Hello everyone, new poster here, but I have already learned a lot from reading through old threads. Apologies in advance for what will likely be a lengthy post with my plumeria's entire life story!
I never had a plant in my life until about 3 years ago when I chanced on a craigslist poster who was moving out of state and wanted to give someone their plants for free. She was a much better gardener than I am, and none of the plants look nearly as healthy as they did when I first brought them home (not to mention several which died within the first year I had them). However, I have managed to keep alive a few plants, including a small lime tree and a plumeria, both of which I have become extremely attached to.
After browsing the web a bit, I believe that what I thought was one plumeria may in fact be TWO plumerias in a single pot. I'm guessing this is not ideal, but when I repotted them for the first time last summer the roots seemed too closely entangled to be safely separated.
It is potted in a mix of potting soil and sand, I can't recall the exact mixture. Since moving the pot outside this summer, I have seen a lot of leaf deformations that I speculated were due to under watering, as it has been quite hot. However, the soil didn't seem to be drying out too much. A couple weeks ago I bought plant risers to ensure the drainage holes can flow freely, and I have been watering more, and the leaves started looking a bit better, but I was still not seeing as much growth as I had in years past (and no sign of flowers
) I also bought a moisture meter to take some of the guesswork out of watering.
Then last week I saw a web or two and suspected spider mites, so I took it into my shower and washed it off as best as I could. I think the new leaves are looking healthier so far, but in the past sometimes they have not shown deformations until they get bigger, so I'll have to wait and see.
If anyone has other ideas about what's wrong with my leaves, please let me know!
I have never gotten many flowers from this plumeria, at most 2-3 at a time, although it has bloomed at least once every year. The picture in my avatar is the best shot I have of its flowers. I think the plant got a bit confused this year because it tried to bloom shortly after I brought it indoors for the winter, but the flowers fell off without fully opening. Because of this and because I took a cutting over the winter, I wasn't expecting any flowers this summer, but about a week after my plant had its washdown in the shower, I spotted one inflo on the same "trunk" I had cut from
I had not fed the plant EVER until I started a few months ago, with Scott Super Bloom (12-55-6).
Still teeny tiny!
Nothing so far on the other "trunk," which is the one that tried to flower this winter. As far as pruning goes, I have never cut that trunk, but it did branch on its own after last summer's bloom. The other trunk was broken two years ago in a storm, which devastated me at the time until the break grew into two branches and I learned that pruning can cause branching. This winter I tried to get it to branch again by taking a cutting, and while the cutting rooted and is doing well at my parents house, the branch I cut from callused over and never grew anything
You can see here where it was roughly broken by the wind, causing two nice branches, and where I carefully cut it, leaving nothing but a stick!!
The whole plant is much too leggy and top heavy and needs to be cut down, but that experience made me nervous to try again. It is pretty unwieldy at this point, which is a problem because it needs to get moved indoors and back out again fairly regularly (when we have storms it gets extremely windy up here on the 2nd floor patio.) I have thought about doing it like this:
However I am unsure about WHEN I should chop it up. I'm hoping if I trim the end of the "stick," it will start to grow again. On the one hand, it seems like doing this now while there's still plenty of summer growing season left would be wise. But on the other hand, I don't want to lose the flowers that are developing on that plant's growth tip.
As for the trunk/plant on the right, it seems like it will still be too tall/top heavy if I just make one cut, so I was thinking about taking a center cutting as well. It's hard to see in the previous picture, but it has two small branches at the top, and I actually think I see what might be a third branch starting to bud??
Not sure what all those brown patches are, but does that look like a new branch budding between them?
Anyway, thanks for bearing with me through this long post. I would love to hear what you all think!
