Hi! I am so happy to have found this forum. I live just outside of Seattle, (not ideal for plumeria by any means) but I just adore them and have been hoping to see blooms. My plumeria woke from dormancy in early January and I was thrilled to see that inside of the leaf "claws" was an inflo! It is the first one on this plant that I have had for three years! I had truly given up on it. I purchased from Easy To Grow Bulbs (wonderful company). It arrived very healthy with a nice inflo, but sadly, it fell off days after receiving the plumeria. Maybe the stress of being shipped and not ideal conditions on this end caused it to fall off. Not sure. Since then, I have repotted it yearly, making sure it is a quick draining soil mix with a generous amount of perlite or pumice, moved it outside when nights temps are above 50 and moved it daily to be in as much sun as possible. I have fertilized it bimonthly with Hawaiian Bud and Bloom (5-50-17) and protected it from being overwatered from too much rainfall.
So far this year, I have placed it in front of a south facing window. It gets sun about half of the week. In the spring and summer, we have several sunny days. Summer temps average 75 degrees and it gets nice sunlight then. It was happy and healthy with full lush leaves last summer.
I bought some grow lights last spring from Gardener's Supply. They are T5 LED lights and supposed to be good for tropicals. I supplemented with this light until I could move it outside for the summer.
So, all of that being said, I would love some advice on how to keep this inflo growing! I so want to see and smell the lovely flowers. Here are my main questions:
1. Should I slowly increase the light? I'd like to start putting it under the grow light on days that are grey (or maybe just under the light and not in front of the window anymore). Anyone have suggestions for a light schedule? It gets about 7 hours 3-4 days per week.
2. Our house ranges from 66 - 71 degrees. Is this warm enough? Would a heat mat help?
3. Humidity in our house is usually at 40% - 50%, more when the heat is not on. Shall I increase humidity with a humidifier or would daily misting be enough?
4. I have only lightly watered it a few weeks ago when the stem was wrinkly. It looks good now. Shall I hold off on watering until leaves develop? Would fertilizing help the inflo or should I not fertilize?
Thanks so much for reading this. I look forward to any thoughts and advice you are willing to offer!
Here are pictures of the devopment so far:
January 4
January 15
January 20
January 27
February 11
February 11 - inflo starting to grow up
