Plumeria In Tucson

Well, I had ordered some Plumeria seeds from texashotplants.com.  They were pretty cheap ($3 for a package of 15!).  They were no names, just pink, white and yellow.  They were out of stock on the yellow so I ordered one package of Pink and one of White.  Some of them sprouted and the ones that did are doing great.  I decided that I would plant these in the ground this year.  I just did.

It seemed like last year, the weather was warm until December.  I am hoping that it will be the same this year.

I planted three of them in the ground and we will see how well they do.

My concern is that they will be in all day sun, and in the winter, they will be in the coldest part of the yard.

Plumeria from Home Depot

I splurged and bought some already blooming Plumeria from Home Depot.

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Pink Plumeria

Newly opened.

Close to the end of the bloom.

A combination.  Actually, I don’t understand, these whiter color blooms are a few days old and the two darker pink, slightly lavender blooms opened yesterday, and as you can see the bloom in the bottom right is a darker pink.  Does temperature and humidity determine the bloom color?  I guess I shall google it and see. 🙂

Plumeria Inflo

Last year I cheated and bought an already blooming Plumeria from The Home Depot. It was a white no name Plumeria. This Spring my boyfriend detected the inflo. I have to admit, I had not checked for it since it just bloomed last year in Summer or early Fall.

Plumeria 2008

Here are some of my Plumeria sticks just waiting to grow leaves.  It looks like there wasn’t any damage to them from the bit of frost we got a couple of weeks back.  Thank goodness!

More Plumeria

After my success with my first plumeria, I decided I wanted to try to root my first batch of sticks. I went to ebay. This was the cheapest place I could find. Four different colors of plumeria for only $21 shipped. I was very excited. The seller quickly shipped my sticks. When I received them, I was a little disappointed. I had read, on plumeria101.com, about rot. One of the sticks looked shriveled and felt mushy. I decided to cut a little bit from the bottom of the stick. Sure enough, there was rot. I cut all of it out until it started to “bleed”, but that only left me with 3 inches of the stick.

I contacted the seller and he was very cooperative. He quickly shipped a replacement stick. When it arrived, it looked healthy.

I potted all four plants in a mixture of 2/3 perlite and 1/3 peat moss. This seemed to be the most recommended mix from people that had success rooting plumeria.

These four sticks struggled a little in the Arizona heat. The sticks looked shriveled for a while. I was afraid because this looked a lot like rot. I did begin to see that leaves had started to form, so I began to lightly sprinkle them with water every day. Pretty soon the monsoons began. I finally saw a difference in the plumeria. The sticks slowly became miniature trees. They are healthy and the root system seems to be strong. They all rooted! Well, except the three inch one that had the rot I cut off.

As a bonus (I think) one of the sticks developed three branches. I think this might be the white one. Unfortunately, I did not label them. Well, at least I will have a nice surprise once they bloom.

Picture taken on 4/27/2007

Picture taken 5/27/2007

Picture taken 8/5/2007

Picture taken 12/08/2007

Plumeria Progress

Thanks to the internet, I was hooked with the first picture I saw of a blooming plumeria. I decided to buy one, but I was going to do a little research on it first. I was very well known among my family for not having a green thumb.

I went by a local nursery in Tucson, Az and I found a plumeria stick. It looked like it was already rooted. I was very excited. I saw the price and I was bummed. It was $20 for a stick in a 3 inch pot! It didn’t have any leaves or anything, just a stick. I decided that maybe that might be the best way for me to test my ability to successfully grow plumeria would be to just buy a rooted one. I had read that it might be a little difficult to root plumeria mostly because of rot. Of course I didn’t want to lose one, so I decided to buy it.

When I got it home, I potted it in a nice size terra cotta pot. I used Miracle Grow potting soil along with some perlite.

I got this Plumeria in April. I was very excited to see the first little claws grow into leaves. As the months went by, I noticed that the base of the plant got thicker.

2007 12 06 – It seems the base is getting thicker every day. The leaves are starting to yellow a little, and I have been watering it about once a week. I will have to watch the temperatures. They say it will start cooling off by the end of the week. If you notice in the pot from August to December there seems to be a lot less perlite in the pot. That is because I have been adding coffee grounds to the pot.

2008 03 02 – Wow, I’m impressed with this guy’s growth. Maybe it’s just me, since this is the first Plumeria I got, but at soil level it measures 5 1/2 inches around. Notice the stretch marks!

April 24, 2007

May 27, 2007

August 5, 2007

December 6,2007

March 03,2008