Month: April 2013

Question: Hi my desert rose lost all of its leaves after I re-potted it.  The Caudex and the trunk are nice and firm/hard so I am not worried (yet).   The “soil” however is now bone dry because I read that watering a leafless desert rose is not a good idea,  if so, when should I water the adenium plant again?  Will the leaves just come back without me watering it?  By the way,  the plant is in a bay window that faces east.  I live in the Chicago area and it is still too cold to bring it outside.  i have only watered it once since I put it in its new pot.  Thank you.

Answer: When we receive desert rose plants from Thailand they are all 100%  leafless and dry. Sometimes the caudex are soft due to not having water for 2 weeks.  Then it take another week to get them all potted. Yes- we water them when they are leafless!

I’m not sure who told you not to water the adeniums when they are leafless -we do all the time so the will sprout new leaves. OK – this winter has been long and many of our adeniums didn’t sprout new leaves until last month. Our climate is always much warmer than   yours during the winter.  We do not get freezing days what-so-ever this year.  So I would recommend watering the desert rose plant twice a week making sure that it dries completely between watering. Also, did you dip the roots of the adenium obesum plant in super-thrive to give them a boost before you re potted it?   If you did not get some super-thrive (a little bottles goes a very very long way) and add some to water (Very little) and water the adenium plant with super-thrive once now and once in mid summer.

Hi,
I got my desert rose plants back in late 2012. I planted them as suggested by the sent info. They are alive, some of the leaves have fallen off as I  was told in the sent info. The trunk or body of plants are green and look well but STILL no leaves after all this time. It is planted in a clay pot with rocks at bottom and in cactus soil. I water once a week and it appears to drain well…. Am I doing something wrong??????? Right now some of the dead leaves are still on the trunk and has not fallen off yet..Trunks are green but no new growth.

Answer:  Where are you growing it?  How much light a day? Temperature?  In south Florida all ours now have new leaves now. Some of the adeniums didn’t get new leaves until a couple weeks ago because of the weather changing from warm to cool back to warm and then back to cool and now arm again.  We water them twice a week .

Reply: It sits in a sun room..windows face south and west. Temp at about 71. I’m living in Atlanta

Answer: OK – your adeniums growing season is about 1 month behind ours here in Miami  where the days are in the 80’s already and a bit longer since we are 700 miles south of you. . How many hours of light doe sit get (sun directly hitting the sun room).  As soon as it does not get below 50 at nite move them outside to get longer sunlight. Sun rooms are still filtered light. Or wait and I suspect that if you keep it in the sun room you can expect leaves and new growth in about 30 days as the room warms up.  Also, watering once a week is not enough in the spring which is desert rose plants growing season.  Did you use super thrive when you planted the adenium plants to give the roots a boost? If yes then you do not need to fertilize desert roses with time release until it gets at least 5 leaves or more.