Month: November 2012

Question: My wife and I just moved to Boynton Beach from New York. Our neighbor has a large  desert rose plant  (approx 4ft High by 4 ft wide) that we fell in love with.

The adenium is in a very large pot. We cannot find anything similar in the local nurseries we have checked. Can we order anything like this from you? Please let us know as we would love several desert rose plants that we can build our landscaping around. We would also appreciate any ideas you may have!

Kind regards,

Answer:  Good Morning: Desert rose plants, adeniums, grow great in Florida. As any succulent, they are not fast growers and it takes many years to grow large. In the wild they can get as tall as 15″ and over 40 foot round (200 yr old tree). We do not have any as large desert rose plants for sale as the one you described at the present time except for stock plants.  If we did they would be in the 400$ and up range for the plant depending upon the caudex and the flower type. Adeniums are sold based upon the caudex size (exposed root) – no the height of the plant or the width across the top. The largest adenium plant we have for sale are in 12″ pots at the present time which are unproved which means they are hybrid desert rose plants (not standard pink adenium flowers) but we do not know the flower type yet because they have not flowered here yet. We received the adeniums in late August and expect the succulents to flower in the first part of the spring. We can offer unproven adenium plants for $45.97 each. Once they are proven they will range in price of $59.97 and up depending upon the flower and the caudex size.

If you plant the desert roses in the ground then you have to make sure you use the correct soil and allow for fast draining (put a large pile of rocks in the hole first) to prevent root rot. We have tons of rain this year so the desert rose plants will rot unless you properly plant them. If you plant to keep them in a pot make sure the pot has drain hole and use clay not plastic! Plastic pots will get too hot and cook the plant. Its better to re-pot every year as the plat grows verses putting a adenium in a pot too large. They grow (caudex size) faster if they are not put in oversize pots.

Hello, I love your beautiful Adeniums and your helpful advice. Can you answer a question for me? I have a desert rose with a small, but nice character caudex, and many long branches. Total height from soil to highest branch is maybe 3′, but the caudex itself is only like 5″ high. I would like to hard prune it, making a thicker, bushier desert rose, and hopefully get the caudex to grow. It is at least 3 years old, not sure how old before that. Can I cut all branches down to about 3″ above top of caudex or is that too much? also, I live in Fort Myers, FL is it bad to re-pot and prune now, or should I wait until spring? I would attach a picture but not sure how to here. Thank you so much for your advice. I enjoy your valuable blog but wasn’t sure how to post there. Heather

Hi Heather:

I put this in the blog so everybody else can see the reply and post a reply themselves concerning the desert rose plant that needs cropping.  Yes, it sounds like the adenium plant needs to be cropped/pruned since is 3 feet high with only a 5″ caudex.  It’s hard to say where to crop the adenium without an image because I do not know the branching of the plant.  Is it a grafted plant? If it is make sure you do not crop the hybrid adenium plant below the graft point or you will loose the hybrid flower. Ft. Meyers is tropical like we are in southeast Florida. You might get 1..3 days of freezing weather a year( if that).  We crop adenium plants just about year round here in Miami. If you want flowers in the spring then you may only want to crop a few branches now so the non-cropped plants will flower in February/March or crop them all and the desert rose plant will flower a bit later in the year.  Your growing season is very long and may times the adenium rose plants flower more than once a year (ours usually flower twice).

Now where to crop your desert rose plant depends on the graft level and branching of the plant. Once you crop the plant make sure you keep the cut dry for 4..5 days to give it time to heal to prevent tip rot.  If it’s not a adenium grafted plant then I would crop the branches at 12″ to 18″ (about 6″to 12″  above the caudex).  Each plant you crop should produce 2..3 new branches.  Again, without seeing the desert rose plant you will need to see how the overall plant looks before cropping the plant. Send me an image if you can. If the adenium plant has a bunch of branches then crop 50% and then the rest once you see new growth on the cropped branches.