If it's not soft then it is very unlikely that it's rot. I would not cut it unless it's soft or black. I believe the brown spot is probably sunburn and you can put a paper towel / toilet paper roll on it to cover the area until it gets leaves. They can be sensitive to sudden sunlight with no leaves.

Your plumie is probably coming out of dormancy and if it has well developed roots I would water it and then leave it alone until it is dry again. It will probably appreciate the bigger pot and if you give it some time I bet you it will start growing really well!

Some of the best advice I ever heard about growing Plumeria is, "go bother something else". (it cracks me up every time!) Keep it simple.

If it's "clawing" that's a good sign. Typically you do not have to water during winter months if you allow the plant to go dormant like it wants to do. Excess wet and cold = rot.

Don't worry, I really and truly think it's fine, it just needs some sun and some time :)

Happy growing!
Emily

Hard to say from just the picture but I agree...sun, routine light watering until it has more leaves, and low dose of fertilizer for 1 or 2 feedings and let the plant do the rest.

THANK YOU most kindly Emily & kms2 for your replies! Eternal gratitude!

O.K. So as long as it's clawing that's a good sign. Yay! I have some Nutri Star Plumeria food that I gave it last summer so I'll give it the lowest dose of that & a little water. When it gets well formed leaves then I'll switch over to a foliar feed.

Since my area has been blessed with temps in the 70's today, I put my Plumie outside on a hot rock, & covered its tip with a TP roll. Now it has a new little hat to sunbathe in Hee Hee. My neighbors are staring at me like I'm the town nut ;).

LOL! I like that advice, "Go bother something else." The more I read on this forum, the more I'm learning that the most successful growers really don't fuss over their Plumies. They let nature take its course & then if something crops up they tend to it. Excellent advice & well taken.

Again, a huge thank you for taking the time to reply & offer your expertise.

Happy day to you :)

You're very welcome! And don't get me wrong, I LOOK at them up close & examine them all over every day, I just try to keep my hands behind my back so to speak LOL!!! My seeds and seedlings however are getting bothered by me a lot more than they should!

You can do a thorough watering since your plumie is rooted, and then just let it dry out in between waterings. It sounds like you're doing everything right, just keep up the good work, the blooms in the first pic are beautiful!

Emily

Bless your heart Emily! Truly grateful for your help & advice. Lord knows I need it LOL! & a humble thank you for your kind compliment about my Plumie's blooms. Do you have any pics of your Plumies? Just gave mine a little water & it's sitting with its "hat" on outside. Going to bring it in before evening cause we're going to have another temp drop below 50 tonight.

I can wholeheartedly empathize with you about "looking at them up close & examining them all over every day - all the while keeping my hands behind my back!" It's terribly tempting to fuss & prod with a Plumie, especially since I'm still a novice to the wonderful world of Plumeria growing so I'm more prone to freaking out over the least little thing that seems amiss. I treat this Plumie like it's a baby. Egads I'm such a dork LOL! The friend who gave it to me has some of her own which she brought back as cuttings that were for sale from the Washington Memorial over 20 yrs ago (?!) & this cutting she gave me is from that original. Yikes!

Have a beautiful night dear soul!

Kindest Regards, Angharand

Y'all crack me up! You're in good company if your neighbors think you're nuts. Mine must wonder what is so fascinating about the sticks I'm growing in pots out back; I'm out there at least twice a day checking for inflos. (Need to move to a house with no neighbors behind me, lol!)

I read that Bill Moragne's entire collection of trees was knocked down by a hurricane once, but he just left them where they fell and they came back even better than they'd been before. So yes, Emily, I think they like some neglect.

Angharand, I think that round nodule in your second picture is where an inflo once was. The tip then made just one new branch from that, which happens sometimes. The discoloration may be sunburn at the tip but it's hard to tell. Otherwise it looks good and as long as the claws are growing and the stem at the soil line is firm, it should be fine.

Jen

Hi Jen! Thank you so much for your advice! Glad to know I'm in good company too LOL! Sometimes I'll forget & start talking to my Plumie asking it if it would like to go outside & then of course I get the Little Orphan Annies from the neighbors as soon as they see me with my stick in the pot. Maybe I should decorate its little TP hat with eyes, feathers, & ribbons so they can really get an eyeful ;P.

Thank you also for your imput about that nodule on the side of my Plumeria! The friend who gave it to me had no idea what it could be (?!) so I figured I'd turn to the experts here. & yes, all of you who have more experience than I do are "experts" as far as I'm concerned. I'm humbly indebted to y'all for your patience, kindness, & advice.

P.S. Plumie is putting out 2 more baby claws! :D

Hope your day is a joyous one!

You're both in good company!!! - I have to put my cuttings in the driveway because it's getting the best full sun right now and I don't want my dogs tumping them over. My neighbor across the street sits in his garage to smoke all the time so he sees the crazy lady fussing over her sticks, taking them out in the morning, looking at them when she comes home, and then retrieving them in the evening. Here are my sticks: (this is my 2nd collection, my first was several gorgeous 2 year old plants that were destroyed when I stupidly left them in a shed instead of the garage for overwintering. It still makes me sad to think of it)
I have (from left to right)
Mystery
Kaneohe Sunburst
Pauahi Alii
Jeanne Cecile
Kimo
These cutting were planted March 21st. I believe some claws are just starting to wake up on the Kaneohe Sunburst and the Kimo.
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Here are my seedlings, I started with 12 and I have 7 left. I have 4 Intense Rainbow, and the remaining 3 are either 2 Honey Queen and 1 mystery, or the other way around. LOL. If you look closely you can see the 1st set of true leaves peeking out, and also on the Intense Rainbow 3 of the 4 are showing a lot of red tones in them on parts of the stem and the true leaves, while one looks almost all green. These seeds germinated on 4/1 or 4/2.

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And here are a few of my seeds I'm germinating, these were put in wet paper towels on the evening of 4/2 and they look like they are aaaaaalmost about to start doing their thing. That white line in the center of the side that looks like half a coffee bean looks like it's the little root that grows, my other seeds germinated in dirt so I have never seen this before. it shouldn't be much longer before they get moved to dirt.
{{gwi:1157643}}

Awesome Emily! Thank you so much for taking the time to share pix of your Plumies & seedlings! Looks like the whole gang's happy ;). You're going to have quite a show on your hands when those cuttings bloom. Congrats! My condolences about losing your beloved 2 yr old plants to the cold! How long have you been doing the Plumie thing, & do you grow anything else?

I know what you mean about not wanting the dogs near the Plumeria. I'm keeping mine upstairs right now so my little dog can't pee on it. Bless his heart he probably thinks he's doing me a favor & watering it ROFL! I do the same thing as you - put mine out in the morning when it's warm & sunny, run out to check it as soon as I get home, then scoop it up to bring it inside before evening (& for extra fun I cuddle it against me & talk to it, so as not to disappoint the neighbors) ;P.

I'm just checking in on you, how's the plumie doing?

Thank you for the plant condolences (LOL), I won't make that mistake ever again! I only grow a few plants here and there, nothing like the plumie bug I have :) How about you? I did have a major success saving a Ponytail Palm that was badly infested with mealy bugs, it's super happy and healthy- those monsters are hard to kill!!!

Yes, I love teasing the neighbor a bit too - I wonder if he's come over to peek what all the fuss is about after I've left for work? HAHAHA!

TY kindly! Hope all is well with you :). I've been on Pinterest looking for gardening ideas.

1 of the 2 little leaves on my plumie turned black & shriveled up but the other is hanging in there & I see a few others starting to emerge. That ugly brown spot hasn't gotten any worse/spread so I'm relieved there. Plumie hasn't been able to sunbathe for a few days due to temps being all over the place & I don't feel safe putting it out unless I know it's going to be 68 degrees or higher with at least 50% humidity. I heard this wkend is supposed to be ideal so I'm looking forward to giving my little "ugly stick" some much needed warmth & sunshine. I'm trying to find/create an alternate method of using a heat mat to sit the pot on when I have to bring it in the house so plumie's roots can get more warmth & grow but all the ones I've seen on the sites have mixed reviews. Any ideas friend? Usually I just use a rock that's been sitting in full sun for a couple hrs & then when that one cools down I replace it with another & keep switching (manic I know but I'm hoping it pays off LOL).

You're welcome for the plumie condolences ;). It stinks but it seems the best plumeria growers become experts after losing some.

I've been a rosarian & organic veggie/medicinal herb gardener since birth (37 yrs ago - hence my s/n "Miss Mud Puppy" because I'm usually playing in the dirt LOL). My dad got me into it & ever since then I've been hooked. I have quite a few roses that I've collected over the yrs, 3 of my favorites being Taboo, which is a deep maroon almost black rose, John F Kennedy, which is a pure white one, & Joseph's Coat, which is this stunning orange-pink climber that gradually turns to yellow & white as it matures. Then there's the collection of Spanish climbers which I fear might be seeing their last season. We've had them for 20 yrs. My specialty though is organics & herbalism & I'm always scouring books, sites, groups, etc looking for the latest techniques, plants, tools, & scientific research. Last yr is when the plumie bug bit me & now I've become obsessed! If this plumie pulls through this summer I definitely want to get 3 more, preferably an orange, a yellow, & a candy stripe. Maui Gardens has some nice ones & from what I've heard, most plumie people seem to enjoy ordering from them. It's important for me to give this all I've got because I want to prove to myself that it can be done where I live & so I can enjoy as well as share some tropical beauty :). My next gardening adventure will be obtaining a Bat Flower as well as double white Angel Trumpets.

Congrats on saving the Ponytail Palm! Those are some nice plants! Ugh, I loathe mealy bugs. & organics don't seem to work at killing them, only repelling them for a while. Going to try the beneficial predator insect control method & see if that helps.

ROFL!!! Ya know, I bet your neighbor has indeed peeked over the fence to check out what you've been fussing with! I've seen mine scoping me out with binoculars whenever I bring the plumie outside. I wonder if it's plumie's hat LOL? ;)

If my neighbors are scoping me out with binoculars, I don't want to know about it! You should get your own pair and scope back if you catch them at it.

I love the Joseph's Coat rose! Been wanting a climber but don't think that one would survive at my house, so I got Zephirine Drouhin instead. She was promptly attacked by caterpillars in the great Garden Massacre of 2012. Seriously, I've never seen so many caterpillars in the city; wherever you go they're chomping anything in sight, including toxic plumeria leaves. Funny how some of the plumerias in my garden have gone unscathed while others are really getting chewed up.

Glad to hear you've got new leaves coming. For whatever reason they always make tiny leaves that will shrivel and go black at this time of year, only to be replaced with new healthy ones.

Well at least you have a green thumb to give your plumies a kick start! For the heat mat I bought one off of ebay but with shipping it was about $27 for an 11 x 12. I've seen a lot of people use outdoor rope lights with sand or styrafoam to creat a much bigger heat box, unfortunately I don't have any and it's not the season but it's something you might look into.

For the mealy bugs what I had to do was mix a solution of water & dish soap and spray them down (careful to try and get as little as possible on the soil) and the soap deteriorates their shell causing them to die. I had to do this 2 or 3 times to get them all. I love the natural predator idea too. What would you use?

I saw a caterpillar the other day on my porch, they better not even think of eating my plumies or other plants! What eats the caterpillars? Birds?! LOL!

Howdy Jen! I have on occasion whipped out my binoculars & spied right back at them when I caught them in the act & then waved ;). They cut it out for a while but now that spring has sprung & I'm out in my yard tending to things, I guess it's feeding time at the zoo so to speak lol. I should leave a bowl of popcorn on their porch with a note letting them know what time they can expect the next "show."

Zephirine Drouhin is a beauty! Is the rose o.k.? Yikes, sorry to hear about the great Garden Massacre with those rotten little caterpillars! I'm surprised none of the 'pillars have died from eating the plumie leaves. What a shame, right? Seems every insect pest that attacks them doesn't die from eating them but an animal will. Go figure. Hope you have success in getting rid of those little buggers! Do you know what type of caterpillars they are?

Thank you kindly for the input about what's going on with my plumie & its leaves doing the black shriveling thing lol. Starting tomorrow my area's supposed to be getting a wk's worth of temps in the high 60s' & 70's so plumie can go out & enjoy the nice warm weather again. Not sure if I should water it or not yet since there's no inch/more leaves protruding but the soil is dry 2 inches down & barely moist beneath - not moist enough to make a clump & it barely sticks to my finger. How dry is too dry exactly when determining proper timing to water a Plumeria?

Have a great day & enjoy the weekend! :)

Good afternoon Emily :)! Thx for the info about the heating mat as well as others creative ideas lol. Definitely going to look into that. I like your mealy bug solution too. Most of the guides I've studied say to use the old dish soap & water mixture too & I also came across one that suggested using alcohol dipped on a cotton bud & applying it to the mealy bugs. It acts the same way as the soap & water mixture by eating through their coating & drying them out. I'm experimenting with different essential oils in the hopes of trying to create a repellent. If I come up with something I'll post ratios on the forum to share with everyone.

One of the chief natural predators for mealy bugs is the mealybug destroyer, Cryptolaemus montrouzieri--a type of lady beetle. There's also the Pirate Bug--Orius insidiosis. It's a black beetle that also controls spider mites & thrips. Scymnobius sordidus is a small, brown lady beetle that kills vine mealy bugs, & parasitic wasps (Leptomastix dactylopii) eat & control mealy bug populations. You can attract them naturally by growing their favorite plants like dill, fennel, coreopsis & brightly colored flowers near any mealy bug-prone plants.

Of course I wouldn't use these bugs on any plants being left in the house in which case the dish soap & water or alcohol solutions come in quite handy.

One important aspect of mealy bug treatment that's often overlooked is ant control. Ants farm mealybugs the same way they farm aphids & for the same reason. The ants will fight against the mealy bug destroyers & other predators released to control them. Unfortunately one has to get rid of the ants or else the beneficial insects won't be able to do their job as effectively.