Month: March 2015

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Adenium plants and plumeria plants – Its Spring

The adeniums are blooming in south Florida. The plumeria plants are starting to leaf and some are sending out flower spikes.  Due to Florida’s long growing season we usually get 2 and sometimes 3 blooms a year from a adenium plant. Not all adeniums will bloom multiple times a year but some will.

People in the northern states should already be using a fertilizer because the adenium plants may not look like it but they should be coming out of dormancy in your areas. If you do not fertilize your desert roses all the time then start with a diluted amount fro the first 2 watering to prevent plant shock.

If you are growing adenium plants from seeds NOW IS the time!  We sowed our first 3,000 seeds last month and the plants are doing great.  Two weeks ago we plant the first plumeria seeds. We are not using any artificial lights or warmers what-so-ever in our area. We use very high domes over 20×10 trays. The seeds are group planted about 200 adenium seeds per tray.  We lift the domes once a week to all fresh air and that’s it!

The plumeria plants received last year un-rooted are just about all starting to leaf. In a month we are schedule to check the root systems. If all goes well the plumeria plants will be offered starting in early summer. There are about 6..8 varieties of dwarf plumeria plants in stock. Dwarf plumerias limb segments are shorter and the plants grow from 2 to 3 meters tall when planted in the ground. Yes, you can grow them in large pots too!  Just like adenium plants; some plumeria plants bloom before the leaf and other leaf before they bloom.

 

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Adenium seeds and desert rose seedling growing – the Truth

Question: 1) I want to buy a 5-pack, looked at gallery, way too many choices, thought I’d never get to the end without fainting over the beautiful flowers. I don’t know much about these flowers. Are they easy to grow? Don’t mind under watering?

Questions 2: I saw people selling seeds on eBay. I hate growing anything from seeds, never works. But I was curious, can they be grown from seed successfully?

Question 3) But don’t adeniums have to be grafted into another plant in order to grow? I saw a couple colors you don’t have so I’m wondering if it’s possible to grow from seed and what it might entail because I know I can’t graft anything.

Question  4) It will take me a week to figure out which 5 adenium plants I want. We’re below freezing here now. When could the desert rose plants be shipped safely?

Answer: 1) Adeniums and other similar succulents or cactus are water thrifty plants. It’s better to under water them than to over water them.

Answer 2) You can grow adeniums by seed. Adenium seeds are slow growers when compared to annuals and other non desert plants. Adenium seeds once grown are NOT TRUE to their mother plant flowers 80% of the time! On the average, adeniums take 3 years to bloom from seed if grown right.  Just about all adenium seed sellers on EBay do not tell you the truth. They show you a flower type but fail to tell you that the adenium hybrid seed resulting plant 80% of the time flower will NOT look like the hybrid flower they show you. We offer seedlings, not seeds at the present time.  Epicgrower Company seedling description is 100% clear we do no guarantee flower type from the seedlings. We have at any one time 3,000 to 4,000 seedlings growing.

Answer 3) Grafted plants are the only way to guaranteed that the flowers are true. However, again many people on EBay show modified images of flowers and many times what you get is not the flower as shown. Epicgrower Company gets plants directly from Thailand (we are a licenses importer of the plants and seeds) and until we see them flower we mark them NOT proven. Not proven means the image from the Thailand grower is not always 100% accurate. AdeniumRose Company has changed plant suppliers a little over a year ago. The current suppliers are much more accurate in the images they supply to us.  Presently, the Not Proven adenium grafted plants are 93% accurate to what we actually see when they bloom here in the USA.

Answer 4) We ship adenium plants and other succulent / cactus plants in winter using  72 heat packs to cold locations. Depending upon your location we hold succulent plant shipments for Monday for locations further than 3 days away. However, you must be at your location to receive the adenium and other plants to protect them from the outside weather. In the summer it’s 100% opposite – we put holes in the boxes, use paper instead of plastic (plastic retains heat) and again try to time our shipments so we plants are not harmed due to excessive heat.