Planting bare root and/or leafless adenium plants Most adenium bare root plants shipped are leafless to help prevent moisture lose and plant shock. Adeniums can last 3..4 weeks as a bare root plant if you keep them out of sunlight to prevent too much drying out. If your adeniums has leaves expect them to fall off. This is how we do it when we receive plants:
1) First do not crop the adenium desert rose branches or the roots at this time.
2) Dip the adenium roots in Super thrive liquid, root hormone or similar root fertilizer if you have it. You do not have to do this. However, if you do, the leaves will burst out quickly which will greatly help the growing process. Liquid hormone is better than powder for adeniums. A little bit of Super thrive goes a long way. Only leave the desert rose plants roots in the liquid for 3…4 minutes.
3) Get a pot with drain holes and put large rocks over the holes. We do not recommend putting directly in the ground if you lie in the right zone until you second potting.
4) Fill the pot 1/3 with the adenium soil mix. DO NOT USE STANDARD POTTING SOIL! Adeniums do not like water and potting soil has way too much water retaining elements in it. Yes, you can use store bought cactus mix. If you do this add some very small non-porous rocks to the mix (about 10 percent).
5) Put the adenium plant in the pot and fill in around the roots with the soil mixture.
6) On top of the desert rose soil put some non-porous rocks to keep the soil from floating away when watering.
7) Do not water the adenium yet! You already dipped it in the hormone so you need to give it time to absorb the nutrients.
8) Plant your desert rose plant in 70% to 80% sunlight for the first week.
9) After the first week you can place the adeniums in full sunlight
10) Water in 24 hours and test the soil to make sure it drains very quickly. The best way to get answers is to post a question on the AdeniumRose company blog.
Soil mixes for adenium plants do not add top soil or or organic material. Recently a client purchased soil for the adenium specifically mixed for planting. They decided to take 50% of the mix and add more organic ingredients specifically potting mix. Potting mix has way way too much organic water retaining properties for desert rose adenium plants. What happened? They lost 50% of the new adenium hybrids plants to root rot. They only thing you ever may want to add to special adenium or cactus soil mixes are NON-Porous rocks. perlite and silica (not limestone sand – not all sand is the same) sand if you are in a high water area (tropical) or in an area where the water does not evaporate quickly!