Hi,

We need a picture to understand what you are explaining. Are you talking about roots coming out at the bottom of your plant, near the ground? Roots don't come out of the side of a plumeria, only at the bottom, like all plants.

You can go into photbucket.com. Its free and register. The, put a jpg of a clear picture of your plant in there. There is a square on the picture to click..then click html in middle, it show copy..then come on here, write your message and hit control V should come on as a html code. then hit preview.. if you did it correct should show.. hope.

Sorry we need the picture.. Or if you can explain..roots where? bottom, not in the soil?
Karen B.

Thanks for the response. Let's see if this works. If not, I will be back in the evening to work on it again.
[IMG]http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x308/ourhouse_garden/PlumeriaProblem004.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x308/ourhouse_garden/PlumeriaProblem001.jpg[/IMG]

Here is a link that might be useful: Photobucket

OMG your plumeria is giving birth to the Alien! That is the strangest thing. It certainly looks like a bunch of roots to me. I've seen other plants that have roots emerge from the above ground portion of the stem but never a plumie. I'm sure one of the experts here will jump in and solve the mystery.
Karyn

Hi,
I can't see a picture, only html code.
Karen

One more try....but if it doesn't work, you can click on the link at the bottom of my message eariler today and it will take you to Photobucket to see it. I'm a newbie to this sort of thing, but let's see if I can get a picture on here.

It does look like something out of a sci-fi movie...doesn't it! I appreciate any advice I can get at this point....hate to lose this one, but for now, it is not dropping any leaves and everything else about the plant looks healthy....we brought this back from our honeymoon in Maui 10 1/2 years ago....of course, it was just a little stick in a plastic envelope back then.

Is the affected portion a branch or the main trunk? If it's a branch I wonder if you can cut it from the plant and pot it up? No waiting for the cutting to root! I'd probably wait until the inflo blooms so you don't lose the flowers. If they are roots I wonder if they'll continue to grow towards the ground like the aerial roots on a ficus? I'd love to hear what Bill or one of the other more knowledgeable members has to say.
Karyn

That picture was of a branch, but it has a small section of the main trunk doing the same thing now.

It would be my guess that it's one of two things. The first being that the main in-ground roots are no longer viable and have rotted perhaps along with the buried portion of the stalk. Plumies being the survivors that they are (and especially at that age), will send out roots from the unaffected part of the branch.

The second guess (and it's a weak one), would be if you are getting alot of water onto the branches.

Is there any way you can carefully dig into the soil to see what lurks below?

The good news is that even if I am right, you can cut the branch with the roots and re-plant, then cut the rotted part off the bottom and re-plant the main tree!

Tony

Hi,
well I can see it now wow, thanks for posting the picture.., agree with Karyn looks like its growing an alien..make me itch.. ha

I would think the roots close to the lower trunk/ground might fill up the inside of the trunk not allowing plant root growth in the ground. Could it suffocate the plant or not?..can see you want it to live...gonna go look at my neighbors. Her's is about 15 years old, and see if she has any of this oddity going on..

Boy this is one for the experts.. Yes let it bloom. Anxious to hear what is suggested.
Karen

When was the last time you repotted it? I've heard of plumeria growing roots from a grafted plant but I know yours isn't grafted. Where are you located?
Don't really know what's going on.

It has been about 5-6 years since we moved it to the large clay pot from the ground. We tried planting it in the landscaping bed along with another plumeria plant, but when one died, we moved this one to the pot before the same thing happened.

Seriously, check the roots in the soil. I'm almost positive you will discover black or brown rotted roots.

Let us know,
Tony

Hi Tony,
I'll be darn, wouldn't have thought of that. Intersting
Karen B.

Yeah, a Plumeria that old will do anything to survive, and that's what I love about them so much. It's getting them there that is sometimes a problem.

Ourhouse garden, what type of mix is your Plumie in?

Please report back because we can all learn from this.

Tony

I dug down as far as I could at the edge of the pot as to not disturb the main root system. I found a lot of small roots and what I saw looked ok.

We decided to wait for the flowers to bloom and then we are going to repot it. Since it has been so long in that pot, I would say that the soil is not a good mix and with a lot of recent rain in the Houston area, I found that it was not draining like it used to.

I have fertilized it this spring with miracle grow and the leaves are a vibrant dark green, healthy looking and the inflo looks great. If we see signs that the branch is deteriating, we will go ahead a take action, but for now, we are just watching it get more and more weird looking.

Do you think we should not wait? I just want to see those flowers! It has been several years since it bloomed last.

I wouldn't dig it up now unless the foliage looks bad. From what you've said the plant looks healthy. I have several types of plants that put out aerial roots similar to what those look like as a normal part of their growth. Granted I've never heard of it happening with a plumeria so I have no idea if it's doing that because the underground roots are bad. I'm of the thought that "If it ain't broke don't try and fix it." I'd just let it grow and bloom. Have you tried sending a pic to one of the university nursery extensions? I know that U of MD has one. Maybe U of Hawaii has one or one of the other universities in a tropical or sub-tropical area.
Karyn

That's a good idea to contact a university's nursery extension....I will try to research that soon. I check the branches every morning to see if there is any sign of deterioration. Knowing that we have options if that happens is comforting. I will be sure to post any updates I come up with. We do plan to repot it or plant it in a raised bed after we enjoy the flowers. I will let you all know what we find inside the pot.

Thanks!

I received a response from the Plant Disease Diagnostician I contacted at U of Hawaii at Karyn's suggestion.

"The outward growth is adventitious roots that are pushing its way out of the main limbs. This doesn't happen frequently but we have seen it on some occasions. Not sure what stimulates abnormal development of root tissues. Almost like if you took a cutting of the stem and placed it into the soil. The cut end of the cutting would begin to iniate promotion of root tissues.
On Tomato plants, roots tend to initiate on the lower stem base when the plant is experiencing root stress.
I would let it go for now unless it showing signs of decay in the area. From the images, it looks fine til now."

This reply confirms both that there may be root stress as Tony mentioned above and also that we can leave it alone for now. So we are watching the flowers, leaves and branches. I will post again when the flowers are fully bloomed, because I don't know what variety it is and hope you can help me identify it.

Thanks to you all,
Denise

I too, have the same problem Denise does with the odd root growth on my Plumeria. The plant is about 15 years old and about 10 ft tall and 8 ft wide. It did have some freeze damage this year as we had a rough winter here in central Florida. I cut off the tips that had rotted as the book told me to do. So far it has leafed out just fine but have not had any blooms as of yet this year. Would appreciate any help and/or advice anyone may have. New to this site as well. Below is a photo of the odd root growth.

Thanks,
Bob

My plumeria suffered freeze damage this past winter and is now splitting along the length of branches. It appears to be growing roots. I read the comments made back years ago and am curious if anyone can say
wwhat happened

those affected trees

I have seen these type of roots on a specific location on some Plumeria and essentially nothing happened. Over time the growth area (similar to first pictures in this post, not of the split trunks) hardened off and eventually it fell off or I cut it off.

I live in GA so I definitely take my plumeria in when temps are dropping. My plumeria has split too w the odd root like projections. Anything new to add since the above posts?

Thank you! I will check the trunk.

I have roots growing from 2 branches of my plumeria as well and no injury to tree and trunk and roits of mother plant are fine