Wow Greg, I guess Isaac had some fringe benefits. They are beautiful. It's hard to believe we'll be dragging them in here before long. I've never looked forward to hot weather before. Peg

Hi Greg, I love reading your posts because mostly they always have these amazing shots of your plumeria collection.

I too feel your pain. I found inflos on a couple of my plumeria a few weeks ago, and what made it twice as painfull, all of them were plumeria that I have never seen the flowers on:(

I too really like your Madam Poni but if I want to admire it, I am going to just have ti settle for pictures. Right now I bet I have somewhere around 100 plumerias and I live in a small 3 bedroom apartment in NY state! Moving all my babies in isn't the hard part, but finding room for them is the challenge. Thankfully they don't require sun, humidity and warm temps. This is the only reason why I have had this collection going now for the past few years.

I also wanted to tell you that now I have not just 1 but 2 rooted Waimea plumeria! 1 of them I bought from Matt at One Stop. This is a very stocky 18 in tree with 5 tips. One of the tips sealed over, and I think the other might be also but still will be a great tree. I cannot wait for the flowers.

Thanks again for posting these pics, and I cannot wait to see more of them this summer. Especially the picture of your Waimea!!

Andrew

What does the divine smell like? I have looked everywhere but couldn't find what its fragrance smells exactly like.

Lovely blooms by the way. ;)

Gorgeous blooms! Glad Issac just gave you the brush off. We are getting some rain now as the system continues to pull moisture up from the Gulf but not all that much, not enough to drown us. Looks like the other storms out there will miss us all.

The fall ads are already out. :(
Tally HO!

Hi Peg!, and thanks as always for your kind words. I'm unlike you in that sense: I've always loved the hot weather and loathed the cold, which is why I relocated my life to the subtropics...and now I grow the tree that's just like me :-)

Andrew: thanks, bud, for saying such nice things. I have always admired your passion and excitement for these trees, as well as your ability to grow them in upstate NY (!!!). I'll keep my fingers crossed for your late-coming inflos as well as mine--let us know how yours do. I really want to see 'Neon Lights' as there are almost no photos of this cultivar out there, anywhere.

I like you am at capacity and have to force myself to stop buying!

Congrats on Waimea, btw--Matt has the best trees anywhere so I'm sure that when yours blooms you'll be tickled! It's one of the best. I think mine is about done for the year, sadly...it didn't seem to like Isaac all that much...

Kim, thank you! (Got my Master's degree at IU Bloomington btw! ;-) ) Divine's scent is a hard one to nail down...perhaps others could weigh in...for lack of a better analogy, I might describe it as sort of vanilla-ish...it's not like Thumbalina or Mini-White, which have that fine-perfume quality...it's definitely sweet and nice, though!

Tally! Thanks :-) The fall ads are indeed out...sigh...I like lengthening days, not shortening...but it will be springtime again before we know it.

Wish I had more new ones to share...next season...in the meantime, here's Charlotte E and Kelly M, both lookin' gorgeous (and smelling the same)...

G

Gosh Greg, your posts are always a joy to read and I'm so proud of you! You're a wonderful person!

Please, may I adopt you? You would have a couple of other brothers and 1 sister, all grown up.

Although adopted, you have taken after me in some respects. I hate the cold, too. So, when do you want Mom to come for the winter? Do I have more grandchildren? Granddogs? I'll love each and every one of my grandtrees! :)

Andrew - I love you, too, but I refuse to spend Christmas in New York!

Hmm, I have a JJ plumeria in the yard, a tag with the name "Thumbalina" on it, but I suspect that I ended up with "Mini-White". What do you think? Anyone else have mislabeled JJ plumies?

Normally I would chock it up to my cool coastal climate but we have been having a major heat wave and all my other plumeria are zinging color wise, see my J-4 below, bright orange when in cool weather it normally is a washed out white

My J-4:

Mona, you crack me up! And, really, you couldn't pick a better adoptee!

Greg, I'm so tickled to see the Kelly still going. You've also managed to make what I thought was a humdrum white--JJ's Mini--look sexy. Donna S. has been on my long-term list, but after doing a head count today I'm a little afraid of the storage situation this winter with the ones I already have. Gack! At least my mom didn't faint when she saw them all this weekend.

My plumeria ladies have me blushing! LOLOL
Mona, you're so sweet! Jen, you too! In fact, although I'm all grown up, I wouldn't mind having an adoptive mom--my own dear sweet mom died of ovarian cancer when I was just 18. I'm sure she would approve :-) No grandkids or dogs here, but two grandkitties that are made of pure sugar and impossible not to love!! So, "Mother Mona," you're welcome anytime! Come hide from winter with me! (Word of caution, though: my plumies DO still go dormant.)

MJ, lovely pics! Thumbalina and Mini-White can look alike in flower, since TBLA doesn't always show her namesake thumb in the flower petals. The best way to tell them apart is that Thumbalina has what I would call an extra-long leaf stem, relative to the leaf size...does that make sense? MW is closer to average or normal in that regard. If you're still not sure, post some foliage pics and I'll make the call for you...I can't tell from what you've posted.

SPEAKING OF ADOPTION...I can't believe I forgot to post this!!!! I gave my Nebel's Rainbow to my buddy Michael, who has an even lovelier location on the water down the coast from me (in the '305', as we'd say). I was down last weekend, and look what I saw!!

Greg can you post a pic of what the leaf stem looks like on the Thumbalina? I for one would like to see what your observing. Always trying to learn. Peg

Peg, ask and receive ye shall.
OK, so, here is Mini-White with inflo:

Hmmm...not sure how apparent it is in these photos. It's a really obvious difference, in person. MW's leaves are larger and closer to the main trunk than Thumbalina's, which has smaller, rounder leaves that sit farther out.

Hope that helps, even a little...
G

Thanks Greg. I can see what your talking about. On the thumbalina it looks like the stem is almost half the length of the leaf. Thanks Professor for the education. Peg

Greg - your mom would be so very proud of the man you have become, and that I am positive about! :)

and thank goodness there are no more expensive grandkids!size = 1>

Your friend Michael is one lucky guy! That Nebel's Rainbow is a beauty! I bought a rooted cutting with an inflo. The back side of the blooms were so gorgeous to me. Unfortunately, the inflos on cuttings always abort for me. Bummer!

A couple of weeks ago I bought a Thumbalina 3 tip cutting. I'm more anxious for this one to bloom than any of them. Maybe it's just because of her name, I don't know. What's cuter than Thumbalina? LOL

Mona, how do you get the teeny tiny text on your posts? And btw, how are your seedlings doing? I don't want to jinx myself, but I thought I espied some tiny nubs of pods today. Shhhh! (Greg, that Nebel's is glorious! Did you get a chance to sniff it? Just found out today that Lei Rainbow and Nebel's Rainbow are two different varieties--had no idea.

A friend (thx, Bill!) gave me a Nebel's cutting that pushed an inflo with no claws, so I cut it off only to watch in horror as the whole tip went black afterward. (Mona, I think rainbow inflos on rooting cuttings are all doomed!) Thought for sure that cutting was a goner, but I checked the bottle the other day and fat white roots were showing even though there are still no claws! Fingers still crossed for it, 'cause it's a beautiful flower.

Greg,

What beauties...

I can see why Mona wants to "adopt" you... Can we rent you? LOL!!! : ) Lots of us would love to have such kind gentleman like you.. I must say, i do have a grown son who is a great young man. It is so hard to find people with such enthusiasm as you..

You are always a joy to see on line...

Love all of your pics..

Great job!! As always...

Mona.. You are to funny!!! : )

Laura

Jandey,

The font size change is just a snippet of html code. You can make it small like thissize = 1> or make it larger like thissize = 5>

In the example below, just change the ( and ) to and that does it. Had to type it in this way to demonstrate it.

(font size = 1)small type(/font size = 1)

You can try it on a message here and do a Preview Message to see how it looks.

Gorgeous pics as always!

I understand about the cold, worked on a cruise ship in Alaska one summer, froze my you know what off, wore long underwear everyday. The other nurse called us the tropical girls cause we hated the cold and were always in layers.

Tally Ho!

Well I'm comin' in so late on this post I missed all the good stuff. LOL

Always a joy to read and view your posts Greg! I adore each and every pic. I think the lovely Madame P. is going to be even more stellar next year!

You have a knack for capturing every blooms "good side". I think this is part of the reason that I end up adding to my collection, ahem. I have never seen the mini-white look museum ready before, and I've seen a-many of 'em! Great job!

Take care,

Nicole

Mona, it has been a long time since someone said to me what you did a few days ago...thank you...I am truly touched :-)

Jen, oh yeah, I sniffed! LOL Nebel's has a beautiful, sweet classic frangipani fragrance. In all ways, it's one of the most outstanding cultivars IMO, hands down...sorta wondering why I gave mine to Michael! hahaha it's a bit of a shame that it has that tendency to be fussy...although I'm so happy to hear that yours rooted despite the black tip! Heed this warning, all who love the Nebel's: keep it far, far away from winter chill. This beauty gets black tip if you look at it wrong, mmkay. But when it blooms...oh boy...heaven...

BTW, if I understand it correctly, Nebel's Rainbow IS indeed aka Lei Rainbow, but there's ANOTHER Lei Rainbow as well that is distinct...Jeez, those old-time plumie cultivators out in Hawaii really should have pulled their thumbs outta their a**es beofre they started assigning names to flowers, right?? LOL

Laura: big smile to you!!! I would love to meet your son...I have no doubt that you raised a young man of the highest quality.

Tally: thanks, and...LOL we're totally cut from the same cloth. I grew up in Pennsylvania, and remember being 8 or 9 years old and huddling under my mom's "sit-down" hair dryer in the wintertime, 'cause I was always freezing! South Florida was my destiny, for sure!

Last but not least: Nicole! I freely admit that I giggle with glee every single time you tell me how many trees I've caused you to buy! LOLOL LOVE that ;-)
Thank you for your compliments...I do love taking photos of the plumies and trying my best to capture their most flattering angles...and I think you're right about our dear Madame Poni--this gal will only get better with age! (If only I could be so lucky! LOL)

G

Well, I certainly hope the Nebel's Rainbow and Lei Rainbow aren't the same plant since I am trying to root both that I got from Aloha Plumeria. LOL Their website pics appear to show the Lei Rainbow to be more colorful.

Del,

This is purely my far-from-expert opinion, but, to my eye, Aloha's "Lei Rainbow" looks like Nebel's Rainbow (which some sellers, including 1-Stop on eBay, sell as "Lei Rainbow"). Aloha's "Nebel's Rainbow" looks like nothing that I recognize--the petals are very round and there's no magenta on the upper side of the petal.

You can likely be assured at the very least that you received two distinct plants. I wouldn't think they'd sell cuttings from the same tree under two different names...whatever they might be, when, down the line, they bloom for you, post pics!

G

To further confuse things, MPG has a cutting called Lei Rainbow, and another one of Nebel's Rainbow, the description of which says "AKA Lei Rainbow". Ya gotta luv it. LOL

Del, thanks for the coding tips! Teeny tiny type is awesome, as are forum friends!size=1>

According to the PSA site Lei and Nebel's are separate registered varieties, and Lei is more fragrant while Nebel's has better keeping quality. I have no idea about the third possibility but Lei and Nebel's sure do look the same to me.

Greg, great tip about the, um, not-so-great tips on Nebel's. Not surprised since it went black at just losing its inflo stalk. But, hey, for flowers like your photo I will put up with it! Intense Rainbow I thought was a black tipper, too, but I've had no problems with mine.