Wanted to post some of the finer blooms that happened this summer. The summer of 2010 is going down as one of the hottest so I'm surprised I got anything to survive. Luckily I was growing tropicals that seem to thrive in dry hot conditions. My plumerias put out a few inflos and are still growing. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the warm weather will hold on and I get to see two of my seed grown plumerias bloom.

This red bloom is from one of the zillion desert roses I have. The crazy thing is that none of the new ones have bloomed. This is a two year old adenium that had scale over the winter and recovered nicely.

The other images here are from a aztec gold plumeria and a Jungle Jacks Divine plumeria. They both smell great.

Enjoy the blooms.

Plumeria peace

Had a great time gathering plumeria cuttings in Florida this past weekend. By far the best place to get cuttings is from Sun Harbor Nursery in Indiatlantic, Florida. They have the best prices and selections in Florida. Let's hope they root well and are prolific bloomers.
I was lucky enough to prune a 5 year old tree and the 4 cuttings on the left are my reward.
You'll notice that two of the cutting are mid-stem ones. I have not tried rooting this type of cutting so I'm excited to see what happens. I'll let the cuttings sit a few more days and then pot them up for rooting. Stay tuned for my progress.

How quickly the bloom opened. This happened almost overnight. And the colors are so vibrant compared to what I've seen when it has bloomed outside. Can't beat a blooming plumeria in the winter.

This is the cutting that I'm rooting in the basement under a flourescent light. I'm using two 2 foot full spectrum bulbs that I picked up at Lowes for cheap. I'm hoping to keep this flowering and root it too. Hopefully all the energy spent on blossoms doesn't ruin my rooting chances. This particular variety is pretty easy to root and I have about 5 others alreay rooted or in the process so I won't be out much if it never roots. I believe it's an Aztec Gold plumeria. I had to cut down my inground tree last fall and ended up with about 7 good cuttings of which this is one. It seems that this plumeria really liked being in the ground. I'll probably plunge most if not all of mine this year to make watering a little easier and hopefully get more growth. I left this trunk in the ground and covered with leaves and now 2 feet of snow. If mother nature is good to me, I'll see it return come summer. I'm not counting on any life in this as we've had so much snow and multiple 9 degree nights. Way colder than a plumeria could survive, but we'll see.

Adeniums & Plumeria

I'm stuck inside staring out at 30 inches of snow. Although beautiful, I will be glad when it's all melted. The time inside has given me moments to prune my 3 year old adenium (desert rose) and mist the plumerias though. I'm hoping to wake them up early and get a jump start on summer blooming. You can see the tips are still pretty tight and not showing much growth. This one is in a south facing window and has looked like this since last fall. I have other cuttings that I've kept in the basement and they are showing signs of life. One that I am trying to root is actually putting out an inflo. Since I have a few cuttings to play with I am letting it attempt to flower even though I doubt there are any roots. It may not last, but at least I'll get some great smelling blooms out of it.

Dormant plumeria repotted

Today it's snowing and we are expected to get about 6 inches. Days like this make me think of warm weather and that means plumerias. This one never really grew well last year, but does have good roots so I decided to repot it and get it started a little bit early. Stay tuned for early blooms...hopefully.

A rose between two bananas

Two desert roses that is. The one on the left is from a seed that I started last year. This is the first time it has flowered and I'm so hooked on growing more of these wild looking plants. Stay tuned as I just germinated 35 adenium seeds which are growing very well. The hot humid Virginia summers are treating my tropicals very well finally. May and June were cool and wet, but July dried out, and August is hot, humid and pretty wet so far. My musa basjoo (bananas) are close to 15 feet tall and my aztec gold plumeria is going to bloom this week so stay tuned. I planted it in the ground and it seems to love it. Too bad I'll have to dig it up in another couple months.