Dutchlady1 said:
"the chances of getting buds on those new tips are small. Give it a good well-balanced fertilizer and it will likely reward you with blooms next year!"

Hetty, you're killing me. Not at all what I wanted to hear!

I'm not sure this Plumeria will make it to next year. This was a very mild winter. Seems most years we have 2-3 heavy frosts, so at this rate it may never bloom. Which drops it's value from maybe an eight to a one. I placed this plant in a prime spot outside my lanai. If it's not going to earn it's keep there, it'll have to go. Too many other things can occupy that spot.

Maybe I'll try a smaller cutting in a pot so it can be better protected. But I'm this ][ close to being done with it!

Ron

Really surprised you got frost last month, Ron. You must be inland of Naples a bit? We didn't get below 38deg. on that one cold night we had a few weeks ago, and I'm supposed to be at least a zone colder than you. I did cover my small plumies that are still in pots, but the big one in the ground is fine. Just starting to swell out the tips.

Are there any plumeria in your neighborhood that bloom? How about asking for a cutting of one of those, if there are some? The other strategy I've used to help out anything that might be a tad tender to the cold is to plant it on the south side of a solid wall, such as the house, or our big outbuilding in the back yard. The wall acts as a heat sink to collect warmth from the sun and release it slowly during the night, as well as protecting the plant from the cold NW wind. Also the south side of my stand of large bamboo is a very protected area.

I don't think I'm allowed any more bromeliads for a while. I met up with a member of the Bromeliad Guild a couple weeks ago because I missed their meeting and I promised him a pup of one my plants. It surprised me by blooming so I wanted to give it to him so he could enjoy the bloom. And in return he filled the back of my mom's Escape with bromeliads! Bromeliad people are always trying to give away their pups, I think. I don't even know where I'm going to put them all. And this is why a gardener's work never ends.

Ron - out in Texas where the Plumeria Society of America originated (and the winters are cold and wet) people dig their plumeria plants up every fall when they go dormant, store them barerooted, and plant them again in the spring. I can assure you they bloom there. But not everyone has the commitment to Plumeria that they do (few people have!) so you might be better off planting something else.
If you're done with it you can donate it to the Naples Botanical Garden which houses the National Plumeria Collection.

Ok, Melanie I'll just torture you with lots of pictures from Tropiflora next weekend. Looks like Jim went orchid shopping at the auction at USF too, so he probably won't come down either. Another lonely shopping spree for me, I guess, although my DH says he might come with me. That always shortens the time I can spend gawking and taking pictures.

@mellielong I'd LOVE a pup off the Pitcairnia xanthocalyx if you can divide it. Wooo Hoo. take a look at my list, see if there's any thing there you'd want.

I've long ago gave up on Plumaira's . Use to keep them in pots and drag them into the barn. Then one winter I left them out...make it or not...well they didn't.

Just too many chances of frost/freeze here and I had to make a decision. Did the same with Brug's. In the ground only. They do however come back. Even the one's I was trying to get rid of !

Same here on both counts. Interesting thing about the plumeria. I left three out this year. Two didnt make it and one did. When I was pulling the two dead ones out of their pots, I noticed that both pots were hold alot of water. The one that lived was just in a plain black nursery pot. I concluded that they actually rotted, not froze.

That's what I do too, Hetty. I am finally able to get all the potted ones outside, and they will have perhaps a total of 7-10 days outside. This coming weekend is supposed to be back into the mid-30's for two nights, so everything I have now got outside (bromeliads, fiddle leafs, staghorns, vanilla orchids, and plumeria will have to come back inside for perhaps five days. I think then, everything will gradually go outside until fall!

Dutchlady1 said:Ron - out in Texas where the Plumeria Society of America originated (and the winters are cold and wet) people dig their plumeria plants up every fall when they go dormant, store them barerooted, and plant them again in the spring. I can assure you they bloom there. But not everyone has the commitment to Plumeria that they do (few people have!) so you might be better off planting something else.
If you're done with it you can donate it to the Naples Botanical Garden which houses the National Plumeria Collection.

My parents do this in Ft. Worth every year. They got cuttings from their friend when he lived in Ft. Myers and took them back to Texas. Now I have cuttings from that 'cutting'...every year they dig it up and now it is getting too large they really need to trim it back.

Reading through this makes me miss Fl a lot. I lived on the east coast, 2 yrs Space coast and 6 yrs FLL/Miami until 2010.

MJ, after it blooms, I'll take a look at it. I think I'm going to have to ask the experts (the Bromeliad Guild) how you actually divide these things. It doesn't pup like a normal bromeliad. It looks more like bulb with its grass-like leaves.

Melanie, I don't have any knowledge of Pitcairnia xanthocalyx, however I have tons of Pitcairnia angustifolia (to the point I'm throwing them away). If P. xanthocalyx is like P. angustifolia, when you dig the plant, the pups are blatantly obvious. The branching is more like Aechmea or Billbergia rather than close-held like Neoreglia. In your second photo, it looks like there may be one pup off to the right.

Again, I'm not familiar with the species you have, so it may have different requirements, but I have my P. angustifolis in both bright shade and full sun locations. The plants look great in shade, bloom, generally do quite well. However, the ones in full sun grow much faster, much larger, and bloom more. Those are the ones I'm having to thin out; they are trying to take over!

Up at the front of the property, I have a clump of Quesnelia testudo bromeliads about 4' x 5' diameter. This is what I found a few days ago in one flower spike at the very edge of the clump:




I sprinkled them with Sevin Dust, then a couple days later went out to make sure the dust had done it's job. Boy had it!

I counted about 50 dead beetles on the ground. I was satisfied. Then I happened to notice down between the leaves. There were lots more there.

I got my shovel, cut that plant loose from the clump, and dumped the beetles out. I counted 287 of them!

The beetles must have been releasing pheromones or some chemical that drew more in. I don't know if they were there before I sprinkled the dust or arrived after. Interestingly, this is the first time I have ever seen a congregation of scarab beetles like this. They weren't particularly interested in this type bromeliad, as there were several other bloom stalks in the same clump, but this was the only one that had any beetles. Plus, I have this same bromeliad blooming in several other parts of the property, but still no beetles.

I don't know what the attraction. Maybe it was an orgy of sorts. But I managed to destroy almost three hundred of them in one fell swoop!

That is all very strange, Ron.

Thanks for the info, Ron! Although, I'm really wishing I hadn't enlarged the picture of those beetles. I'm going to have nightmares!

My mystery Salvia that I bought for a whole dollar off the clearance rack at Lowe's a couple of months ago turned out to be 'Black and Blue'. I had suspected, but I'm super glad I got this one. And for a dollar, how could I go wrong?

Beautiful, Melanie. I just love that 'Black and Blue' salvia.

Ron, really interesting beetle convention there - were they actually eating or harming the plant, or just congregating on it? I thought most beetles like that were scavengers, not plant-eaters.

I did have stink bugs that ruined a lot of my ginger flowers last year, but I used DE on them and it worked like a charm. Non, toxic, too!

I love a nice mix of salvia every year. black and blue being one of my favorites.

Finally had to pull out the Sevin today. Veggies just all gotten eaten last night, like a tornado went thru

I wouldn't use Sevin on anything I was going to eat, Pam.

My gardening was spent with my grandson today. He's on Spring Break so we made a little container garden.

From what I have been able to determine, the ID for this beetle is Euphoria sepulcralis, a flower-eating scarab beetle. They also eat ripe fruit and sap. One reference mentioned they destroy a lot of the flowers on a blooming mango tree. Luckily, my mango tree which is blooming for the first time this year, only had one beetle on it.

Earlier today, I went out and pulled that one bromeliad out to check for additional beetles. There were probably another thirty or so still down between the leaves. While these may be new arrivals, they were so deep I expect they were part of the original batch.