During the hottest time of the year, when the temperature is in the upper 90's (two years ago we had 10 days above 105F), you can stand under those trees and actually feel the fine mist given off by the leaves. Many people won't believe that trees can transpire that much moisture, but believe me, its true.

Hmm. You mean that maybe that isn't the honeydew dripping from my lemon tree? It has every kind of scale and mealybug known to man!
As to the sunburn; some orchids thrive on a bit of it. Not Catts, for sure, but some Laelias, and my Gerberara do their best when the leaves are turning red. Of course I don't have the humidity issues here, so black rot doesn't go along with it.

I wish I had your lemon tree, Carol, mealy bugs, scale and all. Mine got citrus greening last year and I had to cut it down and send it off to the dump in a black plastic bag. A large percentage of our phone traffic at the Extension Service is from people complaining about how bad their trees look and how small the fruit is. It has cut Florida citrus production in half and there is no cure in sight.

Jim

Jim, We have it here too. I'm not sure whether I've got it or not. This is an old tree that often has rather strange fruit. I'm getting many, but not all, kind of silvery, green fruits this year, but With the weird weather, and the Citrus Silver Mites, I just don't know. I do feel for the farmers that depend on them. I'll keep mine until I know, for sure. They're huge, ugly , thick skinned things, as a rule, but they sure are handy...and juicy.

PS. Don't count on that Guacamole. The wind has hardly taken a break for the last two weeks.

Ursula, from a distance that plant you are waiting to bloom looks like a plumeria. Judging fromJim and Ellaine's comment though, the bloom may not smell pleasant.

The most stinky fruit I know that if you are brave enough to try is well worth it is "durian.

Yep, Gigi the flowers of those Amorphophallus smell like a week-old corpse. I guess flies are the pollinator for them, so they have to smell that way to attract flies.

Probably the tuber doesn't taste bad, or nobody would think of eating it.

I will pass on that one then.

Here are my other plants:

Dwarf Pink Singapore and succulents on faux rock planter.



Can't wait for this one to bloom. The mother plant bloomed already, here is just the beginning of a beautiful bouquet bloom.



My divine plumeria more inflos are opening



My boat succukents, these are pups planted late winter, now doing really well.

Here are my other plants

Dwarf Pink Singapore plumeria and succulent in faux rock planter. Hopefully my DPS will bloom this year, about time since this is almost 2 years old.

Walking through Lowe's the other day I noticed a tag on an oraInge tree; it read "this tree has been treated with a neonicotinoid" . I assume that was for greening as our county is under quarantine for it also. That is probably the only was to get citrus into our area from FL. Scary thought though. I know Bayer Advanced had a formula for citrus but would you want to eat fruit from a tree treated with this stuff? I understand they are using spinosid, said to be a natural product, for greening in FL and as it is also good for leaf miners (my citrus nemesis) I have tried it. Now however they are saying that while it is not a neonicotnoid, it works the same way and may be just as dangerous to pollinators. What's a plant mama to do?????

Ursula, I have several orchids doing that, too, and the reason for only a few leaves being affected is that they are the leaves that are tallest and getting the most/longest duration of UV's. It's happening to two Phal's and one Brassavola. They seem fine otherwise, tons of roots everywhere, new leaves, new bloom spikes, etc.

We are splitting hairs here, Kate, but I don't think it is the UV spectrum that is the problem with sunburn, it is the IR spectrum that heats up those leaves and causes the damage. UV would cause genetic changes (long term). My florescent tubes generate almost zero UV.

http://garden.org/ideas/view/d...

Alice, on the citrus spraying thing, you're right you probably would not want to eat fruit from that tree but only for the first year it was planted to allow the systemic pesticide to disperse. It's recommended to remove the fruit the first year anyway, so I think you really wouldn't lose out.

After that, though, you'd want to have a regular spray routine of soapy water or something just in case a citrus psyllid rode that far on a tree before it lunched on the neonicotinoid-treated sap.

Ken, on the sunburn thing, the red coloration actually goes away - the red turns green again - so it's not really permanent damage. A really sunburnt leaf has large brown areas that dry up and never go away.

Believe me, I know all about sunburned leaves. One of my favorite and most valuable plants has nasty sunburn patches from last summer. The sun peaked through the leaves for just a brief time, and exposed those two leaf areas to intense IR rays. I never knew until I discovered the sunburn. These pictures were taken last summer and there are several new leaves now. I am just waiting until there are enough new leaves so that I can trim those two leaves. Though the sunburn doesn't cause particular harm to the plant, those lesions sure are ugly. This is Rlc. Exotic's Summer Cloud FCC/AOS.

Those plants sure wouldn't be saleable like that either, would they. Such a shame.

I've had a few like that where I just cut out the burnt area and left the rest of the leaf. Dusted the cut edges with cinnamon, and they've lasted a long time despite the injury. Those burnt spots are developing the warning signs of a fungal infection, though - that yellow ring around the burnt area. I'd cut them out and leave the rest of the leaf until it dies, Ken. I'm sure you have a few nice sharp scalpels left around from your dental practice?

with Elaine. The infection is the yellow.
Jim

These leaves have basically looked exactly the same for almost 12 months. I don't doubt your "diagnosis" but I'm not very keen on amputation or excision. I never liked to "pull" teeth either. I have plenty of sharp-instruments, scalpel being one of them.

This is my plant, Ursula, and has a Not For Sale label on it. I might eventually divide her (she's a big, husky-leaved plant) but it won't be for another year, if I even do it then.

Elaine, those citrus psyllids are everywhere. They are having to take out tremendous old trees here. I blame it on the big box stores that bring in all sorts of evil critters hidden in their huge shipments. We only have one citrus grower in the state whose trees are not quarantined and his farm is so far north I think the cold weather takes the bugs out.

I don't know what they were checking for, but the last two years County Ag. has hung traps in my Lemon tree. Surely they would tell me if that's what they found.

Trouble is, even if you have the psyllids doesn't necessarily mean you already have citrus greening, although here it's so widespread it's pretty likely. They are the vector for it, but unless they feed on an affected tree, they don't transfer the disease.

I identified psyllids on my little kumquat tree at least 2 years before it showed any signs of the disease. Now, strangely enough, it's producing orange fruit again and seems to be recovering!

Uh oh! Reading about possible severe dehydration makes me worried. I hope my Catts that are badly sunburned will recover. They are now hanging/attached nicely on my oak tree.