To me watering is the issue, not the pot depth. I have many plants in pots more shallow than that. Lately it has been topping out in the upper 90's here and I'm watered very day. One of my grow areas has been hitting 100+ because of the concrete the benches sit on. This plant is growing and putting on leaves and only having about 3/8" of an inch of soil and about 1/4 of an inch of gravel over the roots. It get watered once a day. When we start hitting 110 + around that bench in July, it will need more shade. Bonsai would not have been a reality if things could not be grown in shallow pots. Most bonsai are less drought tolerant than the plants posted on this forum. randy

That's very strange, Ellie. I'm not sure what caused it, but over-watering usually results in rot, not a dried out end like that. And it's kinda hard to over-water seedlings in summer since they have such good root systems. Is it possible the seedling trunks got sunburned at the soil line? That would cause that hard, caved-in area; I've had it happen a few times in the heat of summer. You could try with one of those seedlings just lightly scoring the bark above the dried up area with a razor blade, just enough to encourage new roots to come out from the very shallow cuts. The roots come from the cambium layer, just under the bark layer. Couldn't hurt to try it at this point. Good luck!

I can tell you this much. After 4 years of killing plumerias, this much I've learned about where I live. I will have to grow my plants in pots until they are big. One of my cuttings almost died from the heat, it looks like dehydration. It was drying like a little raisin. Had me fooled for a while there I thought it was stem rot, but no the stem was perfect. I moved that pot to the shade and about 1 week later my stems have become stronger and a couple of my leaves finally popped open today. A few other my plumies, love to be drowning in water. I almost killed a $30 cutting (Donald Angus) that I bought at Exotic Plumerias in Riverview by drowning it to death. Now all I have is a 6 inches left. I've had it 2 months and still not 1 leaf has grown on the blasted thing. Another cutting I found (at Bush Garden, Singapore Frangipani)is about 1 inch tall. I stuffed the whole thing in a tiny pot and about 2 weeks ago and it looks like a little leaf is starting to poke out. I've kept that one very dry and in the shade My Aztek gold is in the ground loves the heat, and dies during the frost every winter. It's just a few inches tall except this year it gave me two branches for me to kill it seems. What an ambitious plant. For my birthday in June my better half thought it would be great to give me some cuttings from Hawaii. Finally almost 8 weeks after we got the cuttings I've started to make some progress. Last week I gave them fertilizer for the first time with Phosphorus, Nitrogen and Potassium. It seems to have done the trick and my leaves finally popped open on all of my plants. I have about 8 new cuttings that I'm trying to grow. Best advise for your right now, is try a little food for your tree. Summer time is the right time to fertilize plumerias. My new plan will be once a week, on the roots and the following week with a spritzer on the leaves. Well hope it helps and good luck! LL

You'll need to find a larger size of perlite (not rocks). I buy size 2 at the organic gardening/hydroponic store here in town. The size two seems big at first but breaks into smaller pieces very easily (dont break it apart on purpose though, you want it in bigger pieces.) Be sure to sift and rinse it, otherwise the dust on it can gather at the bottom of your pot and create a swamp that stays soggy, like sand does. I would like to warn you against purchasing the Miracle Grow brand of perlite. It's like they used all the good pieces and bagged up all the fines to pass off as perlite. It just turns into a mushy, soggy mess unless you sift it and then you can only use ~1/8 of the bag as the rest are fine particles and unusable. Total rip off. As Russ said, you'll need at least 50% of the mix to be perlite (you can use perlite mixed with chicken grit [crushed granite] to make up this half of the mix but the grit can get very heavy if it's a large container) combined with 50% or less of the cacti and succulent mix you buy, if it's based on peat (sphagnum peat or coco peat, which is what most people think of when they think of potting soil, very small organic materials). Little jab: and I thought my pictures were bad! If you're using a phone, you should be able to click on the item you want it to focus on and it'll focus for you.