My kaffir lime was moved indoor since November 1st. It is under grow light 10 to 12 hrs a day, watered once a week, soil kept moist using moisture meter. When it was moved indoor, it has full foliage. Then the leaves started to drop the top part of the double leaf. A few days later the bottom dropped. All the branches are bare. At the same time, new growth are coming out, but the leaves are super thin and are a light yellowish green. Some new sprouts turned black and died. Before the leaves dropped, it turned brown near the edges like sunburned leaves. Now, the green leaves are dropping too. Even the new young leaves that just came in dropped too. What is going on with my plant? Thank you.

Its common for old leaves to drop when a citrus is brought indoors because the outdoor sun just can't be duplicated easily inside.

I can think of a couple things that would cause new leaves to drop. By far the biggest reason is water, either too much or too little. Maybe stick your fingers down into the pot to see what is going on down there. Moisture meters, because of the way they work, often give mis-readings because of the salts in the soil (think fertilizer). And that is the third reason citrus lose leaves, too much fertilizer.

I agree with Lucy.
I don't know why you would want to bring it into the house. It would do fine outside year-round in the San Diego area. I bet it will recover nicely if you put it back outside in full sun.
You may not be aware but we no longer use the name that begins with K - it is the equivalent of the n-word in South Africa and is offensive. Thai lime leaf is preferred; makrut is what Thais call it.

I was going to ask the same thing. I've had a kaffir lime in the greenhouse for 15 years. Its function in there is to serve as a living totem for aroids to climb on and a source of leaves for cooking for me. But I could plant it in the ground here it I wanted

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...)
Someone may want to broach this with Admin, the word is used in Plantfiles

Its been called this for centuries I am suspecting. Its Thai, not Arabic

The k word is from Afrikaans.

Its apparently a no no in Arabic, considered an extreme insult. Don;tknow why, did not bother to research further

I'm unaware the k name is offensive. When I bought it, that's what it was labeled as. I brought the Thai lime indoor due to the cold weather we had. Last year was when I first bought it and I brought it indoor for the winter as well. I did fine, no leaf dropped. It was a young sapling with only 1 branch. It grew several new sprouts during the time it was indoor. When summer came it flourished. This year the weather had been a little crazy so I did what I thought was appropriate for the lime plant. I thought it would have a better survival chance indoor since it did so well last year. My neighbor has a much bigger plant at about 4ft tall and it looked dead outdoor so naturally I freaked and brought mine indoor. Before it went indoor, it had full foliage but the leaves were dull and some leaves turned brown like the picture. I did give it some cinnamon water, 1 tsp mixed in 1 gallon water. I let the cinnamon soak overnight before I watered it. I don't think I overwatered it because I have no fungus gnats flying around like last year, no root rot. I checked. Thank you everbody for your responses.

I wouldn't worry about the name. It's been called that for centuries I'm sure. There is no real reason not to use the traditional name

Gina1960 said: I wouldn't worry about the name. It's been called that for centuries I'm sure. There is no real reason not to use the traditional name

Thats what racists say about the n-word.

Kaffir is a place. A place in SE Asia. Mostly in Sri Lanka. It may have other usage. But it's not used just to be a slur

Respectfully to all-
Plant care is the original question.
Concerns about the word use on this site can go to Admin.

Respectfully Sally you are the one that brought this up in the thread. I've asked Sue to lock the thread. We'll see what her decision is

@GreenJasmine, did you get an answer before the responses took a left turn? If not, send me a treemail.

PS: It may be a derogatory term somewhere but this is not the place to admonish new members asking serious questions. Please be nice to one another.

PSS: You know that dog called Shi Chi? I won't tell you what that translates to in Japanese slang.

See that pink section just below the last post?

"Please only reply with answers and discussion relevant to this current topic".

The topic is care questions by the OP. Stick to that please and it's fine.

I hope this website is not headed down a slippery slope
My kaffir lime lives outdoors and stays green as can be. Had a shoot that went up to about 9 feet. I cut it off and have fertilized once so far. Plan to hit all the citrus and roses( planted between the citrus ) with thrive and copper next week after the rains.

@DebiJ I wish I had planted mine out. At the time I bought it, I didn't think it would be hardy here. But it is. Its all good though, I have a couple Philodendrons climbing on mine in the greenhouse. Its all I can do every year to prune it off the ceiling at 18 ft

I have a humongous Kaffir lime tree in my garden.
It is an OUTDOOR tree.
One of the best things I ever planted, about 25 years ago.
Take a big bag of leaves to a Thai restaurant and they will give you food!
The fruit are something else. Add the zest to Thai green curry or to rice.
Just plant it in your garden in a sunny spot, give it water and fertiliser and....stand back!

Yes, I wondered why it wasn't kept outside year round in San Diego. My citrus only go in when we are expecting really cold weather, otherwise they out outside. Even the keylime stays outside.