Four years ago I started some Plumerias from seed. I loved the idea of the imemnsely lush flowers and fragrance - admittedly it was a moment of botanical weakness when I started quite a collection of topical trees - and apart an temporary insane impulse to own any kind of madly flowering exotic plant, it was a totally un reasonable and non recommendable experience, unless you do not aim to plant an arboretum of your own. Most of the seedlings grew much quicker and bigger than I originally expected, so I had to beg friends to accept/adopt exotic gifts since I could hardly grow 25 (!) Jacarranda babies - on their way to becoming young trees, not to speak of the magnificent but fierce and thorny Chorisias...
I somehow imagined that since they were "exotic" they necessarily were finicky and delicate to start, but left alone some very slow palms all the others proved to sprout and thrive quite enthusiastically.
In the end I was forced to give up quite a part of my young collection ( it was not so a good idea to try and grow Bunya Bunya trees in a very small town garden...) and kept only a couple of special darlings.
The two Plumerias definitely were among them! They are as easy to grow as weeds, provided they do not suffer cold and wet weather! Mine have been exposed to the mild winters of Barcelona and did quite well. They regularly lost all their leaves and were a bit slow to start in the spring but otherwise behaved nicely. Since they are similar to succulent plants they abhore wet feet and are best planted in rich permeable soil. A nice supply of organic fertilizer during the growing period and that's it.
This year's leaves have been particularly lush so I decided to bring them indoors and see if next spring they will make a decisive grow step and thus maybe start to flower...
http://www.exoticplumeria.com
http://www.plumeria.org/
http://www.semillas.de - Semillas las Plamas , who has got a very seductive offer of exotic seeds and very usefull instructions
