Cuttings do give some blooms sometimes from its latent buds..from the previous season, left at the tip, then they open up to bloom. But it does not mean it has rooted, till new leaves have actually formed. That is why if it is still a cutting and does that, the advice is to remove the inflo, so the cutting can concentrate on making new roots. It is a personal decision to do so, keep the bloom or not. Learned that on my previous attempts. cutting bloomed, but nada roots.

That's why I said you have better growing conditions Mike SoCal temps more stable than ours here. My garden is now littered with tons of leaves..feels like Fall is here, yet we are still hitting upper 90's to 100's..or maybe the trees are just conserving its resources and doing away with the first batch of leaves it has made to give way to new ones, this has been one very long dry spell.

@ Tarev - Ahhh....so once again I have been given some erroneous information! So, it's the leaves that matter, not the blooms. Well, in reference to rooting, that is. I'm sure I'll ask about removing the inflo if / when I get that far.

@ drdawg - Earlier you wrote, "You could certainly wait 3-4 days and even much, much longer than that - but why? Just have the cut ends calloused and you will be good to go". First, aren't you supposed to let it dry out before planning it? Second, when you say "have then ends calloused" what do you mean?

Geez...the more I learn, the more I realized how much I don't know!

Don't feel bad Mike..I got blindsided by the rooting of plumies too I just have to laugh it off..newbie errors I have experienced, and still am trying to get the hang of it, still attempting to root a cutting. Just sharing with you what I have seen first hand, and have learned from the pros here in ATP..learning it the hard way with my failures..so hopefully you can avoid similar pitfalls. But you have the upperhand, your location and climate is really much suited for the plumies, than here in my area.

Plumeria go dormant in the winter. Trying to root them at that time of year is to try and get a sleeping child to eat... you MAY succeed but it's not easy

Hetty, as I said, I learned the hard way.

Mike, when you let a fresh cutting "dry out", what you are doing is letting the cut end callous over. In other words the cut end will form a "scab". That does not sound very appealing but that's kind of what it is. The callous just shows that the cut-end has stopped oozing sap and has dried. Once the callous has formed, you can pot up the plant and root it. When I said it doesn't matter so much about time left "dry", I meant that a plumeria can literally go for months without roots, without water, and without light. Sure, the cutting will dehydrate some and won't be as vigorous when you try to root it in the spring, but I have rooted dozens and dozens of cuttings that have overwintered for four months in the house, as I have described previously.

I always leave the inflo stems on when rooting. I see no difference whether the cutting has a stem or doesn't.

Next time buy your plants from me and you'll get all this information upfront. LOL

Hetty,
And that's sort of the crux of this whole conversation is defining "winter". For some, with temps falling below 60*-65* it might be September / October. But for Sothern Cal it's not USUALLY until around mid-late November. I'm just hoping to have some success before it starts cooling off too much.

Mike, I think you probably do have a longer window-of-opportunity to root plumeria, but keep in mind, it may be length of daylight, not temperature that controls dormancy, or perhaps some of both.

@drdawg...good point. I guess I'll have to break-out the spot lights.

I think you can get away with the cool weather Mike..as long as no rain at all. Winter cold and rain not good for plumies or for most succulents for that matter.

Love the analogy Hetty.

Cold + wetness = tropicals/succulents death.

Then its a good thing I let my wife talk me into moving down here from Seattle!

Wives will always win the argument.

Hetty is right, most plumeria go dormant in winter even here in the tropics. The few that don't do not grow much and just manage to keep the leaves and blooms they have through the winter. I don't believe that in a favorable climate cold is an influence and it would seem that the hours of light only need to vary a small amount. We only change from 11 hours of sunlight in the darkest time of winter to 13 hours in the middle of summer and yet the plumerias know when to lose their leaves. This makes me think that even a slight shortening of daylight could trigger them.

dawg,
You mentioned that I don't neccessarily have to wait a week for the new cuttings to dry out before potting them, but they could be calloused and potted right away. Did I misunderstand and if not, how is that done?

Mike, in reality, a cutting will callous over within 24 hrs. So, if you bought cuttings, took them home, they probably should be fine to pot up the next day. It is very easy to tell whether it is calloused. The cut-end will feel hard and dry. But there is absolutely no rush to pot them, other than the fact that we are getting close to fall, making the rooting process more difficult (even though you think you have a longer "rooting" season due to your location). Didn't your seller tell you or give you instructions on rooting your cuttings?

drdawg,

Yes, she did. Remember the list of things from a previous post that many on this site didn't agree with?

I'm just trying to figure out who's right / who's wrong and what's the best way to go. Without my own personal experiences, I really don't have anything else to fall back on. I guess that leaves me in Tarev's "shoes", and giving it a shot with trial & error.

While I recognize and respect the opinions of everyone here, it comes down to this:
Either I give it a shot now and pot the cuttings hoping it isn't too late in the season for them to take root,
or I wait until next spring to do it.

The big question is this: is the $40 I spent on these cuttings worth taking the risk? or

Here is what I was told by the nursery where I bought the cuttings:


-Leave them in the bag paper bag (this is what the cuttings were in at the POS) and put them in a cool place to dry out.
-Don't do anything for 3-4 days.
-When I DO put them in a pot, water well, but not again for 6 weeks.
-Begin watering every 6-7 days once the first bloom appears.

I have to disagree with Ken on what constitutes a callous.
A cutting will be dried in one day. A true 'callous' as pictured below takes a minimum of a week and sometimes several weeks to achieve. A well calloused cutting will root easily, a cutting that has been cut very recently will still be subject to pathogens entering the cutting and rotting.
In Florida we can leave a cutting on a shelf in a well ventilated shady place to callous; in a drier climate some people resort to something called a 'humibox' to achieve a callous.
I have had cuttings start roots in nothing but air in our humid summers.

Hetty,
What is it about planting too early (versus waiting for callous) that makes the cutting vulnerable to pathogens? Water, soil?