hello, Karyn, the same thing is happening to the flowers on my newly rooted cutting also. how big are the leaves on your cutting/ on mine they are still quite small,, the biggest is about 3 inches long. so i am not watering it much: i was thinking that was the reason why the flowers on mine turn brown and last only a couple of days. i may be jumping to the wrong conclusions.

sue

This one has quite a bit of mature foliage. I don't water any of my plumies very much except for young seedlings. We have so much condensation in the mornings and that seems to be enough moisture, even in this heat. I don't think the icky flowers are from lack of moisture but I don't know for sure. I'd think that the entire inflo would show signs of stress from lack of water, not just a few blooms. I have another newly rooted Penang Peach that's doing the same thing. I hope it's just due to not having a well developed root system yet and not some sort of disease.
Karyn

Hi Karen,
I have some odd stuff going on too. Couple of my plumies the tips are curled in, some leaves come out bumpy. Have had two plants abort the inflo.

Have one now, new cutting with a inflo, inflo look alive, hope hope about 6 to 8" leaves, mystery from Maui Gardens, sure hope it blooms. Some plants puts out big leaves like daisy wilcox, then the leaf dies. We are hot, then now muggy, maybe the weather. You are lucky Jeanne is blooming, mine is young and slow.
Karen B.

What are you fertilizing with and how often since you got mature leaves? Bill

I think blooms on new plants often are less than they could be. Below is a picture of a bloom on a Vera Cruz Lutica that I rooted this year. This is the only one that has opened fully so far. As you can see, it is a bit funky. The rest of the blooms looked like blooms on a tulip type, they never opened completely. The inflo was large, the scent wonderful, and as you can see, the color is beautiful. I believe next year or the year after it will have large clusters of fully open brilliant yellow blooms with intense scent. My before and after shots in the "A Few Pictures" thread shows how flowers can look better when a plant is more established.

Philip

I completely agree with you phillip. My VCL looked almost exactly the same last year as your picture. It had small, mostly not opened tulip like flowers with a few that opened. This year it has not started an inflo yet but is growing well. I am looking forward to seeing it more developed. Bill
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Shot at 2006

It appears that I'm not alone with this problem. I guess it's just because it's a young cutting. I've never experienced this before because I've never had a cutting that came with, or immediately put out an inflo. My mature plants are just starting to get inflos so I'll see if any of them have a similar problem, I hope not! Bill I'm feeding the cuttings a bit differently than my mature plants. My older plumies have been getting a bloom booster in addition to kelp extract, ES and foliar feedings. The newly rooted cuttings are still getting a balanced fertilizer. They all had ST and B1 at the beginning of the season and I still give them ST with feedings. Even though the new cuttings have inflos I didn't think a bloom booster would be the right fertilizer. Is that part of my problem? I just figured that they needed to concentrate on root, not flower development.
Thanks,
Karyn