Bareroot for Winter?

I'm mystified by the news that some people bareroot their plumies for Winter. I placed my rooted plants in the basement (on the advice of a local for whom that works) and they dried out and were ruined. How do bareroots and cuttings go months without water?

go to
http://www.plumeria101.com
and youll see a link to winter storage.
Lots of good info and pictures too.
Michael

Hmmm... winter storage section isnt up yet.
Good site anyway!! 8^D
Im sure Clare will post photos or links to Paulas Winter storage method.

Andidandi, did yours dry out, or did they rot? I thought yours had rotted. Rot is usually the problem that people face over winter when their plumerias don't go dormant but are allowed to sit in wet/cold soil. How cold does it get in your basement? That could have been the problem too. If it was fairly warm in your basement, and you hadn't reduced watering to force dormancy, but it was dark in the basement, it could have died from lack of water and light. Too cold of a basement could have been a problem as well if it got down to freezing in there. I went back over your original thread to see if I could find out more information, but you never said what the conditions of your basement are and what condition the plumeria was in when you put it in there, and what month you put it in there, etc. I don't think you got bad advice originally. I think maybe you didn't have all the information that you needed to make it work. Lots of people do store potted and unpotted plumerias in their garages and basements, but they either force or encourage dormancy with certain conditions -- they stop watering, stop fertilizing, strip the leaves, leave the plants out until temps drop into the low 40's -- or they keep the plumerias growing with artificial light and heat and keep them from going dormant.

Allowing the soil to go dry and not watering, combined with reduced light and temperatures, forces the plumerias to go dormant, a state in which they are suspended. Plumerias hold a lot of water in their stems so they can go without water for a long time. Cuttings can go for many months without being rooted. The cuttings may become dehydrated and wrinkled over time, but misting helps with that until roots are formed.

Michael knows me so well. Here is a link to Trish's thread, where she shows what she does, and in the thread, is a link to Paula's thread where she shows what she does: http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/585058/

Here is another good link: http://www.theplumeriasociety.org/dyncat.cfm?catid=2016

I don't really know. It's an unheated basement, but not so cold that it's unbearable for people to be down there. I know that's not much info. The next year I went to get them and they were dark and still standing, but the stems crushed like paper when squeezed. Someone else told me she just throws hers in the basement in winter and that's it. I did not water for maybe a week before putting them down there.