Mike,
The desert roses I bought from you just finished blooming. They were beautiful! The mystery plant bloomed a very pretty triple pink! I was so delighted that I took the chance.
I am thinking of pruning them. Should I do it now or wait for spring? I live in Chicago. And they are in a green house – happy and healthy.
How long after pruning can I fertilize?
Thanks!
Soledad
If you have another month of growing season fro your desert rose plants go ahead and crop them. Make sure you do you leave at least 4” above the graft line. Are you cropping them to help the caudex to grow or are you trying to get more branches? Otherwise if the adenium is growing in the manner you want leave it alone. Adenium plants do not need to be cropped l Desert rose plants are cropped to make it grow a certain way either bonsai, to increase the number of branches or fatten the caudex of the desert rose plant. They do not need to be cropped to get them to flower next growing season as some regular non-succulent plant.
Mike
Thank you for your reply
I kind of want them do both – make more branches so I can shape them like a bonsai and to get bigger/more interesting caudex and root system. Like the ones I see in garden shows.
So, how long after prunning can I fertilize?
I would not fertilize until 3..4 months after cropping the branches. Wait until the new branches are well established – about 2″ long. Mike
I have 10 Adenium’s and love them all but this summer only 2 have bloomed. I live in the Palm Springs, Ca area so it gets HOT here during the summer. I water twice a week during the summer and maybe twice a week in winter, I feed with a 15-30-15 and use cactus soil in pots. The leafs are nice and green and there are no mites so what am I doing wrong? Also when is the best time to trim them when they get leggy here in the desert? Thank you for any help you might have for me. .E
Answer: The fertilizer can be the problem and I would water the desert rose more than twice a week in the spring/summer/early Fall. 15-30-15 is the wrong mix for the adenium plants. If you are using the right soil I would recommend at least 3 times a week and use a time released fertilizer that has low nitrogen (the first number) . We use a time released 6-6-6 fertilizer. Fertilize twice a year once after they blooming season and once in early December so the adenium plant has the nutrients need to bloom in the spring. Only use a teaspoon per plant! Also, start the heavier watering in early March because your weather is already warm by that time and you need to give the Adenium water so it have energy to produce flowers. The water releases some of the nutrients in the time released fertilizer.
Mike
Thank you so much Mike I soooo appreciate your help. I will be ordering your fertilizer right away.
Thank you and haev a great time growing adenium plants.
I would like to know if a dessert rose plant can be cloned, if so how should i go about it? I also hear they have seeds. What time of year do they seed so i can watch more carefully for them?
You can graft a cutting of a hybird plant onto a standard adenium plant. The seeds of a standard adenium can be planted and they will look like the mother plant. However, the seeds from a grafted desert rose plant and every seed grown adenium hybird plants will flower about 50% to 60% like the parent plant. Seed pods usually start to show up in the plants that are 5+ years old.
Hello everybody! I am a huge fan of desert rose 🙂 I am using fertilizer 20-20-20 is it a right one. My desert roses are growing some new leaves after all of them were fallen due to small white spots on them. what did ii do wrong?? Tks
White spots are usually insects (spider mites). 20-20-20 is the wrong fertilizer fro adeniums and other succulents. I used 20-20-20 for orchids. The first number refers to nitrogen content whihc needs to be below 10% use time released fertilizer not liquid for adeniums. Only use liquid BEFORE SPRING time fro 1 month to induce flowering and make sure the first number is 10 or lower. We use 10-30-20 January/February to induce adenium desert rose flowering.
my 4 seed pods are still hanging on, after 3 mos.
should i remove them, cut them off—open???
intend to try growing from seed, have your good soil just arrived, can u help??
thanks
ED HALL
wait until they start to open. It’s getting late in the season so the adenium plants seed pod may not mature.
My desert roses are almost finish blooming should I trim them now or wait until the leaves fall off
The leaves should not fall of after blooming. Yes now the time to prune the branches since the adenium plant has finished flowering.
Hi, I’m not sure how this site works, but I need advice on pruning my desert rose. I would like to send a picture (not sure how). I live in Honolulu. I was out of state and my desert rose was left in a very over grown part of the yard. It didn’t bloom last year, but it is this year. I’ve talked to several people about pruning, but most say my plant is “too old” (it’s approximately 10+ yrs old) and that it will probably die if I prune it. I would like to have more branches/flowers and overall a healthier plant. Also I was just curious could Ultra Epson Salt be use as a fertilizer?
Pruning will not damage a old adenium. In fact large awarded winning adeniums that are over 20 yrs old are prune all the time. Just like bonsai plants prune to shape the plant and to force growth of new branches.
Hi, I am an 88 year man and live in a condo, facing West, innChicago.
I have a desert rose given to me a year and it was very small.
I had it on my balcony and brought it indoors at the start of winter.
I water the plant approx. every 10 days.
It has now almost doubled its size with a profusion of dark, large, healthy leaves. No flowers.
The plant looks as though it requires some drastic pruning be.
Question. Is now the time to prune. If so, and I am an absolute rookie, I would really appreciate advise on how to do so.
Thank you and looking forward to much needed advice.
I would’ve liked to forward you a photograph but do not know how to do so.
Joseph Goldberg.
Do not prune until after it flowers and no later than the end of June in your location.
I live in new york. Just got a desert rose grown from seeds from a woman in queens. The plant came and a few days later a flower opened. I have 2-3 flowers left that have yet to open. I water it twice a week. I want the plant to have that bonsai look that i love. Should i shape it with wire, trim it. I dont know what to do or when to do it. Any help you can give will be appreciated. Thank you.
The plant has 3 stalks 12-15 inches each.
depending upon your growing area. If you still haev 1 month of growing season left you can crop the branches. Otherwise crop after they flwoer next spring.
The first step is to grow the caudex larger. Are you growing it in a bonsai style pot to force the roots to grow wider? Yes you can wire the branches but not tight because the branches will snap.
I live in Kentucky and have a desert rose that is about 19 years old. The branches of the plant have become to long and need to be pruned. I have never pruned this plant, and the plant has less and less leaves in the winter months (dormant?). Should I prune right after it flowers in the summer, or during the winter season? Please advise. Thank you.
Correct prune after they flower in 2016.
High
I am said from Cairo-Egypt.
I got a desert rose about 15-20 days ago.
I realized that it is planted in only pitmous. I decided to repot it . While preparing to repot I found out that parts of the roots are black so I removed and cut all the black rotten parts. Then I put the roots in copper oxiclor for around 10-15 minutes. Then I planted it in soil mix consisting of 50% perlite and 25%pitmous and the bottom with small stones and a little building sand and added to the very top some small marble stones. And watered it very well and kept in the shade.
Temperatures here are 22-25c and 12-15 at night. Should I do something differently and when do I have to water it again
I would increase the perlite to 70%. What is pitmous? Do you mean peat moss? If yes then do not use it what so ever. On top of this blog in the search put “Soil” and you will get if on the proper soil mix.
Hi we live in Western Australia and just bought a 5 year old desert rose , our problem is winter is nearly here , we are bringing plant in overnight , but it’s still flowering….! Should we prune now prior to the onset of the real cold or wait until spring please help !
I would not prune unless you haev 2 months of growing season left to give then time to recover Wait until next season.
I live in Galveston TX I have 2 large desert Rose who flowered beautifully this spring. 3 questions… I was told it will flower 2x’s a year spring & fall is that correct?… And it’s very hot here now can I trim it now or wait til it’s cooler? Most important question where do I make the cut at the branch intersection or where?
Desert rose plant are spring bloomers in your area. Sometimes they bloom twice a year but that is an exception. if you use a bloom fertilizer you can get more blooms. Now is the time to crop when you still haev a couple months of growing season left.
Hi,
My desert rose is just finished blooming. It is a right time to prune it or should I waint until spring?
Thanks
Yes, if you still have two months of growing season left. If you live in the north and you can provide supplemental lighting to extend your growing season then OK. Remember to let the cut heal over for 7 days before getting it wet (the cut). Yes, water the desert rose plants and give it a fertilizer boost.
Hello there,
I leave in Bermuda and I just bought 4 desert rose plants about 3 months ago. They were about 2 inches high. Very small. 2 of them are growing pretty fast, one seems to be growing slower, however one of them looks as if it doesnt’t grow at all (Still green though). I decided to re-pot that one and when I took it out of the soil, I noticed as if it was squashed in the middle of its thin trunk. So i cut that part off, leaving me with 2 parts of the plant, the root and the top part with the leaves. I put them in a small glass with some water to grow roots and eventually re-plant. Was that a good decision? I have no idea how to grow desert rose beside what I read on google. 🙂 please give me some advise
Many thanks.
Most likely your plant is dead. Desert roses are not a tropical plant. An 2″ high plant is a seedling just starting to grow. Growing seedlings is not a thing for beginners because they have different requirements than mature plants.
Hello! I am wondering if I need to pull the leaves off that are growing low on the branches before wiring them? Does pulling leaves mean more branches or is that only from clipping actual branches? Also, I really would love to do a wind swept look with a bent over fat caudex. When raising the caudex do I rest it slightly on its side resting on styrofoam or a bottle or something? And I also would like to know how long I leave the wire on for the branch to stay in that position permanently and how long the bottle should stay in place/ time for roots to permanently stay in place and support plant?? Thanks so much!!!
Yes rest it at an angle now. When you wire do not wire tight. Adeniums branches break easily so be careful. Cropping branches will cause new branches to come up – not removing leaves. Unless you are in the southern states this is not a time to crop branches because your adenium plant may start its dormancy period very soon.
Hi there,
I live in South Eastern KY and have brought my plant from Tucson AZ. We have been here about a year and a half now and I haven’t trimmed it since moving. I was hoping I could trim now, at the end of the growing season, but from reading comments on the internet, it seems it might be best to wait until next spring/summer. Currently, leaves are starting to fall off, but I think it is because there are aphids that I have had a very hard time getting rid of.. Do you have any suggestions??
Many thanks!
Crop in spring – I assume you are talking about adeniums. Your plant is going dormant so remove all leaves and spring plant with a natural insecticide.
Hai.have an adenium plant that is thin n tall about two feet….the two small bunch of blooms and flowers are right at the top and there are no other branches. The flowers have started withering now. I live in South India in kerala,where it is humid as close to the,sea n warm too. What do u advise me to do to get more branches,if I cut, then it is just a tall stub. and must I cut away the,withered flowers.thank you and,appreciate your inputs.
You need to crop the branches to force new branches. We had one that was about 4 feet tall with 6 main branches and we cropped it back to 18″ (about 6 inches above the caudex) last year. Now it has over 10 branches.
Await your advise
I have a dessert rose, and need to prune it. I live in Central Florida and it is still pretty warm here (at least this year it has been). I had transplanted in late summer due to the fact that it got too big for the pot and the roots were coming out of the bottom. When I went to transplant it, some of the slightly larger roots were soft, but I trimmed those and cleaned the root system before transplanting in a larger, wider pot. The leaves before that had started to fall off, and there was some mite damage and mealy bugs, but got that cleared up. Now it has no leaves or flowers, but I noticed one of the little branches near the cadux has a leaf (yea)..thought it had died. Now that I’ve seen this, I need to trim it as it has one tall branches with 3 extended branches from it that are also fairly long. Can I cut it now before I see more leaf growth, and how do I go about it…slice it sideways or a straight cut, and how far down. Thank you so much in advance.
I would wait until February in your area when you see more growth.
Hi i live in south east queensland in australia and have a large desert rose with about nine long branches and i want to prune them can i cut all of them at once and whens the best time to prune it still has flowers but its almost the end of january any advice would be appreciated thanks
Prune the desert rose after it flowers when you still have 2 months of growing season. I would prune 50% now and 50% later so the plant still has leaves to collect energy.
hello,
I live in gulf coast area of florida, near sarasota…have a desert rose approx. 4-6 years old….has been blooming well. It has 4 main branches coming off the trunk of the plant approx. foot and a half high with some aux. branches. It currently has some green leaves and is beginning to bloom. My question is about pruning, being it is March with the growing season ahead, should it be pruned now to make more bushy for leaf and bloom growth or should pruning wait until the fall ? Your expertise is appreciated.
OK – since you live in Florida your growing season in about 10 months long. I woudl go ahead and crop now so it has a full season to grow new branches and flower.
Hey!!! I live in Gaffney S.C. I’ve had my desert rose 4 yrs now. I haven’t put it outside yet since the weather at night has still been cool; so it’s still in my basement under grow lamps…. Is it to late to prune it back???? I also have a couple of seedlings I planted last year and they are just one big stalk. Can I prune them back as well?? Should I water them before pruning them back? Or water after pruning? I should be putting them outside in the next week or two. Thanks!!!!
Yes you can crop them both. You can water before or after cropping just as long as the cut area stays dry. Adding some Dyna-Gro K-L-N would greatly help it grow after cropping.
I’ve been growing adeniums from seed for a year and a half. I have about 30, or so, plants at different stages of development. I’ve never pruned my plants, but want to. Is there a “rule of thumb” for when is the right time for the first trimming. For example, “The adenium stem should be at least ___ inches tall from the junction with the caudex to the base of the tallest leaf” OR “crop the stem at the first repotting” OR “prune after the seedling is ___ months old” OR something else. I live in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Thanks.
Prune when you still have 2..3 months of growing season. There is not 100% rule on pruning. We prune our seedlings when they aer 1yr old at whihc point they haev at lease 1″ caudex width.
Greetings from Malaysia. I just received 3 young plants. About 12” tall. 2 of the plant has new branches. But about 1cm long. My question is, can i prune the tall original branch? And the no branch plant, can I prune it as well? Will the new branch come out? Appreciate your kind reply. I’m new with adenium btw. Thanking you in advance.
If its a grafted plant leave at least 3″ above the graft line.
Hi greeting from Singapore! I’m have a few pots of adenium plants but I don’t really know how to take care of them. Can I leave the plants under sun and rain? And how much water I should put ? Currently the plants are under rain and shine but due to the very hot weather here the leaves are turning brown and I’m watering it daily but with small amount. I would also like to know if hat fertilizer is best for adenium plants as I’m using all kinds. I would like to learn more to take care of them. Appreciate your helpful advice and thanks in advance 🙏.
Hi: There are many articles on watering and growing adenium plants on this site. Use the top search area and put in the keywords “Soil”, “adenium”, desert rose”, etc. Thank you