I have a pink Desert Rose, it began getting white raised spots on the leaves. Lowe’s sold me volck oil to mix and spray-on. The leaves are turning brown.Will I be able to save my plant?
Thank You, Terressa
First, the white raised spots are most likely spider mites. When treating adenium plants for pests we do not recommend any OIL based product. Lowe’s good for common plants, however, cactus and succulents are a bit different when treating for them bugs. OIL based products will kill all leaves on adenium desert rose plants. Use a soap based product or create you own by dissolving soap powder with a water based pesticide. In previous posts we gave some names of soap based products to take care of adenium bug problems. The purpose of the soap is to make the insecticide to sick to the plant and not wast off the desert roses due to water. I would go ahead an remove all leaves and any oil residue on the adenium. Also, you may want to re-pot the plant using new soil and dipping the roots in super thrive for a few minutes first.
my desert rose has become slightly yellow & squishy. base is very soft would you know the cause.
This sounds like the beginning of root rot of your adenium plant. I would remove the plant from the pot and inspect the roots and the caudex of the adenium plant. Remove the bad part of the roots/caudex and then let the plant heal for a week. Make sure you use the right soil! This is critical when growing adeniums in their non-native environment!
The desert rose plants are starting to go in their dormant period so everybody should be watering the plants less. In many areas once a week is plenty. Desert roses will loose leaves during this period and then start to grow them back right away. How fast they grow back is based on your growing area. In south Florida, we are loosing leaves now except for a few varieties. They do not loose all their leaves but depending upon of the variety for the adenium plant they may loose up to 75% of the desert rose leaves leaves. This is due to less watering and less sunlight as the days get shorter. In cooler climates you many loose all you leaves unless you supplement light with artificial growing lamps. Now is the time to think about protecting the adenium plants from the cold before the night temperatures gets to 45 degrees and below.
Hi,
Glad I found this website. I really hope you can answer my queries cos I have been trying out lots of insecticides that I can buy off the shelves from my place. I am living in Singapore. I love growing Adenium but it always ends up dropping its leaves and never bloom again after I bought them back from nursery. As I am living in apartment based, all my adenium are place along the corridor. They can get sunlight (not full sunlight for most of the day time, usually is shaded) during morning and afternoon and artificial lights from the corridor thru the whole night till next morning. My plants are always being attacked by mealy bugs and spider mites. I tried many ways but it still keep coming back even after I cut all the tips off. Once the leaves started sprouting, the bugs will appear again.
I read on your article recommending using soap based insecticide and we can actually make our own. I tried searching thru all your posts but I still could’t find the page where you mention about how to DIY it. So can you please re-post the ingredient and composition of DIY soap based insecticide and how should it be applied to the Adenium.
My mix from my Adenium is using burnt soil and compost and charcoal. Is it a good medium for drainage? I also like to spray liquid fertilizer to my adenium leaves top and underneath during either in the morning or evening once a week. Is it correct?
Thank you and appreciate your advise.
Regards,
Serene
We do not make our our insecticide. I’m not a chemist so I do not knwo what chemicals are safe to put together to make your own insecticide. I would not use compost in the soil mix prone to bugs and holds too much water. Do not spray fertilizer on the leaves which can cause problems.
We acquired our dessert rose in Arizona and it did well there but we moved to Utah and it became an indoor plant and hasn’t done very well here. Currently there are white spots and the plant is loosing leaves (sounds like that happens in early winter). We reported it when we bought it 5 years ago but not after that but don’t thing it’s root bound. Your advice moving forward please.
100% different growing environment. Adeniums need strong DIRECT sunlight to grow well. In northern areas may clients use grow lights to give them more light/longer season.