u/siberium

SE Louisiana zone 9a, these two trees (10+ years old?) are in the ground and get watered only by the rain. They don’t get 100% full sun, partly shaded out by taller grown up trees around them. I’ve only been their mama for two years and they looked the same last year (no changes, just more rainfall by this point in the season). The new leaves come in lush and green, then yellowing begins from between the veins. For the most part the leaves do not turn completely yellow and they don’t fall off, just stay splotchy, more so for the leaves with more sun exposure I think. I’m not good at describing soil; you can see in the second photo upper left that it’s nice and brown. It gets lots of decaying pine needles and oak leaves. They don’t get fertilized, but I’d be happy to change that.

I’m too lazy to take a pic that really shows its state. It looks worse without flash and the lower leaves look like they’ve got flat mites. I think the mother plant to these two succumbed to flat mites; these (~1yr old) were looking flawless for a while but now we’re back to bumps and depressions. I definitely have mites in my collection rn, but the lower leaves on these don’t fall off as easily as others with mites. And yes, well draining substrate, watered when lower leaves get pliable, but I guess with the weird state of the lower leaves I’ve probably watered too soon on occasion and got some edema on upper leaves. Such a pretty hybrid, but I’m giving up if these two don’t make it.