yeah the plumeria goes dormant and loses all its leaves most of the time. when i first started with plumies and didnt know anything about them i thought i had killed mine to. so yeah you dont have to do anything forthem during the winter. unless it gets really cold in the winter yolu have to bring it in ,but by seeing that your zone is 10 you wont have a problem witht that

Thanks lc, just wish I knew about the dormant thingy when I brought home 4 cuttings from Hawaii a few years back! But to be fair, three of them got root rot and where I live, my nursery guy had very little faith in keeping any of them growing and even less info on how to keep them alive (I think his quote was "Well that is one more than I expected to live")! Have learned lots of good info here re: soil, transplant, etc... Thanks!

hey no problem
you learn a lot on this forum
ive learned so much from people on here its amazing!
goodluck with the plumies

For your gardenias, find a nursery that sells Monrovia plants and pick up a grafted plant. They are more expensive but mine are eight foot tall and happy as clams because they are grafted on a root system that can handle the clay soils in California. The cheap ones last maybe a year or two, unless you are lucky. Also if you follow the directions given on this forum for starting and care of plumerias, you can put a pie in your nursery guys face- he appears to know nothing of growing plumies. The one thing you will see over and over is that rot comes from too much water (or cold). With cuttings you water once and then let them find water by rooting. 5-8 weeks with no water until the leaves grow drives most nubies insane so they water here and there and then are surprised to find rot. The stem has enough water to support the plant until the leaves come and as long as you are rooting on warm concrete or rocks or a warm seed mat, you have a high chance of success. Each time you water, you lower your odds. Misting is ok but no water-period. Bill

Thank you Guru Bill! One more question, if you have a minute? The fertilizer I have is 0.15% Nitrate Nitrogen, 0.85% Phosphoric acid and 0.55% Soluable Potash (Epson salts?) Do I dilute and feed now with this or wait till next spring. Saw your pic (and TDogs') and lots of other pics you have on different topics. I would love to have a fraction of the trees you have! I miss the beautiful aroma these flowers give out and if it weren't for my freckles and ubersensitive fair skin, I would be living in Hawaii! Oh, yeah, darn.... my hubbies job is here, oh well, I'll try to grow my own little paradise here!

What city and state do you live in? This helps to know where your zone 10 is because areas are unique. I assumed you were somewhere in s.cal. maybe toward San Diego area which has a very long season going into November and even December. I would feed every two weeks through September. One confusing thing is that your percents add up to 155% which is too much. Check those numbers again. The potash is a form of potassium usually with sulfides which is good for late summer. Epsoms salts are magnesium sulfates which are not really fertilizers but chemicals that help fertilizers work. What is the recommended dose on the container? answer up and I can help you better. Bill

OK Bill, first of all I live in the North Bay (Marin) gets a bit warmer here than Sausalito, Tiburon or SF, so I dont have that much fog. If it does happen to roll this far north, it usually clears by 8 or 9:00 am at this time of year, it is rare that we get it though. The warm season up here isnt as long as yours. It starts to get chilly at night here in October. It seems to me the plant started going dormant late Sept, early Oct.
Secondly, I did write down the numbers correctly but there may be something else on this label that would probably make sense to you so I will type exactly what it says.

SPECIALTY FERTILIZER GUARANTEED ANALYSIS

TOTAL NITROGEN (N).................. 0.15%
0.15% Nitrate nitrogen
AVAILABLE PHOSPHORIC ACID (P2 O3)... 0.85%
SOLUBLE POTASH (K2 O)............... 0.55%
SOURCE
POTASSIUM NITRATE
PHOSPHORIC ACID

It says to use it all year around everytime I water, aids in blossoming. One bottle cap in each quart of water for normal watering or misting. Use half-strength for orchids. This stuff is called Eleanor's VF-11 and the company is out of Santa Cruz.If you can figure that out, good for you! My husband is an accountant and he couldn't figure out the percentage either, he did say that I had read it right though.
Any other info you have for me would be great, maybe I will just go out and buy the fertilizer you recommended earlier. I think it might be a little too late to feed my plant at this point, what do you think?

Thanks for all the help Bill. Leslie

For your area, this is fine. I am still confused on the numbers but it is a bloom mix. I would feed through August and then stop. I forgot there was a zone 10 right along the coast from Half Moon bay up into Marin. That is a really nice area- near Muir woods and Stinson. I worked in SF in the late 60s and used to excape the city by driving into your area. Evolved from hippie to yuppie to upscale vineyards in many of those canyons. The long term locals were always such nice people. Ok, back to plants. If you log when your temps at night drop below 50 then you should stop fert. about one month earlier. Bill

Thanks Bill for all your patient help. I am going to try this Eleanors VF-11 once a week until - and let me see if I understood this correctly - one month before the temps drop below 50....huh? Ok Bill, now I am a little confused, it is a little hard for me to know when my temps will be dropping below 50 at night. (Shoot, my mom told me to marry that meteorologist!) LOL I will go and find the avg. temp here and use that as a guide.
The more I read here and at the Gardenia Forum, the more I am convinced of my new rule of thumb, let me know what you think. The less I water, watch and worry, the better off these poor, unfortunate and doomed tropic plants may be with me!
(BTW I lucked out on the Gardenias, have Monrovia plants - just don't know if they are grafted, guess I will have to try to find out too. Thanks for that little pearl too!)
My new mantra "I shall not worry about my tropicals any more".
I am going out right now to feed my plumeria, gardenias and may as well hit those azalias that are looking peaked.
Will be back later today. (oops, oh well, never was one for yoga/meditation anyway.)
Thanks again Bill for your patience and if you think of some other little pearls for me not to think about, please dont hesitate to let me know. I appreciate all the info. This gardening stuff is fun!
Leslie

seems that each one of the fertilizer readings equal less than 1 percent..instead of 155 percent...unless I am reading it wrong

TOTAL NITROGEN (N).................. 0.15%
0.15% Nitrate nitrogen
AVAILABLE PHOSPHORIC ACID (P2 O3)... 0.85%
SOLUBLE POTASH (K2 O)............... 0.55%

add up to 155%

oorah- perhaps you are correct. They usually put the point or the % but not both. if this is not an error the amounts are very low. One and a half percent available fertilizer is pretty weak. That might even be too low to be classified a fertilizer. I really do not know on this one. Wonder what the other 98.5% is? Bill

Bill and oorah, This stuff is called Eleanor's VF-11 and when I googled it I came up with the site listed below among others. On one of the other sites listed by google (I cant remember which one now, darn it) it shows the percentages as listed above. The ppl in the Hoya forum here (GW) are familiar with it and think highly of it from what I gathered.
As far as the other 98.5%? Hummmm, if I had to guess, I would say it was water because I cant smell a thing!
In any case, I used it, we will see what happens.
Thanks again, Leslie