Author: epic_admin

The last post showed a adenium hybrid flower type with images from Thailand and images of the actual flower once it bloomed in our AdeniumRose Company nursery in South Florida. This is a continual problem with images received form growers in Thailand and other parts of the world. The adenium plants flowers images are greatly changed, enhanced and distorted to get you to buy plants from them. It’s a buyer beware when purchasing from most foreign desert rose plant growers.

Here is another example of two images of adenium flowers. The desert rose plant image with the stripes is the one sent to us by a grower in Thailand. Its a good looking flower; however the problem is that the actual flower looks

much, much different! Either Thailand mislabeled about 100 plants or then just plain lied about the flower type.

Look at the yellow actual flower image of the desert rose adenium plant.  It’s a true yellow with pink on edges and sometimes on different areas of the petals.  We received these desert rose pants in June 2012. They are starting to bloom now (so far 8 have bloomed) and all are yellow with either pink edges or pink on the first layer of this triple layer adenium plants flowers.  this is one adenium plant flower type we are not complaining about to the grower because rich solid yellows are one of he rarest hybrids and most wanted by collectors in the USA.

With Fall just around the corner it is now time to check your Adenium obesum for problems before they go dormant for the winter. There is still some adenium growing time so take care of problems now. One of the most common problems is stem root and leaf disease.  Stem rot occurs on the tips of the adenium desert rose plants and progresses down the stem. Leaf rot occurs in adeniums when the leaf is continually wet.

Fist, leaf rot in adeniums is the easy to treat. Just remove the effective leafs on the desert rose plant. Then move the plants location so the leaves dry out. When you water, try not to wet the leaves or put the adenium in a place where the leaves dry quickly. Do not water adeniums in the evenings. If you are in the tropics or desert this is not usually a problem because the nights are  warm enough to dry out the leaves of the adeniums fast.

Stem Roots Rot

Desert rose plant stem root is caused by a fungus. It’s the most common problem with adeniums. The adenium rot is either black, dark drown or yellow.  The actual desert rose rot part can be wet or dry and it processes down the stem of the adenium.  When we see this we do not wait for he plant to fight the problem. We cut the effective part off the plant. When cutting off the stem make sure you look inside the stem. The cut the branch  far enough down so you only see good tissue with discoloration. Adeniums may stop this rot by forming a abscission zone. This zone happens more in desert regains than in tropical, humid and cooler climates. One sure sign of stem rot on desert rose plants adenium obesum is when the leaves start to fall of on the tip and turn brown.

White leaf fungus on adeniums

There is one leaf disease reported that we have not seen yet. It’s a white fungal adenium disease that affects the leaf first and then kills the rest of the plant. The fungus will spread to other adeniums quickly.  If you encounter this problem remove the diseased desert rose plant to an insulation area.  If the problem gets to the stem then the plant usually dies. Again the main cause of this and other leaf problem is caused by to much water. It’s important that the leaf of the desert rose plants does not stay continually wet.

I’m having a problem with one of my adeniums. I obtain 3 desert roses of them at the same time and place. All are about 1 year old  One of my 3 pack collection is dying? Why?- Sal

I need a bit more information on this adenium problem please answer these questions:

1. How often do you water and is the soil completely dry in-between watering?

2. What type of soil are you using for you adeniums?

3.  How often you water the desert roses and how much sunlight they are getting indoors or outside. If you fertilized them or not. Send an image if possible too. – Mike

I used cactus soil for the desert roses. They are planted in the same condition. All other
are fine, just this one the leaves are yellow one by one. I touch the
trunk, it’s soft compared to others. It’s always in sunny location & drain soil. – Sal

Sounds like you are doing everything right. I wonder if it got a fungus or a bug. Have you treated with a fungicide?  I would take the adenium out of the pot. Clean all the soil off the plant. Dip it in superthrive for 1.. 2 minutes (roots only) and re-pot it using fresh soil. Then do not water for two days to give the micro nutrients in superthrive to do some work.  Make sure the soil does not have any peat if possible. Add some more very small nonporous sanitized rocks to the cactus soil mix (about 10%). Cactus soil is not the best for adeniums because 90% contain peat and have too much soil.  Adeniums liek very loose airy soil. Also, since the leaves are falling off I would take them all off in case they have a fungus or a micro bug.

Each differently type of adeniums grow at different rates and some are stronger than others. They may all have been hit with the same problem but only on shows signs because of the variety.  – Mike

It has been a busy summer growing the adenium desert roses plants. In the past two months our nursery has received daily heavy rain except for 4 days. We are not taking about a drizzle or a shower. These are heavy thunder storm down pours and in some days over 2″ of rain in a couple hours!  Anyway, we are a bit behind in expanding the growing area due to the weather. AdeniumRose Company is receiving a large shipment of adeniums plants and 7 varieties of euphoria milii “Crown of thorn” plants late tomorrow.

In this shipment will include several new adenium plant hybrid and some high demand desert rose plants we have seen since our last years 2011 late summer shipment (purple rain, jumbo Santa, phamtuna, dang tealwada and others). Go to our photo gallery for more images.

The euphoria milii will be a great addition to the nursery and the shipment will include 7 varieties including several striped ones.  Plus, one blue which is very rare and unusual for a crown of thorn plant.

Here is the image of the euphoria milii crown thorn blue flowering succulent plant. The image seems a bit dark so we expect the actual color of the crown of thorn plant to be a medium blue instead of the royal blue pictured here. When we take the actual photos of the crown of thorn plant we will post an update.

Also, we recently added prickle pears plants with many different color flowers. They are not listed on the AdeniumRose Company website yet, but will be in a couple of months. No, we are not offering prickly pear cactus pads but very well rooted plants. Colors of the cacti prickly pear are yellow, cream, white, peach, red,  orange and other colors. Yes, there will be beaver tail plants too! We already haev a few bloom and the images will be posted in a few weeks of the succulent cactus.

     We recently received a couple questions concerning the adenium or desert rose plants caudex being a bit pliable when received recently. AdeniumRose Company LLC ships adenium plants and other succulents everyday except of Fridays. However, we are pulling adenium plants and letting them sit bare root for 2..3 days to dry out a bit before shipping do to constant rain. We have had rain every day (some times thunderstorms that dump tons of rains in a few minutes to all day rain like yesterday) for the last three weeks except for last Thursday so the soil is always moist in the pots. The soil AdeniumRose Company uses for  adeniums drains fast but it still retains some moisture so the roots have time to get water and nutrients.  

     During the tropical raining season in south Florida (during summer) the caudexes are expanding to capture more water so when we pull then the trunks are a pliable. The adenium trunks and caudex has not had time to harden which takes a period of dryness to do. Not everybody understand how succulents and cactus absorb water during raining seasons (expand) and then either contracts or hardens during dry periods. In the raining season (now for us) the caudex grows the most and sometimes feels a bit soft – not rot but not hard either. It is a normal process for adenium and many other tropical succulents. 

   All succulents have some pliable of their trucks and roots. Therefore, we are pulling the adenium plants 2..3 days prior to shipping to give the adenium roots time to dry out a bit. No it takes longer for the adenium plant trunks to harden fully than a few days. The second problem now is that the rest of the USA in having the opposite problem – high heat and very little or no rain. When shipping adenium plants;  the moisture in them gets hot if left in warehouses or hot vehicles. This is the reason we are not shipping desert roses on Fridays. Does this solve all problems associated withe shipping desert rose plants? No – but it take care of most of the adenium problems.

If you have any questions please post them here and we will quickly respond.

 

How much to fertilize, when to and what type of adenium fertilizer should you use?  There has been plenty written about how to fertilize your desert rose plants and what mixture.  There is no one correct single answer.  Some people say to use 20-20-20 or miracle grow with good ok results.  However, the answer is a question: What  is your current desert rose plant growth cycle and what is the age? Is it a mature plant 5yrs plus? Seedlings? or a young 2..4 year old plant?  Depending upon the stage of development and the amount of water the plant received will determine what you should use to growing your adenium plant.

Presently, we use a 7-7-7 time released fertilizer for our desert rose plants that are 3+ years old. This gives them enough fertilizer to promote growth and enough nitrogen (not a lot) for strong flowers buds. The only liquid we use is to supply micro-nutrients once a month during growing season for the adenium hybrids.  Adeniums are desert plants. Yes, they are succulents, however, they like frequent water!  They are more tropical in their growing patterns.

We do not fertilize seedlings at all until the desert rose plants are 6 months year old with a caudex of 1/2″ or more.  At that time we use a 8-9 month  time released fertilizer to help prevent elongation of the adenium plant trunk and grow fatter roots.  In addition we use Dyna-Gro Grow liquid fertilizer to make sure they get the micro nutrients they need. Yes, we do others things to make the adenium roots fatter (cropping, plenty or water,etc.)

Why do we use time released for the desert roses?  Time released fertilizer does not shock the plants, it gives us more relief from frequent adenium care and out plants get tons of water here in south Florida so liquid fertilizer gets wasted out too fast!

One more thing , we do dip our plants roots in a Dyna-Gro K-L-N  for 30 minutes when re-potting. The nutrients and micro-minerals in Dyna-Gro K-L-N really give the plant a boos. On adenium plants received from Thailand (95% leafless bare root plants) the growth hormone to makes the plants burst out with leaves fast. We sue to use Superthrive but Dyna-Gro have more complete micro-minerals needed and the adeniums just do better.

Good morning Mike,

I collected adenium and crown of thorns (Euphorbia milii) Please help me out, I had about 40 pots crown of thorns, many are big. At first I was very excited and buy buy, many of my friends also buy.  From March to May they were beautiful, but from May on, no more bloom. Please help me what fertilizer makes them bloom? I bought super bloom and it doesn’t work. Now that so many pots without blooms, the excitement cool down and I stop buying. I now focus on looking for a house with a big backyard. I needs land for all my plants and space for greenhouse in the winter. Another things, many of my adenium had so many buds, so many of them drop before it open, why why why? Please help me.

Marie

Hi Marie:

We have crown thorns in the grown and in pots. The Euphorbia milii bloom all year round here. In winter (our dry season) they do tend to not flower as much and may shrink a big because they do not get as much water (twice a week during winter) via sprinklers. Crown thorns like to be watered frequently. Our crown of thorns plants get water via nature (in summer it thunderstorms in afternoons about 4 out of 7 days a week) and we just about never get root rot. the soil we use is a little different than the adeniums. We use more soil to help retain some moisture. How much water do you give them?  We use a time released 17-17-17. Also, how much sun do they get?  There are many varieties of crown thorn flowers and three sizes of plants (Dwarf, small and larger).

Adenium buds – It is not their normal flowering season. Most the adeniums energy now is for growth not the flowers.  Usually we have the same problem when we recently repotted the plants (within the first 2..3 months). However, after 4..6 months the buds do not fall off anymore. Its better to give recently planted plants time to grow new roots and branches than it is to have them flower. We are still cropping plants (we did 300 plants last weekend) to create more branches and to grow the caudex at this time. These are some of the ones we received in early May that have really taken off!

Mike

Question:  Hello,First, I have received my order of three plants. I am very happy with them, and will be leaving your positive feedback shortly. Second: Do you have any printed information about the caring of Adenium plants? What is cutting back and how should I do it? I currently have four in four inch pots that I have had since July ’04, and they are just tall and skinny. No signs of looking like any of the plants I have seen with your pictures. One actually bloomed this past week with five huge, white, single petals. No signs of budding on any of the other three. Should I be doing something to encourage blooms? Help…and much thanks for offering such a bargain. I am looking forward to getting them into pots. I have them in shallow water to hydrate them from shipping shock.

Answer: One of the best ways to get answer is to use this blog and post a question about adenium plants. In order to grow fat caudex you need to crop your adeniums, water frequently (make sure you have the proper soil – very fast draining!) and re-pot on a regular basis. Cropping will force new branches. I recommend re-potting once every year or two years in slower growing areas. We grow in a tropical climate so we re-pot young adeniums (6 months to 3yr old desert roses) plants once every 8 months. Not knowing your growing climate limits me to just general information. Fertilize the adenium plant when NOT in bud or flowering using a very low nitrogen formula.

DO NOT LEAVE DESERT ROSE PLANTS IN THE WATER TO RE-hydrate more than 1 hour!!!!  Its much better to plant and water frequently to rehydrate the caudex. The key to watering frequently is the soil you use for your desert rose plant must have plenty of air (use 60%..70% perlite, 10..15% coir, 10% soil with no peat moss and 5% rock) and water 2..3 times a week or more if you are growing the adeniums in a desert or tropical climate.  The coir and soil will retain some moisture but not much. This forces the adeniums root to reach out (created more little roots from the big ones) for water and to store any water it finds in the caudex.

It’s time to crop and bonsai your adenium plant. The growing season is in full swing. You want to give your adenium plants the best chances to sprout new branches and to thicken your caudex. Its way past flowering season for you desert rose plants. Yes, you can have a second flowering if you cropped your plant earlier right after the first flowering of your adenium plant in spring.

Know your growing season! In the north you may only have 5..6 months of plant growing before the weather changes and causes your adenium plant to go dormant. If your desert rose plant has long branches crop them now to give time for new branches to grow before the end of the adenium growing season.If your desert rose plant is tall and has many long branches you may want to consider wiring wrapping them and force then to grow a canopy layer instead of straight up. When you wire wrap your adenium plant make sure you are very careful not to break the branch.

AdeniumRose Company recommends that you deeply water the plant the day BEFORE your wire wrap the desert rose branches. This ensure that the adenium branches are full of water and more pliable. Its better to wire wrap the branches as the adenium plants grow from just a few inches instead of trying to wrap long ones that many break. Have a great summer!