Category: Growing desert roses Adenium plants

First of all a desert rose plant is NOT a rose bush. May times every year we get questions concerning rose bushes when people read desert roses. The “desert roses” is the common name for adeniums plants. Adeniums are semi-evergreen succulent’s plants with spectacular flowers.  Adeniums will drop leaves when they experience cold weather, when transplanted or when sunlight is greatly reduced.  It’s normal for desert roses to go dormant for several months during winter periods or periods of drought. Desert rose plants are easy to grow and maintain if planted properly.

They are fantastic container plans, however, they do require a good amount of sunlight to grow and flower. Over the past few years adenium plant flowers have be cultivated to produce flowers that rival “Rose Bush” flowers.

Adenium plant hybrids are cultivation with colors ranging form pure white, mauve, pink, bright red, yellows, purple, violet and some with almost black edge. Plus the adenium flower hybrids haev multiple layers of pedals with some that look just like rose bush flowers but not. They are highly prized by collectors throughout the world in all climates. One note of caution the sap from the adeniums are poisonous is quantity.  If you want to see samples of adenium desert rose plants flowers go to Epic Grower Company’s photo gallery. The photo gallery is continually updated with new hybrid adenium flower plants for review.

Desert rose plants, adeniums, species: Adenium swazicum, Adenium somalense, Adenium arabicum, Adenium boehmianum, Adenium multiflorum, Adenium crispum, Adenium obesum. The adenium, desert rose, plants are now available in many spectacular hybrids. The plants are very similar in care as orchid plants and other succulents. They like to be crowed in pots to develop large caudexes (exposed root systems).

The main secret that you show know when developing a bonsai look for you adenium plant is to raise the roots a bit every time you re-pot to expose a portion of the old root above the soil line. In our area, many times we need to re-pot or raise the roots once every six months. On adenium seedlings we re-pot the plat at 3, 6 and 9 months. Then the adenium plants are re-potted every 6 months depending upon the plant development. Usually by 9 months the caudex is 1.5 to 1.5 inches in size (the caudex width) on desert rose seedlings.

In addition you will need some fertilizer to increase the root/trunk size of the adenium plant. Before applying the fertilizer to your adenium plant, water the desert rose plant it slightly to avoid burning of the roots and leaves.Look for other articles on fertilizer and how often to fertilize desert rose plants.

This will be a short post on adenium plants, desert roses, growing tips concerning minerals and fertilizing the plants. There are many articles on how to fertilize your adenium plants and seedlings. Most articles say you do not need to fertilize much or if you do make sure the nitrogen level is very low.  What many of the adenium plant growing tips do not mention is the micro minerals you need to add to the soil if you are having problems blooming and if you have leaf discoloration. Not all cactus and succulent fertilizers are the same. Many do not include micro minerals all adeniums and other succulents need to produce flowers and green leaves.

Recently I have started to experiment with different fertilizers and micro-nutrients for my adenium plants – also know as desert roses. I started to added cold process seaweed extract and a root hormone to our regular fertilizer to see if the desert rose plant grows more flowers, produces richer green leaves and faster caudex growth. This is based on a recommendation from some Thailand growers.  This is a liquid not time release micro-nutrient supplement.  We will spray the base of approximately 50 adenium plants (control group) over the next four months (once every 3 weeks) to see if the adeniums grow faster or better than ones using our regular time released fertilizer. We will post updates to this experiment as the adenium plants growing progress.

Adeniums are not your fast growing plants unless you are in the proper growing zone where you can expect noticeable caudex and branch growth over a couple month period. when using bonsai techniques on your desert rose plant (adenium) you need to take extra care to prevent branch breakage and wrapping wire too tight around the trunk and branches.  If you bonsai wire wrap the branches too tight without allowing for adenium plant growth you will get indentations on the trunks.

Adenium can be bonsai into canopy type plants over the years. the image on this post is an example of a 8 year old bonsai adenium desert rose plant with a canopy (expanded top) growing style.  Yes, it took time and extermination with wire wrapping methods to produce this result. However, it was worth the effort in learning how to bonsai adeniums in a different style than wind swept type you see all the time. The adenium bonsai has a caudex width of 10″ and dept of 8″. The canopy of the bonsai is 23″ round.  Notice most of the left growth is towards the end of the branches. This is normal with an adenium bonsai. Now I plant to work on adding branches more evenly on the canopy. It will take a couple years to achieve this on this adenium desert rose plant bonsai.

In our area, South Florida, growing season is just about year round for adenium plants. During the winter months is our dry season so with summer around the corner  with its constant daily rains now the time to check you desert rose plants condition.  If you are in a true winter area you need to do this in the fall before your rain season starts.

Do a soil drainage test to make sure it does not hold water that causes adenium root rot. Now, make sure you have plenty of air space around the container for the same reason. If water drains from the pot but puddles on the self it can cause fungus growth under the leaves of the desert rose plant from evaporation.  In our area fungus is always a problem with the summer rains and very high humidity.

When you do water try not to wet the leaves. If you have hard water consider an alternative because acidic water tends to sour the soil too fast and may cause root rot on your adenium. Water desert rose plants preferably in the early morning, and allow them to drink up throughout the day. Watering adeniums can be done daily to every few days. Never allow your desert rose plants to sit in a saucer of water and do not allow them to dry out too often which causes adeniums to go into early dormancy.

Growing adeniums is easy if  you take a few precautions. Look in previous post and Epic Grower company website for more growing information and tips. Also, if you plant to bonsai your adenium plant now is the time to wire wrap before the leaves start growing. It’s always easier to wrap when the adenium plant has less leaves.  Remember you want to do a loose wire wrap around the branches to allow room for trunk and branch growth on the desert rose plant.

I just received a questions about how long it takes for an adenium seed to germinate. The answer is simple if you have the right growing conditions. First, growing adenium plants by seeds is a low cost method of starting a desert rose plant collection. You can obtain adenium seeds for a few dollars  (packs of 10 of 20) of various flower types. However, you need to remember until the seed bloom you will not know if the plant flower is anything like the parent plant. Only a percentage of adenium seeds will grow into plants with the same flowers of its parents.

Now back to the question. If you have fresh adenium plant seeds and you are growing them in the right condition they will germinate in 5 to 7 days.  yes, I have see some germinate in three days and some 2 weeks.  But 95% will germinate in 5 to 7 days if the seeds are fresh. The majority of the ones that take 10 to 14 to germinate tend to be weaker plants and older seeds.  We have had great success growing adenium seeds under LED lights using tri-band and even some dual band lights. After the seedlings are over 3 months old the adenium plant seedlings are totally removed from the LED and grow under natural light.

We use standard 10×20 trays (the ones with holes/slots all around the sides) and keep the desert rose plants moist by misting them using spray bottles.  Yes, we dome the trays until the adenium seedlings are 1 month old.  If you have any questions concerning growing adenium plants and seeds please let me know. Have a great time growing and collecting adenium, desert rose plants.

Several people have asked about the Ebay plants offered by EPic Grower Company (Azurite Ebay name) verses the ones offered on the website. when bidding on the adenium, desert rose, plans offered on Ebay, you will receive the exact plant you see in the image. On the website we pick the plants.  So whats’ the difference?

People collect adeniums, desert rose, plants for the flowers and the shape of the actual plant. The caudex, exposed root system has a natural bonsai look. Many prefer to see the exact shape of the caudex of the adenium plant before buying.  The AdeniumRose company has hundreds of adenium plants and seedlings at any one time. the AdeniumRose website shows the flower but not the caudex because listing every plant separate would be a huge time consuming task. Instead, we list the quantity of each desert rose plant we have in stock based on the flower name.

Also, Ebay allows us to offer larger adenium plants and sometimes desert rose plants of a particular flower which we have only 1..2 of them in stock.  Plus, we will be listing some true bonsai shaped adeniums too on Ebay.  When you order from the website our staff select the adenium plant Our staff does pick quality ones based on stock on hand. They first look at the overall health, number of branches and then the adenium plants caudex.

Several people have ask about the grafts and the age of the plant we use as the base of the adenium graft. First, the base adenium, desert rose, plant we use as grafting material is an 3yr old Adenium with a caudex of approximately 3″ or larger. Adenium plant that is 3yrs old is well established, it has been growing outside in the elements so it disease resistant and the trunk is large enough to accept a good size graft or several adenium hybrid grafts.

When grafting we select a adenium branch or branches that are at least 3″ long from a plant that is 3..5 years old. We do not graft adenium seedlings or branches from young adeniums for the same reason we use at least a 3yr adenium stock plant to graft onto. The healthier the adenium plant and adenium graft the better chance the graft holds and stays healthy.

Grafting adenium plants is not a hard process. However if you do not take proper precautions your adenium, desert rose, plant graft will fail. You need to use very healthy plants, sterile tools, proper size of grafting area,  proper wrapping and other procedures to get the adenium graft to work. The Epic Grower Company waits a full 8 months or more which means 2 flowering cycles before offering grafted adenium plants. In addition the plant must be growing outdoors at least 6 months to make sure its healthy and resistant to problems. Desert rose plants are very hearty and graft well under the right conditions.

This is a followup article on names of plants, adenium plant flower colors and images that are photo shopped to change the colors. First the majority of the plants and seeds of hybrid adenium, desert rose, plants come from Thailand, India or other Asian countries.  Part of the problem is the language and part is true distortion of the actual plant flower color to sell more adenium plants

The majority of the Ebay adenium seed selling members greatly alter flower image colors. Not all of sellers alter images of the adenium flowers but a majority do. Even the names distort the truth of the adenium plant flower colors.

Case in point is “Purple  Rain”.  Look at the the adenium images images in this article. You and will notice its not actually purple. It’s more like a dark magenta with a purple tendency.  It’s a great medium size adenium flowering plant but it’s not purple.

The image in this article is NOT altered at all. It’s still a fantastic looking adenium plant. The color variations on the pedals makes this an adenium I highly prize. Just beware of altered images and names people give to adenium plants. To see more images, 100% NOT altered, visit a AdeniumRose Company website photo gallery.  Collecting adenium plants is a great hobby and come back for more images/articles concerning adenium growing and plants.

If you look at various adenium plant selling sites you will notice a wide range of names and colors. Adenium plant flowers come in many different shade of white, reds, pink, yellow, burgundy almost black and mixtures of these colors.  However, you need to be careful in when selecting colors on websites because many of the images are graphically changed. One of the worst ones we see on the internet are magenta and black looking flowers on the adenium plants.

Look at the image on this post and you will see a middle of the road red and a true magenta size by side. There is a color different but not the extreme over saturated magenta you see on some Ebay seed selling auctions. You will notice the adenium succulent plant magenta color flower is a red magenta not the more purple you see on Ebay.  The adenium plant flower picture were taken in normal sun light.  Notice the magenta color does have a bit of  richer magenta pedal color towards the edge of the adenium plant. The images of the desert rose succulent plant where not enhanced in anyway. It is a shade of magenta but do not get fooled by images you see on Ebay.  If you want to see true images of adenium plants check out adeniumrose website or photo gallery. Images of UN-enhanced succulent desert rose adenium plants will start going up on the photo gallery this week.