Rooting Hawaiian Plumeria Cutting

Last year, right before fall, one of my coworkers went on vacation to Hawaii and brought me back a plumeria cutting. They sell the cuttings for visitors at all the gift shops, or so my coworker tells me. She brought me back 2 cuttings. One pink and one red. Unfortunately, the red got stem rot and was lost.

Thankfully, upon my move to Texas, I could finally to plant my cutting. I've done a lot of research online about getting a cutting rooted. I've only ever had rooted plumeria, and all of them have been Thai species, so this is a big change for me. But it is an essential step in becoming a good plumeria grower.

Jacob's Plumerias' Youtube channel has been a big help. He has a lot of great tips for first time planters, but his best tip is not to use the black nursery pots for the rooting because you can't see the roots forming. Instead, use a clear container so you can see how the rooting is going. It also helps get more light to the roots.

It's hard to see but there are holes and slits in the bottle for drainage

Jacob used what appeared to be a clear takeout container, but unfortunately, I was all out of Chinese soup containers (Man, but could I go for some good hot and sour soup right now!)

I did have a plethora of clear water bottles though. I was overflowing with planting resources. I used a box cutter to make holes in the bottle to get proper drainage. I didn't have any more of my special plumeria mix, but I was lucky enough to have some premixed Palm, Citrus, and Cati soil laying around.

The cutting settled in to its new container

Already the little guy has a few small leaves starting to form, so I have high hopes for him. No names yet. The packaging only called him “Pink Variety” so we'll have to wait and see how this all works out. Look for updates!

Already he's got a few leaves