Any advice on my first attempt to grow plumeria?

My first post to Dave's garden.
I picked up 2 plumeria canes(?) at the Hawaiian botanical garden in Hilo in March. I looked up info on the internet and tried to follow the instructions and now I have leaves! I'm very grateful and somewhat surprised.
From some of what I've read here, I fear I've put these in too small a pot (approx 6.5" x 6.5") and I'm wondering what I should do now, if anything.
I'm far from a Hawaiian climate in zone 4! but it seems to enjoy the sun outside.
Thanks for any advice that can be offered.
Betty

They look great! Now you need to separate the two cuttings and put them in their own gallon container before they get any more rooted. The potting medium looks good-lots of perlite in there for drainage. Just keep giving them as much sun as you can, and either put a good slow release fert ( about 1 Tablespoon per gallon size) or give them liquid fert every week.

I agree with Tigerlily's advice to separate them but I would wait a little... the plants likely just have very small brittle roots at this point and they will break easily.
When it has a full set of leaves you can still separate them. They will like a bit more spacious pot too.
Happy growing!

I agree with Dutchlady, I would wait until you at least have a full set of leaves if not two. iI you are going to transplant them, you might as well get bigger pots now, because you will have to do it later.
Davie

I agree with Tigerlily -- they likely just have a swollen cambium at this point so now is the time to separate them before they get a ball of roots that will be intertwined and broken upon separation. They should never have been planted together. These are trees! A one-gallon container is usually sufficient for the first 90 days until they are rooted, and then you can transplant to individual five-gallon containers. Please visit the FAQ's Sticky Thread at the top of the forum for more information.

Thank you all for being kind enough to reply. I had consulted the 101 page but overlooked the pot size and I thought they'd look pretty planted together ;-)
Ooops
anyway, I will get them in proper pots, start fertilizing and take the time to thoroughly read the Clare's Creating a plumeria collection page which I had missed previously.They have been in the pot about 90 days but in cool indoors with lots of light. Since it warmed up and I put them outside they seem to be making more progress.

I'm very excited

Thank you Thank you Thank you

And thanks to those who started the plumeria forum, which I greatly appreciate.

bbinny-if you find upon separating them, that there are some roots, the easiest way and least damaging to the roots is to gently shake them apart ( dryer dirt is better than wet) and then really gently hose down the root balls until you can easily pull them apart without ripping the roots. Even if you do rip the roots some, it will not hurt them-at this stage in the year, they will recover fast.

thank you, again, tigerlily123!

I would have done it wrong (wet) without this advice. Now I'll do it right.

Betty, please forgive my manners. I should have said "Welcome to Dave's!" Are you related to our dear Beverly who is Bbinnj? Your sign on names are so close that I figured you guys must know each other! Don't worry -- everyone makes mistakes in the beginning. Giving them each their own growing space will help them to grow strong and healthy.

Hi Clare,
There's nothing to forgive! I appreciate your help.
I'm not related to BBinnj except telepathically. I noticed her sign in when I went to post my question, and thought it was funny. I guess she's Beverly B who lives in NJ! I use to use BBinCA till I moved to NY a couple years ago (not on Dave's but on gmail) I was in Burbank.

My "trees" seem happy in their new homes (5 gallon). I'll be thrilled if I can get a bloom eventually and bring some tropics to zone 4.
Betty

Welcome Betty,
I applaud your effort to grow tropicals in upstate NY.My father is from Franklin county and many relatives from Clinton county.So I'm aware at how short the growing season is there.In order to get your plants to flower sooner my suggestion would be to try and keep them growing through the fall and winter inside with a heat mat and grow lights.Your nights start to get cooler at the middle of Aug and don't really warm up until later in the spring,so if you could keep them growing through the winter you'd really be ahead of the game.
Just a thought and good luck
Don LaClair

Hi all,
I'm learning a new terminalogy today. What appears to be "anker roots" so I called, is actually a growing cambium. Thanks Clare. All great advices.

Where does it say that you can not root more than one cutting in the same pot? I am not talking about growing them in the same pot; I am talking about rooting them.

Jose, I assume the reason we avoid doing that so we minimize the damage to the root system as thing progresses along the way? Moving them to different pots down the road, will disturb their newly established roots? I usually root mine in smaller, managable pots. Once they're well rooted I invert the small pot by one hand and place it right into its future home. It works for me.

Lily_love, you and others may prefer rooting a single cutting in a single pot, but that is not to say that is the only way to root cuttings. Some people, especially if they are dealing with many cuttings, and I would expect some growers use what is called "gang planting" to root plumerias. They place several cuttings in one container. I have done it without any problems.

If the rooting media is loose, the rooted cuttings can be separated without any problems once the main roots form. The first roots that form are hair-like and are very brittle, but the main roots are stronger. If they are handled gently, they can be separated if the roots become entangled. Once the rooting process gets started cuttings will recover from a little root damage.

I have plumerias that I plant directly in the ground, but I have to dig them up in November to protect them from a freeze. When I dig them up, I have to sever many roots. I leave a root ball around the main stem and lift them to put in the greehouse. In the spring, when I replant them they take off and regenerate new roots.

In the "Handbook of Plumeria Culture", the authors claim that molded plastic baskets are the best containers to root cuttings. They used a 16 x 21 x 10-inch basket.

The baskets allow more air to citculate around the cuttings. It is also easier to gently dig your hand in the rooting media to feel how moist it is. One of the things I find with black plastic pots is that they can sometimes be deceiving. They appear dry on the surface, but they hold a lot more mosisture than what you think a couple of inches below the surface. At least, that is "my" experience in my area where we have high temperatures and high humidity. Someone in a drier enviroment may disagree with me on this point.

In his book, "Growing Plumerias in Hawai", Jim Little has a few pictures of gang plantings that are taken out of the pots and show a well developed root system. In one picture, I counted at least 8 cuttings in what looks like a one gallon container.

Joe

This message was edited Jul 5, 2007 9:40 PM

Wonderful tips on plumerias' cultures. Thanks for sharing Jose. I can see many valid points.

Hi All,
Thanks for all the thoughts, encouragement and information.
Thanks for your localized encouragement, Don. It is a bit of a lark but so far so good! I always loved plumerias. We'll see how it works out. I'm planning on moving the plants inside to my livingroom in the winter. How warm do you think they need to be? Also, do we get credit for our long summer days: 15.5 hrs today? ;-)
They seem happy but I'm worried they are staying too damp in the plastic pots. I haven't watered them but even when it doesn't rain much they don't dry out. I'm thinking of moving to clay pots, though they'd be heavy to move.
I also haven't been able to find superbloom fertilizer locally so I'll have to order it.

Betty, they look good, but they have catch trays that hold water and that will keep the soil wet. I would remove those (pull them off) and make sure there are big drainage holes at the bottom of those pots. If they are small drainage holds, I would take a drill and make them bigger. I would have potted them up into individual one-gallon containers until the roots filled the pots and then went to those pots. Those look like five-gallon containers. That may have been overpotting a bit, but there are a couple more months for them to get adjusted before they come inside so they should be fine. In general, you never want to over pot plumerias. Cold/wet is a very bad combination. Bring them in when temps are predicted to drop below 50. A warm house by a window should be a nice place to spend the winter. I would not use clay pots. Plastic is much better. People have found that the roots stick too much to the inside of clay pots. I would not use Superbloom now. You want to use a balanced fertilizer now until the end of August. In fact, the bloombooster fertilizers are no longer the preferred fertilizer for plumerias. A balanced fertilizer is a better way to go. The explanation is on another thread.

I also group root plumerias as Jim Little does in his book, but I only do it as a temporary solution and pull them out before the roots become entangled. I find that, if I wait too long, there is substantial root loss as I try to separate them. I don't plant them together; I just place them lightly on top of the soil really. They sink in a bit.

I forgot to add that I agree with Don about using heating pads and lights to keep them growing through the winter. This would be especially beneficial since your growing season is so short.

This message was edited Jul 7, 2007 11:18 AM

Thank you, Clare. I misunderstood about moving to a one gallon. I'll do better with my next plumeria but no I won't have nearly as many as you or Susan51!
It's good to know about the fertilizer. I'll take the catch trays off and drill bigger holes. My livingroom has southern light with big windows so it's quite bright. I will look into a heating pad and Light.
Very interesting how you start so many together. Being a novice gardener I always think plants need soil.
The photos you posted were amazing! Just an incredible collection! Mine, if they bloom, are just generic yellow and pink, but I'll still love them.

Betty, a heating pad and supplemental light, even if it is for a few hours every evening before bedtime (extending the daylight) will make a world of difference for you, I think. You will see them thrive.

That group of plumeria cuttings were sitting on top of and sort of in some potting soil and roots grew so fast in that warm little mini-greenhouse that they became quickly intertwined, and I had some breakage when I separated them for planting into individual one-gallon containers. I had gotten those particular ones when it was still chilly here, and I wanted to wait until it was warm out before I put them in containers and put them outside.

Thanks for the compliment. I enjoy my collection, and I enjoy my plain generic ones just as much as my named ones. I can see why you love them.

Clare why would a one gallon pot be better than a five gallon pot, if you are going to eventually end up in a five gallon pot?
Davie

Davie, since these were cuttings just getting the beginning of leaves, I figured that they didn't have much of a root ball on each, and if they did have a root ball, it was diminished when the two were separated from sharing the same pot. A barely-rooted cutting in a big 5-gallon container is a lot of unused soil by the roots, which can stay wet and cause drainage problems and bacteria build up, which can lead to root rot. I prefer to let the roots of a cutting fill a one-gallon container before I pot up to a five-gallon container, and this is especially important for those with short growing seasons. If it is going to hot for three or four months, like it is here where I live, then there is plenty of time for those roots to grow into that soil, but if dormancy is going to happen in a matter of two months, then that unused soil by the roots will have a hard time ever drying out. The bacteria that builds up could attack an otherwise perfectly healthy root ball. I've had plants die this way unfortunately, and I learned the hard way not to over pot. The only things that I overpot are fast-growing plants like passifloras or brugmansias. This is just my experience in my climate ;-)

Thanks again, as always, great information.
Davie

This message was edited Jul 13, 2007 3:57 PM