Just received a LARGE cutting... need advice

Hello everyone. I need some advice on what is the best way to get this cutting going. I just received it in the mail and it is a fresh cutting and much larger than I expected. I am not complaining but need to know the best way to give it a good chance of surviving. It has lots of leaves still on it and a few little ones are visible in the tips. This is my first cutting so I am a little nervous to have the responsibility of keeping something so large and lush alive. A little 'stick' would not have intimidated me. the picture shows my dog also 'checking it out'. I think my foot is in the corner of the picture to give you an idea of the size if the huge leaves were not enough of a clue. Thank you in advance for any advice.

Tammie

ok Tammie just send it to me ill check it out LOL put it in a large pot with a good soil mix keep it out of the full sun a while till it roots keep the soil lightly damp paul

Thank you for such a quick response. I would have been stupid and put it in the sun like they say to do with the smaller cuttings. I will set it back on my covered patio so it will get indirect sun all day. Temps here are in the 80's and 90's lately so it should be happy with that..... I hope. Large pot? How large?

Tammie

Tammie - remove the leaves asap. They are draining the life out of the cutting. Best is to cut them off just leaving the nubs on which will fall off in a few days.
Then stick the cutting in about 2-3 inches of well draining soil (stick can lean against the side of the pot).
Contrary to Paul's advice I would NOT water it at all; if it's very hot you can mist lightly.
Then - as a friend says - go annoy something else for a while.. (in other words: patience!)
Good luck!

First, give that little dog lots of kisses from me. Second, remove all the leaves as Hetty said. Leave on the very smallest top ones. Then plant according to the directions on the sticky thread! LOL! Plant the bottom two inches in a one-gallon or three-gallon pot. If it is a large cutting, you can go right to a three-gallon, but only fill one-half of the container with soil. Put it in full sun on a hot surface or concrete and water it in. You can stake it if you like, but pressing the soil firmly around the cutting should keep it upright.

I water my cuttings every day. They root really fast in the hot weather we are having, especially the big ones, and I don't worry about rot in the summer. It is actually hard to make cuttings rot in summertime. Misting is very good too. If you have a lot of humidity in your area, you can just mist daily and only water when the soil looks dry. If you want to see how I root cuttings, go to http://www.plumerias.com and look for Clare's Garden on the bottom left under Pals. You can save the PDF version to your hard drive to refer to later if you wish. I agree with Paul's "lightly damp." The soil should not be allowed to get too dry. Desiccation is more of a worry than rot this time of year.

Edited to fix spelling:-)


This message was edited Aug 10, 2006 2:10 PM

I think the issue of watering vs not watering has a lot to do with ambient moisture. We are so humid here we don't worry about watering because things never really 'dry out'.

Well, I thank you all for the advice. I went to a local nursery and bought a 3 gallon black plastic pot for all of 5 cents. did the pearlite mix and cringed when I cut those beautiful leaves off. I could see how they would suck it dry before it had time to form enough roots to keep them alive....several fell off when I touched them and I clipped the others off. I am sure the little nubs will fall off soon. It is now sitting on a low brick wall where it will get lots of warmth and sun. I have a misting bottle sitting next to it so i can mist frequently. Humidity here can run from 11% to 30% we do occasionally have it in the 40% range but that is rare and usually accompanied by rain which too it rare. I will keep you updated on my progress... This is exciting... OK, slow excitement.

Tammie

Shiloh says "Woof" She is one of three little Lhasa Angels who permit me to live with them.

What a great name! LOL! at "permit me to live with them." That is great.

Hetty has an excellent point. We are in such different climates. I'm in a very dry one, and she is in a humid one. It sounds like you figured out how much humidity your climate has so you can adjust the watering/misting accordingly.

Congrats on your new plant:-)

Full Sun, Full Sun *cough* Full Sun!
:)
Stick that beauty in full sun and mist her once a day if it is dry there..
Her 2 best friends right now are Sunlight and Heat!
I agree with DL and Clare and you should water her when the soil is semi dry but don't flood her just enough to wet her again..

*Note*
If she is not in sun when her new leaves come out then she cannot sustain the new root growth.

One more piece of advice; you say you "have a misting bottle sitting next to it". Be really careful that the water does not get too hot sitting in the sun. I came close to scorching some newly transplanted hibiscus yesterday. Thankfully, I noticed how hot the bottle was and stopped just in time.

Right on, folks! Good advice here. Robert, you've got to do something about that cough! LOL!

Yes, I noticed the bottle was hot when I picked it up so now it is sitting behind the wall in the shade... which was still close to 100 today. We had some light rain this evening so the humidity is about 50% tonight... yuck!!! It will be miserable early tomorrow also then will dry out and be our normal low teens 20%'s. I just wish when it rains, it does it enough to actually water everything and not just make a wet humid mess. I still have to use the sprinklers. I will keep everyone updated on how my "monster cutting" does.

Tammie

BTW.. my dogs names are "Misty", "Shiloh", and "Sky" All three are black Lhasa Apsos...now you know where my screen name came from. This is Sky:

Awwwwwww, Sky is just too cute.

Great picture of Sky!

thought id better put a pic of my baby on to Brooklyn Paul

She Looks like a Weimaraner but is brown... what is she? ... besides cute?

Tammie

A white Dobie Shes Seven Has blue Eyes

Nice dogs..
Too hot in florida for her i think..
:)

Hey, Lopaka, did you get that cough taken care of? I bet that beer would have helped a little. If my black long haired dogs can survive the heat of west Texas, I know that short haired dog is just fine in FL. My dogs love to lay in the sun where I will have my plumerias starting. It gets blistering hot on the cement there and all three will just lay out and bask in it.

Tammie

Yesterday, saturday, I put my cutting out in one of my empty flower beds on a very hot stepping stone so it would get lots of all around sun and heat. I went to the store at 5:30 and when I got out it had started raining. YOu have never seen anyone drive like mad to get home and get a plant OUT OF THE RAIN! LOL The top rock got a little wet but that was all... I got soaked but my plumie cutting is high and dry. Back out in its spot today. We got the first real rain in over a year. We have had some sprinkles and small showers but I got 1 1/2" last night. Our total rainfall for the year year is about 18" and we were at about 4.5" so far this year before this great storm. My cannas are going to be very happy campers! the humidity is already dropping today. Down to 54%. It will be in the 20's or30's by this afternoon. What is the average humidity where these plumerias grow in the ground well?

Tammie

Tammie, I think it must be like washing your car or hanging the laundry out to dry. LOL. Every time I get cuttings in and get them planted, it kinda cools off a little bit and gets cloudy and tries to rain. I could probably get more water out of a spray bottle squeezed once that what we have got that passed for rain this year. But then after a day or two it brightens back up and jumps over a 100 again.

I wouldn't worry about the rain in this season, guys. As long as it heats up again fairly quickly, your cuttings will be fine if left out in the rain. I water mine every day even when they have no roots because I want to keep that soil moist. Temperature is the most important thing if you have a soil thermometer. I'm told a meat thermometer will work fine too. Soil temp should be 80 degrees or higher.

Well, I have my cutting sitting out in the sun all day and at night, it stis on a heating pad under the covered patio. The humidity is miserable right now. 57%.. that is extremly high for Odessa, TX but it drizzled all night long. We are having a very cool day today... 85 the temp last night got way down to 66 but my pot was warm when I got up this morning... good heating pad. LOL One of the tiny leaves is already starting to straighten out and open up a little. Also, the one I bought at walmart and killed... well, it became mushy up to about 1/2 inch below the tip. I cut the mushy part off and re potted it. A new leaf is opening up! It has not gotten mushy any higher and is firming up. It will be a miracle it this tiny thing survives. It is essentially just a tip but I will baby it and give it every chance. It is not in the way and it doesn't hurt to let it try to live.

Tammie

Tammie, if your little half-inch tip survives, then we will all have to say that your thumbs are very green. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

Well, my little tip did not survive... the sprinklers got it! Now the large cutting that I potted 21 days ago is looking good. At least I hope what I am seeing indicates good things. I cut all the leaves off...see picture at top of this thread.... the ends fell off a couple of days later. It now has the tiny claw leaves starting to grow and open up. Is 21 days about right? ...or is it just living off the cutiing itself?

Need to run...got to bring in my cuttings under the patio and onto the heat pad...big storm just entered the county and headed this way...getting dark as I type!

Tammie

OOPS... the picture did not load! Here is my cutting as of about 5 minutes ago...

Tammie

hey tammie,

can you post another pic showing the cutting down to the soil line?

dete

It is too dark outside from the storm right now to take a picture but the stem is the same all the way down and firm. I frequently check a little below the soil also and it is good and firm.

Tammie

Looking good Tammie!!

Looks good to me also..

She looks healthy to me too.
A little dessicated but not enough to cause concern.
Youre a good plumie momma ;^)

When we moved last year the big strong men in our family helped w/everything including moving my huge plumerias and not being all that careful w/them. Naturally some of the ends got broken off and unfortunately I had no time to deal w/those. One, tho, I did. Just stuck it in the ground and when it was time to get all the plums. into the garage for the winter, pulled it up and it had a really great root system so I stuck it in the garage and kept it dry as we do w/all the plums. in the winter. This spring I planted it and treated it like the big ones. The smaller one is not blooming yet but I expect it will next year. As w/most of my cuttings and a lot of other plants I have no idea what the names of these are but they put out huge heads of flowers that continue blooming all summer. They are a pale pink and a darker pink w/an even darker edge. They really seem to love being on the concrete drive in the heat and sun. Every morning I soak each pot and once a week I put about 1/2t of soluable fertilizer in the pot dry. They have really put out for me.

Tammie,

I see what Dete is concerned about, and it concerned me too. I see some brown and a lot of wrinkles. That doesn't look firm to me. If it is dehydrated, you may want to water and mist more frequently. The tips look really good and new leaves are coming, which is a very good sign of roots starting to form. What is 21 days? A cutting takes 60-90 days to form a good set of roots. A heating pad is wonderful for rooting, but the water sparingly rule doesn't apply to cuttings which are getting intense bottom heat all the time. The heat will dry the cutting out and cause it to become desiccated if it doesn't get enough moisture.

The cutting had the wrinkles when it arrived with leaves still on it. It really is firm and has not changed since I potted it. I have been watching the 'wrinkles' carefully and do mist frequently. It is getting watered....especially when I don't get home fast enough to get it out of the rain. LOL

Very humid the past two days and it got some rainwater last night. It is sitting on the heat pad all day today because the sun was never out. Hopefully we have sun tomorrow.

Tammie

I purchased 2 plumeria's from Stokes Tropicals, plastic pink and celedine. In various readings before I received them, the one thing that stuck in my mind was to not be afraid of them and don't pamper them. I received my cuttings, they had leaves on them, I stuck them in not so great potting soil using a small pottery container, watered them in and walked off. They are on bricks under the eave of our house facing south, they get plenty of sun and are sprouting new leaves regular. I didn't cut the leaves off either. So I guess the lesson learned here for me is that they are fragile yet not prissy.

Celadine has a reputation for being one of the easiest cuttings to root; Plastic Pink has the reputation of being one of the fastest cuttings to rot. I agree with your lesson learned and congratulations on a job well done!

Thanks for the encouragement Clare and the info. I chose those two because the Celedine is suppose to be very fragrant and the Pink a lemon fragrance too. I'll keep my eyes open for root rot. I wasn't expecting too much success with them but so far, so good. I'm enjoying the 'expectant' mom syndrome, waiting to see if they will flower!

DiamondD, now that PP is rooted, I doubt you will have any trouble with rot. You could drown Celadine all winter, and it won't rot either. Celadine is one of the hardiest plumies around. I'm sure you will get blooms from both of them for sure next spring or summer. They will probably continue to grow and develop a root system until then. If you keep them growing all fall and winter under lights or in a greenhouse, you may even get flower inside. If you let them go dormant, you'll probably see flowers next spring or summer.

Clare: Encouragement again! Now I'm fired up and am off to the store for a growing light. Of course we won't get temps in the 50 for another couple of months but I like to be prepared. Our son moved out and I made a workout room [yes I do use it :)] out of his bedroom. I think I'll turn it into a winter green house. Good advice. Of course I felt the need to go out and take a picture for you: the left is the Plastic Pink and the right is the Celadine.

Great picture! They look very healthy and happy. Thanks for posting that! I'm sure your plumies will be very happy under lights this winter, and with the warmth of the house, they could very well flower for you inside. You may want to consider giving them a good spray with the hose and then spraying with Safer's 3-in-1, which is a fungicide, miticide, and insecticide all in one just prior to bring your plants inside. This will help to keep the mites to a minimum, which is always a problem when you have plants in the house. If you have a fan in that room, keeping it turned on all the time will help with air circulation. Metel Hallide lights are extremely useful if you can find them, or any grow light will do just fine. Some growers even leave the lights on for 24 hours. You'll have to watch your watering indoors and make sure that water does not stand in those catch trays. Sitting in water is a sure way to encourage root rot, and your PP may be particular susceptible this winter. Cold/wet is a combination that you want to avoid.