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When is it safe to water my plumeria plant?

4 years ago

I bought a plumeria from a local nursery. They didn't seem to know that it shouldn't be watered too much, and when I bought it, the growing medium was very wet. A short time after I bought it, I could tell that the plant was beginning to suffer from over-watering, since the branches were becoming less firm and even wrinkly-looking.

However, I did not give up. I tried to change the medium and saw that there are only about 1-2 cm long roots ... not even that many root hairs, though. More like about 3-4 root hairs. However, it has put up pretty nice top growth for just that amount. I am sure the grower probably had them in some good green house conditions to get them ready for sale, but in my case, I don't have such a thing.

I have put it into a new growing medium, and have not watered it for over 3 weeks now. The plant is still doing OK but I am concerned that I might be withholding water for too long.

When is it safe to water the plumeria plant again? I keep seeing something about when it puts out a few leaves, it's safe to water. However, this particular example, has plenty of leaves, and it still has negative effects from the nursery giving it water...maybe every day since that is probably their habit in keeping their plants alive.

So it's possible I might be able to water it once a week or once every 2 weeks, but I am not sure of the watering schedule needed at this stage of its life. I would not want it to get worse if I can help it.

Thanks in advance!

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Comments (3)

Chris Harkey
4 years ago
Do you have a picture of the plant? Are the leaves perky or do they look sad? A healthy plumeria will grow roots very quickly. I grow most of my young plants in plastic nursery containers and put them within nicer heavier pots, that way I can lift the growing pot out of the heavier pot to get a feel of how heavy it is. If its heavy it probably has plenty of water. If its light, I'll water it. A pic may help us get an idea of how healthy your plant is may help us better give you direction.
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the_first_kms2
4 years ago
Its hard say without a picture and additional info like your current climate.

All supposition on my part (so be wary) but it sounds to me like you are rerooting it. Assuming you have it in a warm but protected from full sun location and you are in a warm climate and your new planting medium is draining well and your plant is experiencing growth at the branch tips again...then you are probably ok to reintroduce light watering on a regular schedule for your current climate conditions. You may also be able to move it to a more sunny location.
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purslanegarden
Original Author
4 years ago
last modified: 4 years ago

Ok sorry it took a while. I had to figure out how to add the pics. The first one shows a larger look at the leaves. they're all drooping a bit.

The second picture is a close up on one of the branches. You can see it is a little bit wrinkly, allegedly due to the over-watering situation that I described in the OP.

I stuck the other sticks into the pot thinking I may need to hold up the plant, since it basically is just a cutting with no strong root system and especially the roots are not anchoring it into the pot, but in fact, it has been able to stand up on its own so far.

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