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[Ginda Fisher <list@ginda.us>]

I've had a myers lemon for years.  It lives in the yard during the  
summer, and comes into my dining room in a pot for the winter.  This  
year it had some problems in the yard, the dear decided it was tasty,  
so it was trying to regrow to replace the missing foliage just when  
the weather suddenly turned cold.  So I got more frost damage than  
I've ever had on it, even though it wasn't all that cold.  Then I  
brought it indoors, and did a much better job of keeping its root  
structure than I usually do.  (Usually, I lose an awful lot of the  
fine roots when I repot it at the end of the season.)  Then stuff got  
very busy, and I neglected it for a couple of weeks, so it dried out  
more than I usually let it dry.

Which is all building up to the weird part.  Two weeks ago I watered  
it very heavily, to re-hydrate the soil.  The poor thing is still  
sort of in "active growth mode", to make up for the deer damage.  The  
next time I looked at it, it had suffered extensive cracking of the  
bark, apparently from where the wood swelled as it re-hydrated.  I've  
never noticed that before, and I've certainly let it get too dry  
before.  I can only hypothesize that the cracking had something to do  
with it being in such active growth.

Anyhow, that was two weeks ago, and I can already see some callousing  
under the cracks, and it continues to grow vigorously - lots of new  
leaves, shoots, and even some flower buds.  I think it's going to be  
all right.  But if anyone has any warnings, suggestions, or insight  
into what happened, I'd be curious.

Hoping you all had a merry Christmas.  Time to go downstairs and play  
"guitar hero" with my son.  :-)

Ginda