Month: May 2014

Growing season is well on its way here in South Florida. Four weeks ago we started to grow 5,000 desert rose plants by seed. They are doing great. We use standard 1020 trays with no holes so it retains water. Then we use propagation soil mix, sod the seeds and then water. Once water we place a place doom to retain the moisture in the 1020 trays. Presently, we have thousands of seedlings with 3..3 leaves.

This week the seedlings will be fertilized with Dyna-Gro Grow and Dyna-Gro TekT for the first time. The idea is to give the desert rose plant seedlings a boost to enable us to move the desert rose plant trays to an outdoor growing area (yes covered). Presently, the trays are under a growing under a extended roof that is open on all side to outside air and warmth but not the light. They get filtered light about 40%. The warmth causes the moisture in tray to condense on the underside of the dome and then droplets  drip on the seedlings to prevent them from drying out.

We expect to move the adenium seedlings  to the outdoor area with 80% light in 3..4 weeks. However, before we move them outdoors we will pot the seedlings in individual 2″ posts and place in trays that fit in the 1020 trays. By doing it this method we can continue to keep the seedlings moist until they are 3..4 months old.  We will post images later.

Question: Hi! I own two desert rose plants. One is doing better than the other. One plants leaves are brown at the tip of each leaf. Please let me know what is causing this problem. I water them once a week when the soil is dry. I fertilize the adeniums with Miracle Grow once a month and also feed them some phosphorus. Location: Massachusetts. Growing indoors south facing 4 hours of light a day. I have asked plant stores in my area how to care for them but no one knows. I am glad I found your website! I appreciate your help! Thank you.

 Answer: Right off the bat I would say no to add more phosphorus. Also, Miiracle-Gro is not the best thing for adeniums due to their mix of minerals. Mircle-Gro is missing some vital nutrients for adeniums including silica and the right type of nutrients.  We have done comparisons between Mircle-Gro and Dyna-gro grow with 50% better results in all around grow and health (resistance to problems) with Dyan-Gro Grow.

Watering: it’s spring time in your area so I would water the desert rose plant twice a week making sure the water drains well so the soil has time to dry out.    If the leaves are brown tipped (not black) it means  too little water or not getting the right nutrients into the plant to transport the nutrients to the leaves.You need to eliminate one possible cause at a time. I would first increase the watering to twice a week.

The problem of getting fast results in your Northern states is the low number of hours of light and not growing outside in full light. South facing is fine except glass windows do filter light a bit so it not like being outdoors. The adenium plant will grow fine however; it will grow slower than if it was outside.  If the desert rose plant is an area of your house where you have indoor lights on – maybe  switch one of the light bulbs with a grow bulb so it gets a bit more light per day too.

Question: I should be receiving some new adeniums from you in a few days. I would like to grow them for increased caudex size and height. How do you think I should plant them in order to maximize their growth? Should I start them in a shallow bonsai pot then transition to a deeper pot once I’m happy with the caudex size?

Answer: The biggest one thing you should do is to use Bonsai pot so the roots are forced to spread out not down. Also, the pot should be size properly for the plant – no more than 1.5 to 2 inches beyond the current caudex. I did not check what part of the country you are located but we recommended re-potting once every 6 months of growing.

When you pot the adenium plant arrange the roots to grow outward. You may need to use aluminum bonsai wire to hold the plant down in your pot. Remember to check the wire once a month to make sure it not causing damage to parts of the adenium plant. Do not wire the roots of the desert rose plant. Sometimes we place rocks under the center of the plant or in-between roots to help force the adenium plants caudex to grow in a particular arrangement. Use Dyna-gro K-L-N once every three months to give the roots a boost and on the other months use Dyna-grow one watering (not when you see flower or flower buds or you tee flower may drop).

Adeniums are not usually grown for height. Yes, the desert rose plant will grow very height with extremely large caudex over it’s life time in the wild (200-300 years). We have one that we continually crop at 4..5 feet tall with a base of over 48″ round that it over 25yrs old in a 30 gallon pot. This adenium plant started as a standard size desert rose plant about 22yrs ago (NO the image to the right is not the pant – ours is not blooming now).  Growing tall and growing large caudex is not something you do at one time. To force caudex growth you need to crop the desert rose plant branches to keep the growth towards the bottom of the plant. If you want to grow it tall you need to let the branches grow which takes away from growing the caudex wide/fat. We recommend growing the caudex first fat because you need to crop the branches during this process.

When you crop the desert rose branches usually 2 or more new branches will takes it place which will help the plant caudex to grow faster so you will need to re-pot more often. When you re-pot you expose more roots above the soil so the plant get taller above the soil line too.Please see other articles about cropping adeniums, growing adeniums on this blog.