Help - my pom is dying!

[susie8662]

Hi,

I bought a pomegranate tree from gumtree around a month ago which had healthy green leaves and two pomegranates on it.

For the first couple of weeks I watered quite frequently along with the other plants - probably every couple of days - however the leaves started yellowing and dropping off. After reading that poms are used to arid conditions and home gardeners often overwater I have reigned it right back the last couple of weeks just leaving it to the rain to water.

The leaves have continued turning yellow/brown and dropping off, they look crispy/underwatered but I'm not sure so would love some advice. See below for some photos taken today.

A few other points for context:
- I put the pot in a slightly larger pot with good drainage and left all the attached dirt, just filled in the side with some additional potting mix
- the fruit still seem well attached, one is red and the other mostly green (they both seem the same as when I got the tree, I don't think the green one has ripened much)
- I live in Melbourne Australia, it's Autumn here so we have been having some pretty hot days, up to mid 30 degrees Celsius, but generally with at least a couple of days of rain a week

Thanks in advance!
Susie

[pombazaar]

The first thing that I noticed was the soil in your photos. It looks like the soil is very dry and packed very tight all the way to the brim. This combined with direct sunlight hitting the container will fry your roots. Please pull the tree out of the pot and post a photo of the roots. This will tell us more about what's going on.

Ideally you want semi-loose packed soil with a gap 2-3 inches above the soil line in your container. If you are able to keep your containers alongside a fence or side of your home so the tree gets direct sun but the container is semi-shaded, this will prevent the roots from getting too hot.