Hi, my plumeria is not dormant yet since I live in south Florida., but the leaves look really bad since a couple of days. First they had black dots on them and a lot of of black flies flying around it and on the leaves. I first sprayed the flys with a soapy water. Then the next day I sprayed neem oil on them and today I received my fertilizer for plumeria 5-30-5 and I fertilized it with 2 tablespoons and watered thoroughly. At this point I dont know what else to do and the leaves looks like this ( picture enclosed) and also dropping some leaves! Help please! Thank you in advance. It was fine a couple of weeks ago.

5-30-5 seems like too much phosphorus (P) to me. You say its almost time for your plumeria to go dormant, then just let it go dormant. Fertilizer almost never fixes any kind of disease, and only cause's your plant more problems.

Oneeyeluke, I actually dont know if it's almost time for my plumeria to go dormant. I got it in August. I thought since I'm in south Florida it might got tricked not to go dormant or to do it later... ok on the fertilizer that's what I read that she needed a high phosphorus. Again I'm new to this and to plumeria. Now only a couple of days later that's how she looks since the neem oil! Thank you always for your expertise!

I'm fairly certain you must have had a bad spider mite attack. I had one that looked like that a few years ago. Once those leaves fall, keep watch on the new ones and treat immediately if you see any bugs or webs on the undersides of the leaves.

Plantmanager, that's very possible cause I saw a lot of little black flies around and something underneath the leaves like eggs! But I dont know what spider mites looks like... I'll look it up! In any event will the neem oil kill the spider mites? And more importantly will my baby survive? If the neem oil isn't going to do the trick, what should I use on my plumeria? Thank you for your expertise!

I've had very good luck using Neem. The only thing I do is put it on when it won't be in full sun. Spider mites don't look like black flies. That's a new one to me. I think you can save your baby!

Plantmanager,thank you for the help! I'll keep applying the neem oil on a 7 day regimen until all is better!

Oneeyeluke, plantmanager I have one more question regarding my plumeria, since a lots of the leaves are damage and now hanging down should I remove them? Maybe to allow new growths?


This picture is how my plumeria looks as of yesterday.

You can just wait for the leaves to fall off which they will do soon, or you can clip them off ( do not rip them off, leave a small piece of the stem on the plant which will fall off by itself in a few days).
Your plumeria will soon go dormant. It depends on the variety, I have some plumeria that have already lost all their leaves and others are still going strong. I am also in South Florida.
In the early spring, please fertilize with a well-balanced fertilizer to make a strong plant.
Good luck.

Okay dutchlady, I will do that. Thank you. When I fertilize in the spring, how often do I fertilize? My label says every 14 days??

Ditch that particular fertilizer (or use it on your annuals) and do your plumeria a favor and use a good, well balanced, timed-release fertilizer. Then you only need to do it a few times per season. Or if you purchase 'Excalibur' from Florida Colors, which was especially formulated for plumeria, you only need to use it once at the start of the season. I and others have had excellent results with this product. As a teaser here is a picture of cv. 'Guadalupe Fernandez' from earlier this year....

Dutchlady1 said:Here is a picture of cv. 'Guadalupe Fernandez' from earlier this year....

WOW !! What a Hot Tamale of a color.

Okay dutchlady, thank you for the tips and your plumeria looks amazing, thanks for sharing! I'll get that fertilizer!

Hetty, thanks for the info re; type when shedding. I didn't know that, though each does seem to have it's own personality, I thought it was the bed it was in that causes one of mine to dump half its leaves all at once, while the other three loose theirs slowly. After two nights that went down to 47, I found a lot of leaves on the ground from that one, while only a handful from the other three.