Wow! What beautiful pictures. What is the name of the first one? Is the fragrance as wonderful as the color? You must be very excited about this spring.

Jennie

Hi Kevin,
Great pictures, would presume the first is Kimo..So pretty..Congrats on the seed pod hope produces for you.. My kimo hit squirrel crush, so am trying to grow as a cutting this year. .

Karen B

Thanks Jennie! Karen is correct. The first pic and the third are both Kimo. It really is an amazing flower that has a lot of color variations. The richness of color seems to be more intense the hotter it is outside (and summer in TX can be HOT!), but each flower also fades and shows variation of color over several days after blooming. Unfortunately it does not have a very strong fragrance. It is nice spicey/sweet smell but very faint. The last pic is Pink Pansy and THAT one smells like sweet tarts that you can smell across the yard!

Thanks Karen, sorry to hear about your Kimo. I am excited about the seed pod even though I know I have a loooong wait on blooms. I only had 4 plants blooming last year so it had to have crossed with the yellow shown above, another similar unknown yellow I have, or Pink Pansy.

Here is a pic of my "winter storage" showing my potted plants on a table. I typically only turn on the halogen light on the left when the temps have been below freezing outside, which hasn't been often. On the right is a shelving unit with my bare root plants stacked on top.

Here is my Kimo seed pod. It is a little larger and all brown in color now. There were two pods in the very beginning last year but one stopped growing and eventually died back for some reason.

Hi Kevin, so nice pics. of your wonderfull Plumerias thanks for sharing. I have a very little compact dwarf with the same flowrs as the one in your last pic. but dont know what to call it. I bought the seed from Plumeriaparadise. com a few years ago.

I have Celadine and Carmen flowers going on since mid February and half of my plants have not even been into dormacy this winter and I have not added any extra light or heat during winter. Most of them are now in the greenhouse and the sun has luckily heated it up to 95 F and plants are in very active prograss. I'm looking forward to a very good Plumi season.

Soren

Kevphol- your kimo more likely self-pollinated as cross-pollinations are rare without hummingbird moths or unless manually crossed which is a major league difficult job. These plants need specific pollinators because the sex parts are so tiny and so deep in the flowers. Hummingbirds and butterflies are rarely fooled and quickly learn that there is no nectar. I have had newly emerging Monarch butterflies pollinate a large white but after several flowers they move on to other types of flowers and leave the plumerias alone. Small insects like thrips are often the cause of self pollination as they roam inside the flowers. Bill

Hi Soren, sounds like a mild winter in Denmark as well. I look forward to seeing some pics when your plumies bloom.

Thanks Bill. I supposed self-pollination is much more likely. I didn't even think about it. I did suspect small insects carrying out the pollination. I have hummingbirds occasionally but have never seen them even test the plumies.

Magnificent!!!!!!!!!!!Especially the picture with the sunset in the back round.
What the heck am I doing up here in cold New England anyways???

You said you barerooted alot? When did you do that? What month? And how long do they stay like that? Did you have problems with dehydration? I did, even in soil. I almost lost three and did loose one. Also, what did you do to avoid them from dehydrating and turning to prunes to the point of death?

Do you spray the roots?

Also, what do feed them and when do you start?

Please let us know. Thanks so much.

Those are so so beautiful kevphol!!! You are so lucky!
Good to see you came out of dormancy too..:-)

Kevin,

Kimo is amazing. I have two, but they have yet to bloom well. Maybe this year??

Interesting to see your storage setup. What are the temps in there? Also, do you have any issues with mites? If so, what do you use?

Thanks

Thanks! Come on down to Texas. It is in the 70's today!

Through the warm months I keep some of my plants in pots and some I put directly in the ground. I moved them all into my garage in early Novemember this past year when it started getting close to 40 at night. The plants from the ground were just laid on a shelf (see pics below). The potted plants were left in pots. I basically do nothing to any of the plants unless we have warm periods or they start to look a little dry then I mist them with a spray bottle of water. The only light source in the garage is a regular flourescent fixture on the ceiling. I do however have a 500watt halogen work light that I set up and turn on for colder nights. I don't think the temps ever got below the mid 50's in the garage where I kept the plumies. Of course TX winters are pretty mild.

For my potted plants I use cactus soil mixed with Perlite and use Superthrive about every other week. The in-ground plants go into well-drained flower beds and also get Superthrive.

Kevin

Bare root on shelf

Roots

Bare root with inflo

Pink inflo dormant since fall now growing

Red inflod ormant since fall now growing

Kevin- It looks like you clipped off the leaves and then when the stubs dried(second to last pic.) popped off the stubs. Some people forget this step and put the plants in with leaves still on which drains water storage from the stem and causes them to wrinkle up. Also, just a note that superthrive (vitamins and hormones) is not a fertilizer and should be used with NPK in a fertilizer. This is also true of Spray-n-grow if not used with Bill's Perfect. Just an added note. Bill

Thanks Bill. Good points. I always clip my leaves in fall leaving a stub which dries and usually falls off on its own later. Yes, I also failed to mention that I use a NPK fertilizer typically with higher phosphorus. The superthrive is basically plant food to promote blooms. Guess I had ST on my mind because of the other thread!

Kevin

I love the rich colors you get in the hot, humid air along Texas to Florida. I lost my Kimo in the 07 freeze, but over 5 seasons it flowered but in the dry, California climate it was always subdued as seen here. Bill