Category: Growing desert roses Adenium plants

Q: I live in New Hampshire. will the desert rose plants, adeniums, grow in my area?

A: Yes we have clients in Maine, NY, MN, ND, Washington State, etc. However, you need to grow them in containers, use the right soil and fertilizers. In the northern states many collectors have greenhouses or a window sun room so you can extend the growing season due your longer winters. The adenium plants, desert rose plants, does not like weather below 40 degrees what so ever. If you do not have a green house or large south facing window to extend your growing season you may want to get a growing light. Do you have to have longer growing season and light to grow them – No. However, they will grow much slower and may not flower in the Spring/early summer as easily. You will need to use fertilizer to help them grow and bloom.

During the winter water them once a month. Use time released 6-6-6 or 6-6-10 fertilizer during the summer months and in the Winter. Use Dyna-Bloom and Dyna-Grow Tekt starting in late winter (March in your area) for two months every other week or until you see flower buds just starting to form.

The grow light or large south facing window is more critical during the late winter early spring in your area. You need to get the adenium plants to warm up (60 to 70 degrees) with longer hours of daylight start to grow to get flower in late Spring/Early summer.

Adenium plants do go dormant and if the plants does not get enough light (6 hours) and warmth starting in late winter (March) to get out of dormancy you may have a hard time getting the desert rose plants to bloom. In England desert plants such as adeniums are very popular, however, they have green houses or growing windows. Their weather the Northern New England states in the USA so if they can grow the desert rose plant and other succulents so can you.

Adenium arabicum plants grown seed produce the most amazing shapes of caudex.  AdeniumRose Company has finally found a reliable source for true arabicon seeds that show the right form, leaf color and trunk. Last year we tested several sources and one company stood out from the rest in the germination percentage from seed, strength of  the seedling and growth of plants form their seeds.

Adenium arabicums plant grows a squat fat form caudex with many branches growing from the caudex. The fat caudex and many branches gives little differentiation between trunk and branches. The leaves are shiny on the upper and lower surface, unlike Adenium obesum. The skin on the plant is has a more purple to dark brown coloration. The pink to deep red number in hundreds on a mature arabicum, flowering succulent, plant due to their many branches coming up from the caudex.

Also, unlike adenium obesums, the adenium arabicum plant makes a perfect base for a true canopy adenium bonsai form. Yes, you can grow a canopy form using adenium obesums but its a bit more difficult to get a full canopy with a plant with on main trunk. In the image of the adenium arabicum plant you will notice its hard to determine where the caudex ends and trunk begins. As the plant grows the caudex get a bit taller so the many branches coming out of the caudex create a canopy that you wire outwards.

Presently, Epic Grower Company is growing adenium arabicums plants from seed and they should be available by next summer as 1 to 1.5 yr old adenium plants. These are true collector plants and grow for their shape verse the flower type. These are the adeniums you would see in a show that produces hundred of flowers per plant with bases of over 4..5 wide with a canopy of over 5..7 feet around.

Good Day: We posted on our Facebook area www.facebook.com/epicgrower that we are doing something different for the first time. We are getting ready to order in more adenium plants from Thailand.  However, instead of AdeniumRose Company selecting the flower types we are asking you to see your top to choices. Once we collect the totals we will review and see if the desert rose plants are available. Please only select adenium plants form the images below.

Ok – here the images of flowering adenium plants to choose your top picks. Please select your top ten choices and either send an email to sales@adeniumrose.com or post your top ten choices here. AdeniumRose Company will review the results and contact Thailand to see if they have them in stock. Please note the images of the adenium plants flowers are from Thailand which are not always accurate.

Please select your top 7 to 10 adenium desert rose plants flower types in the images and send back by the end of the month. When making your choices use the number associated with the image.  These are all hybrid adenium plants – yes we have a couple of these in stock all ready at Epic Grower Company but mostly there are new flower adenium plants from the Thailand growers.  Remember either to send use an email or post the replay here!  We will send an email through our website too because not everybody goes to the blog and Facebook pages.

 

Please select your top 8 adenium desert rose plants flower types in the images and send back by the end of the month. When making your choices use the number associated with the image.  These are all hybrid adenium plants – yes we have a couple of these in stock all ready at Epic Grower Company but mostly there are new flower adenium plants  from the Thailand growers.  Remember either send use an email or post the replay here!  we will send an email through our website too because not everybody goes to the blog and Facebook pages.

It’s time to check your plants before summer gets into full swing!

Summer id here in all the southern states and very soon in the Northern states. It’s times time to check your desert rose plants.  AdeniumRose Company nursery is in South Florida which means afternoon thunderstorms (tons of rain) just about every day, 90%+ humidity and temps in the 90’s! This is the time of year that you need to check you adenium plant soil to insure great drainage and apply fertilizer to the desert rose and other plants.

Summer rains leach out nutrients from the soil. In early May we spread time release fertilizer and now it’s time for a micro-nutrient boost so we are using Dyna-Gro grow with Dyna-Gro TekT to help the plant intake the nutrients and make the leaves more tolerant of water. The time release fertilizer is great as a general season long supply of three basic nutrients but it does not the macro and micro minerals to accelerate the adenium plants growth of thicker and healthier plants. If you have not looked at the site recently go to it and check out the link across the top that says “Growing Healthy Plants”.

Do you have to use the fertilizers to grow plants – no. However, there is a huge different in the health of the plants and speed of growing if you use the right fertilizers and nutrients. P.S. We use the Dyna-Gro Grow and TekT on all our plants not just the adeniums.

Cropping the branches:

Now is the time to crop your desert rose plants branches that are too long to help force the growth of a fatter caudex (exposed root system) and roots in most southern states since it past blooming time. If you are in an area that is getting rain, make sure you protect the cuts from water for 4..5 days to give the cut time to heal over. In Mid and Northern states the same applies to you if you already had a bloom or if you re-potted the pants 30 days or more ago.

Flower buds

We received several questions about adenium plant flower buds dropping and usually the questions were from areas that a strange winter/spring weather. Dropping desert rose plant flower buds (before flowering) is usually cause by three things: abrupt weather change for a few days (warm to cold), the plant not getting the right nutrients and/or fertilizing while the adenium buds are on the plant. Are there other causes – yes but these cover the majority of the loss of buds.

If you have any questions please post them here.

Thank you for you friendship and business Have a Happy Father’s Day and fantastic 4th of July in a couple of weeks.

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.

Questions: How can you be certain that the adenium seeds will produce lowers like the parent of a hybrid plant?

The problem with hybrid adenium desert rose seeds is that only a small percentage actually flowers like the parent plant.  It’s not like annuals flower seeds or vegetables you buy at Walmart, Home Depot, Loews, etc. stores (get what’s on the image).  Adeniums hybrid seeds are from grafted plants that after several years of growing (usually 5…7 years) they produce seed pods.

However, since the grafts where place on adenium plants that are not hybrid the seeds only produce a few plants like the graft and the rest different in some way.  Many collectors are used to buying from eBay expecting the adenium seeds to produce flowers like they seen in the sales image but rarely do.  It takes 2…3 years for adeniums from seeds to flower so by them the buyer usually forgets what they saw on Ebay and it too late to give correct feedback.  In the future Adeniumrose company will offer seeds; however, they will be honest and put up a notice that the adenium seeds are form the Hybrid plants; however, they may be true to the hybrid flower when they bloom.

Special note: Epic Grower Company  just received 5,000 seeds (5 different supplies from Thailand) and will be offering adenium seedlings next Spring 2015. We are using a new growing method to grow the caudex faster on the adeniums plants and will post updates in the future. All the seeds received are supposed to be from double/triple/quad rosy adenium plants but only time will tell.

Question: I purchased three seedlings last year and they all died during the winter. They were keep in my dining room which has a western sun exposure. The soil was a mixture of potting soil and sand. They were watered very little during the winter months

Answer: There are four things that make the plant trunk to soft:   Lack of water so the plant contracts (this is normal for cactus and succulents when they go dormant), too much water causing rot, micro disease/pest of some type destroying the plant and the 3rd temperatures too cold causing damage to the plant.

Mid November 2013 a NY client ordered we sent 12 adenium desert rose plants and she went on vacation for two weeks so she was not there to receive the plants (not wte3red, planted and exposed to cool/cold temps).  After 6 weeks (beginning of January) she said all the plants die and sent them back.  We received the plants and they were extremely dehydrated and soft.  We treated the desert rose adenium plants with Dyna-Gro K-L-N before replanting them and after 4 weeks they started to sprout leaves.  They were not dead as she thought but just dormant and not treated right fro her location.The desert rose plants were exposed to temperatures considered too cold for them when the were away on vacation.  But once treated properly the adenium plans survived,

   You purchased seedlings.  Seedlings are harder to grow especially in Northern areas without grow lights, more watering and regular fertilization than mature desert rose plants.  They are much more delicate than regular mature desert rose pants. The adenium we grow from seeds are grown under much more supervision than our regular adeniums. Our young desert rose plants get fertilized monthly, water twice as much and given grow lights during winters months to prolong the hours of light they received until they are 1.6 years old and 1″+ caudex. Some adeniums plant seedlings grow faster than others due to type of adenium and quality of seeds.  I would say your adenium plants did not received enough water and possible light hours during the winter. Seedlings dry out very fast because they are not large enough to hold enough moisture.