How to start Plumeria (Frangipani) indoors. (part 3/5)

4.9/5 - (60 votes)

If I did my job right in the previous posts in this series, and you are now eager to start growing your own Plumeria, this wonderful piece of tropics, in your home, then you have to make a decision: do you want sprout it from seeds or to plant a cutting. Certainly you can even purchase a grown up plant ready to bloom, but if you are into challenges let me help you to make an informed decision.

The amazing drawing in the title is courtesy of Robin Mccoy, who kindly gave me permission to use it for this article.

Start Plumeria from cuttings or seeds?

There is one big difference between sexual propagation (i.e. by seeds) or asexual propagation by division. Plumeria has such a rich genome, that much like with us humans, its offspring may remind (or not at all!) the parents, but will never be identical. So if you choose a certain cultivar and want your plant to be the same, the only way to have it is to obtain a cutting (rooted or not) of that cultivar.

Plumeria seeds, seedpod and flower

Photo © Forest & Kim Starr

There are plenty of ads on Internet about selling Plumeria of different cultivars and somewhere in the text it says that what you are buying is seeds. What it doesn’t say that plants grown from seeds will never be that cultivar. One would need to germinate hundreds of seeds and wait two or three flowerings to see that only a few of them resemble mother-plant pretty close and even then it may not be called for that cultivar as it is genetically different anyway.

Growing Plumeria from seeds is a rewarding hobby and the only way to get new exciting varieties, but it means a selection of very few specimens worth keeping from hundreds of their less prominent siblings. To spell it out – you would need a large growing space and plenty of time. This puts Plumeria’s sexual propagation out of range for the majority of this post’s intended auditory and I will leave it out.

Asexual propagation means that you obtain a part of mother tree, most often a branch, you root it and start growing it as a new tree. No gens are changed and you get a plant with all the same characteristics as the one it is coming from: the same growing habit, color, shape and scent of flowers.

Taking Plumeria cuttings

You will be able to root any part of a tree as long as it has some hardened bark and is at least 8-10 in (20-25 cm) long. Do not make the cut close to the new tips where the bark is still soft and green. The more tips your have on your cutting the more growing points and potentially inflos you are going to get on your plant, but even just one tip will do fine.

plumeria cutting Saran plastic wrap

Tips: Wrapping the cut base with some plastic (like Saran) will spare the moisture and give you a nice callus in about a week.

As soon as you cut through the thin bark layer it will start bleeding white sap. Some people can be allergic to it so try to avoid getting it on your skin. You will also want to stop the sap as soon as possible to conserve the moisture your cutting is going to need to withstand the rooting. Stop it with some paper tissue or just dip it in sand. For the same moisture conservation reason you want to strip all the adult leaves to minimize evaporation. Don’t put your cutting in water like you would probably do with other plants. Even if it can be water rooted in constantly warm water, the most secure way is also the easiest one – just put it aside for a week or so. During this time the cut surface will callus to close in the moisture and to protect the plant from infections.

Callused Plumeria cutting

Well callused Plumeria cutting ready to be potted

Potting Plumeria cuttings

When the cut is callused you are ready to go. Here is the shopping list of what you are going to need:

  •  A black plastic pot with drainage holes;
  • Medium sized clay pebbles or crossed bricks or any other drainage
    material;
  • Reach organic potting soil;
  • Perlite or Vermiculite;
  • Sandbox sand.

If you are willing to give your nursling the best possible start you can also consider adding to the list these optional items:

  • Rooting hormone;
  • Fungicide;
  • Bone meal;
  • Blood meal;
  • A heating pad.

How big pot you need to get, depends on the size of your cutting. Remember that the pot’s size is one of the ways for you to control the plant size. The bigger space you give to the roots to grow – the bigger plant they will be able to produce, and that something you want to limit when growing indoors. So my advice here is not to get too sentimental and to plan having your baby rather pot-bound. An 18in (45cm) cutting will do perfectly fine in a 1gal (4l) pot.

Make sure it has drainage holes in the bottom and do not forget to complete the pot with a tray, large enough to put it on. Regular bagged potting soil would be too heavy for Plumeria, so you will need to make your own mix, which is reach in organics, but allow rapid draining. Use the following recipe to cook it:

Take 1 gal (4 l) of potting mix, add 4 cups (1 l) vermiculite, 1 cup (0,25 l) sandbox sand. If you have bone and/or blood meal, add about ½ tsp of each. Mix it up and it is ready. Alternatively you can just buy cactus potting mix, which is also working nicely for Plumerias.

Plumeria potting mix

1 – clay pebbles to the bottom layer (do not mix with the rest); 2 – potting soil; 3 – perlite; 4 – sandbox sand; 5 – bone meal

Now put a 1 in (2,5-3 cm) layer of your drainage material (pebbles or crossed bricks) to the bottom of the pot and fill it half way up with your potting mix.

Rooting hormone can be a great help and a booster for your cutting to develop the roots. If you have it – dip about 2 in (5 cm) or the cutting’s lower part into water or liquid fungicide and then roll that wet part including the base into the hormone powder to cover it. If you have powder fungicide, then mix it with the rooting hormone. Cinnamon is a great natural fungicide so you can use it to mix with the rooting hormone or use it without if you don’t have the hormone.

Place your cutting into the centre of the half filled pot and fill it up with the potting mix, but leave about 2 in (3-5 cm) space to the pot’s upper border. Why would you leave so much space is because I would strongly advice to top it with a 1in (2,5cm) layer of sandbox sand. The sand layer will not do anything for the plant, but in my experience it will give you some advantages: It is a good indicator to tell when your Plumeria needs to be watered. Water it when the sand layer is dry and the sand grains are easy movable between your fingertips. Organically reach soil is an attractive habitat for many insects. Covering it with sand makes it far less inviting for the bugs. Wet sand layer on top will provide additional stability for the yet rootless cutting. Finally, in my opinion, sand in your pots is more decorative than dirt and kind of one of attributes of tropicness to go on with magnificent plants. I know “tropicness” is not a dictionary word, but it should be!

Start Plumeria cutting

A sand layer on top will stabilize the cutting and keep soil loving insects away.

Now when the cutting is planted, take it to the shower, water it thoroughly with lukewarm water and let it drain. That will be the only watering it is going to need for a month or even two while it is developing roots.

An important decision now is where to put it. While it doesn’t have leaves, bright light is not necessary. What is crucial for growing roots is bottom heat. The pot should be in at least room temperature. Do not put it on a cold window ledge or concrete floor. If you where shopping by the extended list I gave you before, then a heat pad will give those roots a great boost. The soil temperature of about 90F (30-32C) will reduce the needed rooting time by half.

During this period no watering is needed. If you are using a heating pad and the upper sand layer becomes very dry you can give it a cup of water, but not more.

How long time it is going to take depends also on variety. The sure sign that your baby have roots and started to eat is that the tiny claws of future leaves on the very tip of the plant are getting bigger and develop first into a rabbit ears shape and then open and continue to grow. When you see the claws growing you can start watering it on the regular basis. You will also have to move it now to its permanent sunny spot.

If you buy a rooted plant delivered bare-rooted then all the same potting instructions are applied. Another option which may come up when buying Plumeria is grafted plants. Some of varieties are harder to root then others and growers can often use grafting technique for such varieties. They will take an established rooted young plant, cut off its tip and join a cutting from hard
rooted variety into this stock. When both parts are grown together the result is a rooted plant of the same cultivar as the one the cutting was taken from. If you receive it bare-rotted you should plant it as soon as possible the same way it is described above.

Other posts in this series:

Part 1: Introduction to Plumeria.
Part 2: Closer look. Plumeria cultivars. True or fake on eBay?
Part 3: How to start your own Plumeria indoors (this post).
Part 4: Plumeria care and flowering indoors.
Part 5: Plumeria problem-solving.

 

Add your email address below and I’ll let you know, when next post is out!

6 Comments
  1. Thanks so much for putting my painting on your blog, great information too. I am glad to connect . With warm aloha, Robin

  2. My husband and I, USA citizens, are residents of Lithuania for the past eleven years. Last year in October we returned from a visit to San Diego with three plumeria cuttings, a gift from a neighbour. Without doing research, I impulsively planted them in pots and put them near a plant lamp. One did not survive, but the other two showed signs of leaves waiting to bud out. Last week they finally revealed themselves. Right away I searched the internet to learn all that I could. I was fascinated by your blog. I’ll try to attach a photo, but everyday I see more growth. I have a couple of questions.

    1. Although they are growing, I need to add soil to the pots they’re in, and I need to plant them in larger containers with better drainage. It is Spring, the time of year for transplanting. Is it okay for me to do it now?
    2. I do not have Perlite, but I do have some Peat Moss. Would it be okay to mix it into my potting soil with sand?
    3. The plants get indirect south facing light all day, with a couple hours of direct sun. Do I need to apply a growth light to them?
      1. You can repot any time. But now they still have young and very brittle roots, so you need to be really careful.
      2. A bit sceptical about peat moss. It retains too much water. You sure they don’t have perlite or vermiculite in plant shops there? Otherwise cactus soil can be used as it is.
      3. It will be fine in the south facing window now, but October-April you will need to give it extra light.
  3. I have a plumeria 4 years now. It was a single cutting and branched into a “Y” shape the 1st year. It is in the original 5 gallon pot. How do I get it to branch out?

    • Hi Lori,
      Plumeria always flowers on branch tips. When flower stalk appears, the tip will also branch normally in 2-3 new branches. If the conditions are not right, the flowering might abort, but the tip will still branch.

      So your first priority is to make it flower. You can read how, here: https://tropicsathome.com/flowering-plumeria-frangipani-indoors/

      Plumeria will also branch if the growing tip is somehow damaged. This includes pruning. But if you prune, you cut the tips and they need them for flowering. So by pruning you will do branch it around the cut, but you will need to wait for the new branches grow ready to flower.

    Leave a reply

    Tropics @Home
    Logo
    Register New Account