This will sound wild, but I had to leave once for almost a month. My concern was the Sun being out of position where I had my seedlings near the kitchen window. After researching the rotation of the Earth, for that period, I ended up using the kitchen window. There they'd get about an hour a day of good light, but not hot or too brilliant. I took a small dia drill bit, and put a few very small holes in the bottom of my plastic dish, covered the dish with plastic top but not fastened down. I then inserted a small piece of 'wicking' that I acquired at Home Depot into the side of the dish. After that, I placed the dish on top of a folded kitchen towel, and turned the faucet on to do a drop about once a minute and put the wick underneath at the corner of the container... and where the drop of water would hit near it. Gone 3 weeks, and returned, (I was concerned that the faucet would stop dripping, but it didn't) and my seedlings were singing in chorus and had grown over an inch, and in perfect condition! And the kitchen towel? It was only damp enough to keep the wick moist which worked fine. It was surprising, and wild, but it worked. A few seedlings though, were suffering a little, but they promised not to tell anybody if I never did that again! lol

Pictures are downloading as we speak. Unfortunately I seem to have encountered a problem with an outdoor, mature azalea tree on the porch. It's been living here in this exact spot win the exact pot for over a decade but now It appears something is clogging the drainage holes on the bottom and the pot is flooded with water, not waterlogged, worse, as in the tree has been sitting in water for days. it seems that is has been this way for at least a few days as the water smells stagnant. The tree has a small bit of brown leaves but it actually looks relatively okay, when considering how bad of circumstances this is... at this point it is still in water as the pot weighs at least 100lbs, solid glazed ceramic. I tried getting a long thin pole and poking down to the bottom of the pot, attempting to make a path for water to flow out of the pot, but about 3-4 inches from the bottom I encountered something rock hard that I could not penetrate. I also found when poking around with the pole that the pot may be rootbound, as I felt so many roots digging down. I am going to go try again and see if I can lift the pot. I just finished lifting the pot and got some of the water out, though it is still waterlogged soil, and upon tilting the pot over to the side a bit I found a thick bundle of roots blocking the water exit hole and they had gone all the way out of the bottom of the pot and wrapped around the area between the pavement and pot. this is going to be one helluva hacking job for me... I actually don't know how I am going to fix the situation on such a large scale. I can't get a bigger pot, these are about as big as they come and even if there is something bigger a quality one would cost hundreds, How would I do a large scale root trim on a 6 foot tall tree? It's such a big plant, I would need a forklift to get it out of that pot and putting it back in would be a disaster. Any tips?

Just to play catch-up, here is a picture of my plant today. As you can see two more pods have opened with one more waiting in the wings! Got lots of seed and can't use all of them, so if you have a warm (70F or better) to grow them, my email is: LASSERH@HOTMAIL.COM I planted several this past Monday and even in my cool greenhouse (64F nights/68F ~ 70F days) several have germinated.

Dear X, When I have more time to respond thouroughly to your "link" I will do so. The following some boring reading from some of my prior posts on another "plumeria forum". "You have had drainage issues because of your soil design. Second, you have used manure and high organic mixes that do not work well in our area for plumeria let alone in an area where length of day is short. And all the issues have NOTHING to do with peat in the mix as we have used peat for over thirty years in ALL our mixes and continue to do so. Total working content of a mix is more important then one item for CEC and all other issues. We have spent the time and money to perfect our soil mixes. I have used the advice of Soil and Plant Labs soils engineers for over 40 years. (http://www.soilandplantlaboratory.com/) We also test every mix and modified mix in the lab. With all due respect to everyone on the container forum, I feel much more comfortable with the findings from our professionals at Soil and Plant Labs. In addition these CEC discussions are mostly a mute point with the latest technology from many labs on foliage and leaf feeding. If one feeds only in the container they are at a serious disadvantage as per the latest horticulture science. Soil issue correction from foliar application has been around for many years. Many plumeria growers dont seem to have the grasp of horticulture and the benefit of its science led technology. Over the years we have sent foliage samples to the lab. for analysis this is the bottom line the contents of the plant one is growing. With this analysis we can and do the necessary corrections to our fertigation and foliar/leaf feed program. All the science in the world is a guessing game unless one determines the final result based on lab tests. Now lets do the Bonsai thing: I studied bonsai with John Naka the foremost master in his time. I have never ever made a derogatory comment about Bonsai Growers as I am one and have been since 1955. Bonsai Containers are mostly squat other than cascade style so what are we talking about? I say how many plumeria have these container masters grown? I am not concerned about PWT as it does not exist to a extent with my plants and it has zero effect on my trees. In fact I would bet I have less issues with soil saturation because of my mix than most. Because of my style of growing many of the concerns others have are simply mute. I have and can grow in clay or what ever the medium and have a highly oxygenated soil and produce high quality plumeria with the specific methods I use. I suggest you will need to do some study on 12% Humic Acid, Fulvic Acid, Sea Weed Extract, Mycorrhizal Fungus, potassium silicates and carbon uptake to understand what I am talking about. In addition, where is the science on what you are reading? Where is the proof of all this in regards to plumeria?" "S---t earlier you stated your soil was compacted or you had soil breakdown. It is extremely difficult to visibly assess these issues accurately. If one studies the content of a nursery container they would see that compaction in a container in the short term is virtually impossible. Containers that contain a soil-less mix when less then two years old are nearly impossible to compact due to the fact of the high percent of organic mater. Organic mater will not allow a high compaction rate anywhere anytime. Next, worn out soil; Soil breakdown leading to compaction rarely takes place in a container in less than two full growing seasons and it is normally caused by a loss of organic matter. A large percentage of organic matter used in modern soil-less mixes has two years or more of longevity. It is a fact that most bagged mix manufactures test their soils for this very issue. One may see some soil breakdown in the late season of the third year and almost always in the fourth year. The easiest way to tell that your containers material is loosing its organic matter is the soil level in the container drops over the initial soil settling from the first several watering. If you pot your plants at a consistent depth from the top rim of the container it makes this visible signal more apparent. We have grown trees without repotting in our mix for as long as six years and never repotted with no detrimental effects to trees health or slow down in growth or flowering. However, five years for our large container is when we try to cut roots back and replenish the soil on the bottom and sides without breaking the root-ball. We never bare-root or pull the dirt away from the trees main root mass. Up-potting is dependant on the readiness of the plants (see above). When a grower perceives his containers soil on the verge of breaking down IE loss of organic matter the following remedies are available: Water container with Humic Acid as per manufactures directions. Do this with the container moist not dry. DO NOT FERTILIZE with the humic acid application. Reduce humic acid quantity (dose) by at least 40% if you have used a hard type/pelletized fertilizer in the last thirty days, and if you have added a time release fertilizer in the past three months. This will prevent fertilizer damage as the humic acid will shortly make the all Nitrogen fertilizer available to the plant. The humic acid will add good microbes to the soil. In addition, humic acid will balance the water holding capacity and drainage of the media. Next, inoculate the soil with a mycorrhizal fungus to assist retrieving the 'nutrients to the plant. This is a lot cheaper and less heart breaking than losing those special expensive plant/plants."