I found the leaves of our neighbors prized frangipani chewed up and black- she will be livid and probably blame me- I am the landscaper. does anyone know what caused this? Can it be saved and how do I do that? She planted it on a shady side of the building and probably waters it and fertilizes it a lot. I could trim the tree by it that is blocking most of the sun. I didn't find any caterpillars on it- it seems to have happened overnight.
Hard to kill frangipani (plumeria). A few unsightly leaves can be trimmed or cut off.
I don't know if you have them there, but grasshoppers did that to one of mine. Left the other three alone.
I've never had anything eat my frangipani leaves, always thought that milky sap deterred most things. In the dry season when green pick is pretty sparse some grasshoppers here get into all sorts of tough plants, but not that one. It's probably just the luck of the draw with Mother Nature.
I found a couple of frangipani caterpillars on it after I posted this - they are harmless, in fact their poop is a great fertilizer. Unfortunately I think the woman that owns the tree killed the caterpillars :( The photo is another tree that was stripped bare and it came back and flowered.
