons of male flowers that never get to do their part

Any thoughts about anything I can do? The plant is about 60 days old now and still looks to be going strong but it just can’t support a fruit.

I have four other mature plants that all have the same issue but the one pictured always seems to be doing the best.

First picture should be the plant itself. Second picture should be the fruit before it withered away. Third picture should be the withered fruit today (which I still haven’t brought myself to remove out of blind hope some sort of magic will happen (I will remove it this afternoon after the ceremony)) Fourth picture should be one of the secondary vines that has grown close to the base that I’ve let grow to fill in leaves, but it also has a fruit I haven’t removed yet because I keep hoping one will set.

Any input will be appreciated and I’m all ears at this point.

I’m in Houston, Texas and it’s generally around 95-97 degrees in the heat of the day now. I planted late in mid-June and then keep planting every few weeks. Squash Vine Borers have been a nightmare but I probably spend an hour every day picking eggs, injecting BT and cutting off small growths where I can see one snuck in. I’ve had numerous beautiful fruits all fat and plump but the day or so before they’re about to flower they shrivel up and turn yellow. Pictures are of one that I thought may finally make it. Any tips / opinions on why they keep shriveling up. I have five mature plants that have fruits popping up for a couple of weeks now, but all failing to hold. The others are all under shade cloth in various ways, but this one pictured is not, although, I will be installing it today. This one is also in a giant half barrel pot that probably has 30+ gallons that I prepared myself.

Is it the heat? It’s happening to the ones under shade as well. Is it that it still needs to put on some more vine and leaves to support the fruit? Any ideas?

What is going on with my Meyer lemon?? I’m waging war with leaf miners and I thought that was the cause of the leave yellowing but the leaves are starting to yellow and droop so much that they’re falling / easy to pull off with barely any pulling on them. Is it an overwatering issue? I’ve really barely watered it at all. We’ve had a lot of storms in early June and it finally stopped raining and is back to normal Houston summer weather, which is humid in the 90s

The pot never seems to actually dry out and I did feed with some water soluble fertilizer last week. None of my pots seem to really dry out and I barely water.

It is a Sunburst Mandarin but I haven’t received any answered to my post in the Citrus sub so I figured I’d give it a shot here. I purchased it from a nursery here in Houston and brought it back home. It was surrounded by other trees at the nursery and I also got a Miho Satsuma that didn’t have any similar spots. Mandarin looked pretty healthy with a full canopy so I didn’t think anything of it at first.

However, I started noticing very small amounts of waxy dark spots that appeared on the Miho and a lemon tree that I already had placed the Sunburst pretty close to. Figured those must be aphids and I figure the Sunburst is the guilty culprit but I can’t see any obvious infestation.

The black spots on the bottom of the Sunburst are mostly on lower leaves and are pretty rough / coarse compared to the leaf in general. They feel like a bunch of small raised bumps that make up each of the spot and that’s what they look like on close inspection. There are also similar lines of spots along the top of some leaves at the main vein. My thought is they may be proof of a prior infestation that is relatively dormant now but I’m very new to this amazing world of citrus trees. I should also note I’ve sprayed the leaves with neem oil so I believe that is the cause of some of the other residue.

Any thoughts?

I’m completely new to citrus trees and I’m obsessed. i have a lot of experience with watermelon, cantaloupe, and pumpkin vine plants but decided to hang that up and switch to something more productive with the amount of space I have. My first citrus tree is this healthy, mature thornless key lime tree that was beautiful and covered with blooms when I bought it. Not really knowing, I thought it would be great to plant in a spot in my backyard that gets plenty of sun. The thought was, trees in the ground would do better and grow to the full extent that it can. Well, when I did that I didn’t realize that you’re supposed to put it on more of a hill and not cover the root ball…so I did that. Basically, completely buried it. It has hundreds of blooms but they’re dropping like flies now. I’ve don’t a lot of research and scraped away a lot to try to expose the root ball. Does this look like where it needs to be? Is this even good for the tree? It’s a 6’ tree and I put it in about the worst Houston, Texas clay you could imagine. I almost want to just dig it up and put it in a container. Is that crazy? I have a Meyers Lemon, a variegated Eureka pink lemonade tree, an Oro Blanco grapefruit and a miho satsuma but the limes are what I wanted the most. Any tips will be greatly appreciated. Oro Blanco is in the ground as well and I’m also compelled to dig that up as well.