I would appreciate some advice on what the issue could be with my plumeria. It is a new cutting, in a pot, and indoors for the winter, next to a window and under grow lights. I water it very rarely in the winter because I don't see any growth. The last few days I noticed brown spots on the leaves' edges. There is also some residue on the leaves.. I am not sure if that residue was there always or not but they do seem more silver-ish to my eye now so I guess it's new. What could be the problem? Should I start watering and fertilizing? Could it be some pest?

I think it's a natural decline of leaves . Mine are still outside in the 75-78f /65f range and they also dropped some older leaves: they got brown spots like yours and started slowly loosing color.
But the youngest leaves are still going on mine. I bring them in when temps drop in the lower range at night, but it is usually just for a few days, then at least during the day they can be out again. I hope to keep some leaves to prevent dormancy.
As far as residue.. I can't see from the photo, but is it grainy to touch? It could be mites..
Keep watering sparingly , no fertilizer if it's not growing new leaves. Can you Post the whole plant pic?

I would just ignore it. I think it is just finally going dormant..so you can even cut off those leaves if you want..if it seems aesthetically annoying to look at.

I agree with the recommendation too of skylark, continue to water sparingly..just keep it in a warm spot for now.

You're both correct, the plant is going into drormancy. I thought it wouldn't as it is indoors but apparently something triggers it to sleep. Perhaps the photoperiod. Thanks a lot.

I had an accident with mine: the chair fell on it when it was super windy and broke off one branch ! I had to do a graft , 1st ever. It was right above the fork no branch left so i cut it flush and pinned it together and taped it and staked it..it was scary🙄. The branch was still pushing juice, so I tried to do it fast right after it happened to prevent callusing.
But so far the branch is firm it's been 5 weeks . They say grafts do not take in dormancy, so that's why I am trying to keep it going as long as possible. It was still blooming too..but now stopped.
The other branch is still holding on some good leaves. I figure if they won't drop in another 3-4 weeks my graft should take. Wish me luck!😁

And this branch of course slowly dropped it's leaves , but 1 at a time, so they lasted for several weeks after the accident. I decided not to cut them .. thought May be the plant can withdraw some moisture/nutrients from them. Don't know, kept it in very high humidity by running the steamy shower sev times a day and leaving it there (it helped to rehydrate other plants of mine when they wilted).
It branched after inflos appeared back in November. The tips are glistening so I hope the graft will take.


Mine also has some white spots, I think it is small tears in leaves that produce milky juice.
I also had some mites while indoors for 1 month in NJ. I just wiped the leaves clean. It is windy here outdoors so the leaves flap a bit and might crack a little.

Grafting, wow. You're a real pro. Looks like you've done a good job. Keep us updated.

Meanwhile the big plumeria tree in my town still has its leaves! It certainly doesn't look too happy but the fact that it still has leaves after this massive snowfall we had and temperatures as low as 34F is such a pleasant surprise. I'm thinking I should go get some cuttings from that tree rather than struggling with the ones I brought from Bali.

they say it's better to take cuttings in spring before they leaf out fully, but you can see small claws starting. and it has to be on the older growth: gray part of trunk not green from prev year,
but you know that grown in ground plant can take lower temps then the one in pot?the pot gets much colder.
but if that variety is so cold hardy it makes sense to try to grow that for the future, meanwhile taking it indoors for winter while it's in pot.
i missed my window for P. pudica cuttings: they cut the whole bush by like 2/3! so just stubs left. it flowers profusely but has no scent and grows up like crazy getting very leggy. perhaps not a good candidate for pot culture...
My evergreen one (dwarf P obtusa hybrid) is still holding all it's leaves.
i read that if you put them on heat mat like a month before they normally wake up, it will jump start them. Here i see them starting to leaf out in March :), but that is in ground.
mine in pot waited till May last year.
well, half of your winter is over at least and it is still holding up, so good enough for 1st year ?

Yeah I guess good enough for first year. And I learned a lesson: they will go dormant even if they get 20C and artificial lights. So next winter I won't even bother.

Thanks for the advice about placing them on a heat mat. I'll do that in March and see what happens. And no I didn't know that pots get much colder. That explains a lot!

A plumeria with no scent is like food with no salt You should get the fragrant ones too, the smell is awesome. On that note, do you have ylang-ylang trees at all? They also smell wonderful although their flowers only last a day or two. I had one in Bali that was growing like crazy.

Yeah, I like fragrance , of course. But P. pudica has this narrow columnar tall growth that is good for patio and the blooms are profuse , it's super showy and has very interesting leaves too. Have you seen it?


We just had a 3 day 'winter' at night 50-40-50. It's over for now, back to 65-70 at nite, 75-78f daytime. I actually missed cool sunny crispy mornings at 55-60F …
Plumerias here are beginning to leaf out on the southern side :

I've seen Ylang-ylang in bot gardens, I think it's possible to order it here, but it grows fast and big…too difficult while we are still transferring back and forth between NJ and FL..too far to visit often, so some plants suffer.
I am playing with seeds : palm seeds not doing much .. after 2 mo I think I see something white peeking …
found my heat mat finally… Need to put them on to speed up. I got another fresher batch that still was fleshy , off the stalk. Sitting for 1mo doing nothing too. but it's just an experiment and an exercise :).

Plumerias leafing already?? End of January? Wow, what a great climate you have. A friend here told me that his plumerias start leafing in May!

By the way, the same person who has that big plumeria here, also has a small one in a pot on her/his balcony and that too has leaves! This plant must have some great genetics.

True, ylang-ylang grows so fast, it's unreal. In Bali at least it couldn't stay in a pot for more than a year. After that you'd have to put it in the ground.

Yay, finally, welcome to the wonderful world of palms!

My Veitchia seeds have been on a heat mat for 2 months now and no signs of life even though other people said it took only 3-4 weeks to germinate. I think I have a brown finger! I planted 14 seeds in different kinds of media.

Yesterday I added two coconuts on the heat mat. I honestly don't know why I did that

i sprouted a grocery coconut once ..on a radiator in NYC. i think it took 3 months (in winter). after a couple years indoors it grew maybe a couple leaves? i chucked it eventually
i saw this one here in the park pond floating: they are everywhere here :)

my palm seeds are super fresh and supposed to sprout in like 2 weeks...but they do not. i need to put them on heat mat, of course. i can grow a pot with sprouts for a couple of years on the balcony..

Yeah, actually coconuts are not worth the effort tbh. It's gonna die eventually anyway. Perhaps I'll just remove them and eat them hahaha.

My alocasia seedling died so I cut it, removed the bulb from the soil, let it dry and planted it again in a small bag on the heat mat. OMG the results are amazing. Within a week the bag is full of long roots and the bulb sprouted! What a difference a small space and heat make! Today I'll go buy a bigger heat mat. I'll overwinter sensitive plants on heat mats from now on.

I was able to keep flowering anthurium going thru winter and flowering in the sunny west window on a heat mat for several years. Otherwise they stop blooming for 6 mo and leaves develop big black spots and yellow.
And I sprout Alo 'Poly' bulbils that I find in soil during repot and also dormant tubers: I tent them for 100% humidity and water them with hot water too and they wake up! Otherwise they might linger for years without much growth or even rot.
And when I do repots of large tropicals: I keep them on heat mat for a month very warm to start jump the roots.
I am browsing FL nurseries often and just come up upon Dwarf Ylang-Ylang that grows to 8 feet only😁…for $150! What prices we have now! It must be a rarity.

I'll do that starting March. Heat mat (I've got two now!) and hot water.

150 dollars? Is that cheap or expensive for US standards? In Indonesia it was 2 dollars

Well, it's different cost of living scale. Need to take in consideration avg salary levels and real estate cost..
I don't really know if it's expensive compared with like 3-4 years ago. It's a pretty exotic plant and in 2gal pot (~8l) and it looks big : it's for garden not houseplant . I've seen some regular weeping hibiscus tree in 2gal pots for $130 and some more exotic flowering shrub stuff (Tibouchina granulosa ) for $60. So perhaps it's ok.
Since normal 6" pot tropicals (flowering broms, anthuriums) go for $50-75 here in south FL.
Plant prices doubled the last couple of years.

I looked at that dwarf Ylang_ylang again and it is in 15gal! Pot : that is huge! 18" (45cm) pot.
May be it is a typo?! Don't know.
Dombeya is fairly common here and it is $130 for 15gal pot …so not a typo, standard size ..
I have not closely looked at large garden shrubs in big pots..

They also have Alo macrorrhizos in 3 gal pot for $15. That is a very good price.