1. Leave the shortened culms alone. Even though they won't grow, their leaves will provide energy to the plant to help grow new culms. 2. If you are lucky, the new culms will fill in within a year. 3. Fire the gardener.

Chris and Bill, I would love to learn grafting, and have actually researched this in the, not to distant, past. The first requirement, I would imagine, is the availability of appropriate root-stock, which I do not have. Another thing that has been on my to do list, is going down to visit Luc at FCN. I would consider the 4 hr. round trip, and approximately $60.00 in diesel, an investment in Plumeria knowledge, rather than an exorbitant price to pay in saving a $30.00 cutting! Unfortunately, I am in a time crunch, as I need to prepare for an eight or nine-day business trip, that begins Sunday. I feel that I should do something today or tomorrow, and hope for the best while I am gone. So I will submerge 2 of the 4 inches in my tried-and-true mix and try my best not to think about it while I am gone. WRF, Yes I did see the thread on water rooting, which I found very interesting, since I was under the impression that this could not be done without rotting the stem. I would consider this method, if it were not for my trip. All the rain we get down here seems too much sometimes. I have some plumeria that grow very fast, with wide leaf spacing and very green stems of great length. With the summer sun almost straight up in the sky, I do not have any area that I can leave my young, potted plants and cuttings, where they will get adequate direct sun, and be protected from the rain. When I am around the house, I move them, sometimes several times a day, when rain threatens. When I am not home, I usually need to leave them in a bright shade spot, where they will, hopefully, stay dry if it rains. Never assume it won't rain down here! This will need to be the case for this cutting while I am out of town. What South Florida city do you live in. Why do you list so many zones? Mahalo, Bob

What steps are you taking to achieve this? Normally I click Start then All programs. Select and right click on the program that needs a desktop icon and in the pop up menu hover over 'Send to...' and a side flyout appears. Click 'Create desktop icon' Done. Then I rename the new desktop icon if it is not exactly what I want.

Additional details can be found on page 136 of Brown/Kirkham, The Pruning of Trees, Shrubs and Conifers - Second Edition (2004, Timber Press, Portland/Cambridge).