Nice way to re-use plant material. Applause! I never know when I need new soil and don't have the patience to wait for leaves to decompose, but I like your idea.

I take a similar approach and place all my plumeria leaves in a pile and let them decompose outside. Each variety is different but most end of season dropped leaves are dessicated and finish drying out in a few days. Even simply stepping on the pile turns it into flakey mulch.

Mimi, who ran the Aloha plumeria forum, always swore by the dropped flowers and leaves of her plants for use as a soil amendment because it lightened it and added valuable aeration. The leaves certainly disintegrate quickly enough.

I don't mean to offend, but the view from my perspective is a little different. We know that Plumeria needs a well-aerated soil that drains freely. We also know that anything that breaks down quickly causes a structural problem as the particles of organic matter that grow increasingly smaller with time, fill smaller and smaller soil pores, turning valuable normally air-filled macro-pores into water-filled micro-pores and increasing water retention - almost always in the form of perched water - which is extremely inimical to good root health, especially so when growing plants known to not tolerate wet feet well. Additionally, there is no nutritional value, over and above what can be supplied in a well-considered supplementation program (fertilizing). Further, organic matter that breaks down quickly carries with it the risk of additional heat from the composting process, N immobilization that often leads to over-fertilizing, and the possibility of ammonium toxicity.

I would urge those contemplating the inclusion of anything that breaks down quickly as an addition to their soils to reconsider.

Al

Al, I agree. You must mix the compost with some sort of gritty mix unless you are using it as a mulch at the top of the plant pots, which seems to work just fine.

I concur with Al. Adding organic matter leads to more compacted soils that are too moist. For the same reason, mulching, which is often used to reduce evaporation and keep soil moist is not desired for plumerias. Mulching is also not used for growing plants that need an early warm soil, although the decompostion creates surface heat the mulch layer slows the heating process moving deep into the soil. I also learned over the years that growing pretty little accent plants under your plumerias acted like mulching by blocking heat and creating a moist layer. Al is technical, whereas I learned mostly by trial and error over several decades. My opinion-Bill

AT - here is my perspective on container media: It's all about structure and little else. With just a little understanding about nutrition, it can be relegated to near the status of afterthought - it's that easy if you get the structure right.

Many growers try to bring the garden to container culture. They believe that the rich, earthy, black gold called compost must certainly be as beneficial in containers as it is in the garden. Consider tough, that the primary benefit of the finished compost used in our gardens is found in the fact that it improves the structure of mineral soils and helps increase soil life. The nutritional content of compost is actually very low.

On a scale of 1-10, with gardening in the earth being a 1, and hydroponics being a 10, container culture is probably a 7 or 8 - MUCH closer to hydroponics than growing in the garden. The compost that enhances the structure of mineral soils can be a significant obstacle in containers for the reasons in my post previous.

IMO - The potential for good plant health/growth/vitality is significantly enhanced by soils that retain little or no water in the pore space between soil particles. W/o question, heavy soils with significant amounts of saturation represent an environment hostile to root health, and the amount of water held between soil particles is directly related to soil particle size.

It's easy to envision this point if you envision a jar of pudding, and ask yourself how much perlite it would take to make the pudding well-aerated and drain well. Can you see in your mind's eye that it's only after the larger particles of perlite make up about 80% of the total volume that you could hope for improved aeration and a respite from the sogginess of the pudding?

One of the soils I make has 5 parts of pine bark, 1 part of perlite, and 1 part of peat or compost. It's not an accident that the fraction of smaller particles, peat or compost, are limited to 1/7 (less than 15%) of the soils total volume, leaving larger particles of pine bark and perlite as about 85% of the volume. That is specifically arranged to avoid the deleterious effects of the fine particles on soil structure, and especially advantageous for plants like Plumeria that quickly come to suffer from wet feet.

I'm hoping that my comments are viewed more as an opportunity for people to take a look at some basic soil science than as being difficult or argumentative. I'm just expanding on your last post.

In all honesty, a lot of the science related to container culture is open for broad interpretation; more though, is nailed down pretty tightly. While there is some wiggle room for those inclined to try to approach container culture from the general direction of the garden, pursuing the idea that you need to "feed the soil" and do everything you can to promote large populations of soil biota, that approach generally hits the wall when it comes to what to do about the soil's structure ...... The soil biota so valued in the garden devour and reduce the size of soil particles as fast as their populations allow, which of course destroys soil structure. This brings us full circle to the opening idea that container media and a healthy root environment is more about structure than nutrition, with good nutrition being very easy to provide w/o sacrificing structure on that altar.

The crux is, roots come first - roots are the heart of the plant, and a healthy plant without healthy roots is not possible.

Al

I guess I should have read this post better before responding. I mix the dropped leaves with other leaves (mostly Live Oak), bulk woody mulch, and a small amount of topsoil for use in planting beds.

I love Live Oaks but they make a mess in March and if you don't mix the leaves with other materials they will not decompose in this lifetime.

My mix pile so far this season. It will be the size of a small swimming pool in two months.
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As a foot note, I put VERY LITTLE composted soil on top of the very, very porous soil in my pots. The soil still drains very well and my plumeria plants are very healthy. My post was mainly to state how well old plumeria leaves, etc. can be composted inside your house, even in winter. Certainly the composted soil can be used for other plants besides plumeria.

But are plumeria leaves ok to compost when growing vegetables in the compist?

Hi bygtime26. I would say yes. I throw my old plumeria leaves in my flower beds all the time.

I'm concerned that Plumeria leaves in my compost are not good for vegetables growing in same. Heard Plumeria leaves have a liquid in them that is not good for vegetables that we consume

I guess the sap can be considered an irritant if consumed directly. My assumption would be the composting process would inert the possibility of irritants. Unless you added massive quantities of leaves to the compost pile or failed to let it complete the composting process. Perhaps you could get additional advice on a compost forum

thanks for your comment. My wife is from Hawaii and says Plumeria leaves are poisonous.

"Poisonous" covers a lot of territory. I would think the properties most relative to composted parts of plumeria would relate to either phytotoxicity (poisous to plants) or allelopathic/autotoxic properties (inhibitive of growth in other plants or young plumeria).

I can't speak to the phytotoxic part (probably unlikely) but I do know that plumeria contain biocompounds that are allelopathic to other specific species of plants, and it's a near certainty that the less 'finished' the compost is, the greater the allelopathic properties would be.

Most plants that exude a white latex-like sap are irritating in varying degrees to humans.

Al

Al, thanks for your input. As soon as I get my dictionary out to decipher your response, I'll truly appreciate it.