The top few leaves, to my knowledge, look fairly healthy! It's common for a seedling to lose its lower leaves as it ages and needs more energy for nice, new, bigger leaves. Kind of like losing baby teeth.

Also, some plants require a dormancy period. Depending on what zone you are in, the plant likely needs this resting time to focus on it's roots while waiting for the spring.

!plantclinic@lemmy.world is what you are looking for since this appears to be off-topic :)

Looking good as everyone's saying!

I had difficulty with over/underwatering until I got one of those analogue moisture meters. They're reasonably priced and can tell you exactly how much water is in any spot in your soil. I recommend hitting up your local gardening store and asking them about it

I learned one of my pots was pooling water at the bottom and rotting the ends of the roots when the top layer was dry and I had another pot where the water was just running around the edges of my pot and draining out the bottom without saturating the soil at all.

Really easy things to fix once you know what's happening.

You should keep it in a dry place when not in use. My first one corroded and broke because I just left it in the dirt.

The best way to make it strong is to give it a little wind/movement. This helps to strengthen the overall plant by causing vibrations and the trunk to grow thicker/stronger.