My favorite Plumeria....several years old....has a problem.....the leaves on top are very small (much smaller than my other Plumeria), and it is sprouting much larger leaves on the bottom. It doesn't look good. What do I do to restore it to a good looking plant?!?!

Following some freeze damage this winter, I chopped the end couple of feet of the limbs off, which I thought got me back to good/healthy wood....but I am guessing that is the cause of my problem.

It feels to me like the options are:

1. Cut the bottom sprouts off....maybe it will direct that growth back up into the top of the plant?

2. Cut the bottom sprouts off, and chop another couple feet off the limbs...hoping that it will re-sprout from the limbs (as usual).

3. Chop the limbs off to the ground, and let the whole plant regrow. I would hate to do that, as it will take years to come back to its current size.

What do you experts recommend to restore this Plumeria to good looking form?

Thanks,
Joel

The leaves on the bottom will always be bigger than the leaves on the top because they are more mature. These are new growth, correct? Give it a couple months, it should start to fill out nicely.

@joelrsails with Jason. Those small leaves on the top will eventually become bigger.


You can also take some cuttings as a back up but you might risk not seeing blooom this month.

Alright, I will take the advice and let the top leaves grow out. Fingers crossed!

Welcome to the group. A fellow Houstonian!

Follow-up:

After a few weeks of no improvement to the problem (leaves on top remained tiny, leaves from the base kept growing), I decided to chop down the old limbs. I am glad I did, as I found all kinds of rotten/damaged stalks which I am sure were unrecoverable damage. Clearly I didn't cut away enough after the freeze damage event.

Hopefully the big root system will help the growth back up from the base, and turn it back into a nice looking (and big) plumeria over time. I also got a few cuttings from the top, which looked healthy.....so I will pot those, and add some young plants to the fleet.

Oh I hate when that happens. Good thing you have a back up. I lost a lot of my priced varieties because I didn't take cuttings.


I am trying to revive a stump of a huge plumeria of my neighbor that got severe damage. Not sure if I can bring it back to life as rot seems to have already travelled to the base.