Frost and cold stress can kill the tree, starting with the leaves and branches.

Sep 13, Q: My Meyer lemon is about seven feet tall and is covered with small, green fruit, but it has lost most of its leaves.

Hold off on fertilizer until spring, when the tree is back outside and growing.

What should I do? A: Citrus tend naturally to drop some leaves during Estimated Reading Time: 3 mins. Lemon trees don’t lose many leaves in the winter unless they get Winter Leaf Drop (WLD). WLD occurs when the leaves of the tree get much hotter than the roots. If the roots are too cold and dormant to help cool the leaves down, the leaves will fall off.

WLD mainly occurs when lemon trees are stumpchopping.barted Reading Time: 8 mins. Apr 22, Water the plant, if possible, 48 hours prior to the freeze and postpone pruning until spring since newly pruned trees are more susceptible to prevent lemon tree winter leaf drop. Overwatering – If your lemon tree is dropping leaves, another common reason may be overwatering. When roots of the tree sit in water, they have a tendency to develop root rot, which in turn results in the lemon tree dropping leaves.

Mulch around the. Issues with watering are the most common reason why lemon trees drop their leaves prematurely. While under-watering can cause the tree to experience drought stress, over-watering can lead to root rot.

When the tree drops leaves due to high heat or water stress, as long as conditions return to normal, the tree will start to grow new leaves within a couple of weeks.

Both of these cases lead to leaf drop. For best results, only water when the top inches of soil is dry.