Epic Grower LLC – Growing Blog

Hi,
I got my desert rose plants back in late 2012. I planted them as suggested by the sent info. They are alive, some of the leaves have fallen off as I  was told in the sent info. The trunk or body of plants are green and look well but STILL no leaves after all this time. It is planted in a clay pot with rocks at bottom and in cactus soil. I water once a week and it appears to drain well…. Am I doing something wrong??????? Right now some of the dead leaves are still on the trunk and has not fallen off yet..Trunks are green but no new growth.

Answer:  Where are you growing it?  How much light a day? Temperature?  In south Florida all ours now have new leaves now. Some of the adeniums didn’t get new leaves until a couple weeks ago because of the weather changing from warm to cool back to warm and then back to cool and now arm again.  We water them twice a week .

Reply: It sits in a sun room..windows face south and west. Temp at about 71. I’m living in Atlanta

Answer: OK – your adeniums growing season is about 1 month behind ours here in Miami  where the days are in the 80’s already and a bit longer since we are 700 miles south of you. . How many hours of light doe sit get (sun directly hitting the sun room).  As soon as it does not get below 50 at nite move them outside to get longer sunlight. Sun rooms are still filtered light. Or wait and I suspect that if you keep it in the sun room you can expect leaves and new growth in about 30 days as the room warms up.  Also, watering once a week is not enough in the spring which is desert rose plants growing season.  Did you use super thrive when you planted the adenium plants to give the roots a boost? If yes then you do not need to fertilize desert roses with time release until it gets at least 5 leaves or more.

Question: I am interested in putting desert roses and crown of thorns in a narrow garden with aloe, figs and other drought tolerant plants.  It is between a pool cage and a fence and has filtered to full sun all day.  I live in Palm Harbor Florida) within a mile of the coast.  Is my area too risky for these plants?  I do not want to have them as houseplants, needing to be brought in during winter.  Thanks Megan

A:  If your aloe is doing great so will adeniums plants and crown thorn plants. Your area of Florida very rarely gets freezing weather for  more than a few days (usual just  few hours a couple times a year) . I would place the euphoria (crown of thorns) towards the back because they get taller. They all like sun and dislike cold. I highly recommend that you get the right soil for adeniums, crown of thorns and other succulent plants which means only 10% soil, 10% to 15% coir and the rest perlite/rocks. Make sure the rocks are non-porous to prevent root rot and moisture retention.

When using perlite put a layer of rock on top of the soil to keep the perlite from rising to the top when you water or when it rains. Do not use standard potting soil for the adenium desert rose plants or other succulents especially that close to the ocean! Standard potting soil will retain water and the salt in the air.

Q: Hello, I just took my Desert Rose plant out of a pot that it has been in for 6 years. I know you can imagine what I saw. Anyway, I never knew adeniums plants had to be “lifted. So here I am with all of these roots and they are so pretty. However I am on my way in a little while to get a pot and soil. You read a million soil recipes for adenium soil things so maybe the nursery will be able to help me. But my question is this . I have the plant on its side with it’s newly exposed roots wrapped in wet paper towels. Is that ok? Or what do I do? If I could find an email address for you on this site I would send a picture of these roots!!!!!!!  I will go get ready and maybe by then you will have replied. I hope so. I had talked with a man long years ago and he told me to re-pot this when it broke it’s pot. I live in Baton Rouge and went to a plant show and Nursery was there and I was terribly mistaken about re-potting. Thanks for reading this. Sandra

A: yes, it is wise to expose more  adenium plant roots about once a year in the south parts of the USA where we get plenty of life and good growth.  There are several articles on soil mixture and most nursery who do not specialize in cactus or succulent plants give the wrong advice about adenium plants. The main thing to remember when selecting or mixing your soil is it has to have excellent drainage for adenium plants to grow without problems.  Please search this site fro several articles on soil fro adenium plants.

Questions:  Thank goodness that accidentally I found a reliable website specialized on desert rose plants. Thank you for your adenium nursery.
I’m addicted to desert rose plant and I have a variety of it either grown
from seeds or purchased from different nurseries.
I live in southern California, close to ocean, and in the summer the
humidity is pretty high,so every night I bring my plants inside to prevent
the growth of powdery mildew on the leaves.
My question is: what would you recommend to use for this problem? I know
that these plants don’t like oily substance on their leaves like Neem oil
that I use on my regular roses.
Also, lately I’ve noticed on one of my plants the new grown leaves are
curled and dis-formed, which I’m guessing the mealy bugs presence, but I
don’t see them even with magnifying glass. I use rubbing alcohol on a Qtip
that I’m not sure if it’s right treatment. What insecticide should I use?
Thank you for your reply.
You have magnificent plants. I’ll be back to purchase more plants from you
guys.
Agnes

Answer:  Thank you for the question. Humidity is not the problem otherwise I would have major problems. We grow the adeniums in a tropical location – Miami Florida where the humidity is just about between 80% and 100% everyday during late spring.  If you are using the right soil and the plants are not on the ground the fog should not effect your adenium desert rose plants.

The curling of the leaves usually indicates that your plant needs nutrients. I would get super-thrive and two/three times a year use it to water your desert rose plants.  Also, get a good time releases fertilizer for your adenium plants 8-9 slow release with trace nutrients. Powdery mildew could be spider mites or a fungus. Usually if the adeniums are too close to the ground you will have more fungus problems. Try raising your adenium plants higher off the ground to keep them away from the moisture raising form the wet ground.

During the summer it rains everyday here (tropics) so the ground is always wet, full of fungus/mildew and other things that cause problems with adenium leases. About 3 years ago we raising our desert rose plant growing tables to 32″ above the ground as a trial method to help prevent fungus on the leaves. IT worked!!  The moisture form the ground evaporates and the wetness/humidity was transferring the mildew onto the bottom of he leaves causing dark spots on the desert rose plants. This is not a problem anymore!

Have a great weekend

Planting bare root and/or leafless adenium plants Most adenium bare root plants shipped are leafless to help prevent moisture lose and plant shock. Adeniums can last 3..4 weeks as a bare root plant if you keep them out of sunlight to prevent too much drying out. If your adeniums has leaves expect them to fall off. This is how we do it when we receive plants:

1) First do not crop the adenium desert rose branches or the roots at this time.

2) Dip the adenium roots in Super thrive liquid, root hormone or similar root fertilizer if you have it. You do not have to do this. However, if you do, the leaves will burst out quickly which will greatly help the growing process. Liquid hormone is better than powder for adeniums. A little bit of Super thrive goes a long way. Only leave the desert rose plants roots in the liquid for 3…4 minutes.

3) Get a pot with drain holes and put large rocks over the holes. We do not recommend putting directly in the ground if you lie in the right zone until you second potting.

4) Fill the pot 1/3 with the adenium soil mix. DO NOT USE STANDARD POTTING SOIL! Adeniums do not like water and potting soil has way too much water retaining elements in it. Yes, you can use store bought cactus mix. If you do this add some very small non-porous rocks to the mix (about 10 percent).

5) Put the adenium plant in the pot and fill in around the roots with the soil mixture.

6) On top of the desert rose soil put some non-porous rocks to keep the soil from floating away when watering.

7) Do not water the adenium yet! You already dipped it in the hormone so you need to give it time to absorb the nutrients.

8) Plant your desert rose plant in 70% to 80% sunlight for the first week.

9) After the first week you can place the adeniums in full sunlight

10) Water in 24 hours and test the soil to make sure it drains very quickly. The best way to get answers is to post a question on the AdeniumRose company blog.

Soil mixes for adenium plants do not add top soil or or organic material. Recently a client purchased soil for the adenium specifically mixed for planting. They decided to take 50% of the mix and add more organic ingredients  specifically potting mix. Potting mix has way way too much organic water retaining properties for desert rose adenium plants.  What happened?  They lost 50% of the new adenium hybrids plants to root rot.  They only thing you ever may want to add to special adenium or cactus soil mixes are NON-Porous rocks. perlite and silica (not limestone sand – not all sand is the same) sand if you are in a high water area (tropical) or in an area where the water does not evaporate quickly!

Question: My wife and I just moved to Boynton Beach from New York. Our neighbor has a large  desert rose plant  (approx 4ft High by 4 ft wide) that we fell in love with.

The adenium is in a very large pot. We cannot find anything similar in the local nurseries we have checked. Can we order anything like this from you? Please let us know as we would love several desert rose plants that we can build our landscaping around. We would also appreciate any ideas you may have!

Kind regards,

Answer:  Good Morning: Desert rose plants, adeniums, grow great in Florida. As any succulent, they are not fast growers and it takes many years to grow large. In the wild they can get as tall as 15″ and over 40 foot round (200 yr old tree). We do not have any as large desert rose plants for sale as the one you described at the present time except for stock plants.  If we did they would be in the 400$ and up range for the plant depending upon the caudex and the flower type. Adeniums are sold based upon the caudex size (exposed root) – no the height of the plant or the width across the top. The largest adenium plant we have for sale are in 12″ pots at the present time which are unproved which means they are hybrid desert rose plants (not standard pink adenium flowers) but we do not know the flower type yet because they have not flowered here yet. We received the adeniums in late August and expect the succulents to flower in the first part of the spring. We can offer unproven adenium plants for $45.97 each. Once they are proven they will range in price of $59.97 and up depending upon the flower and the caudex size.

If you plant the desert roses in the ground then you have to make sure you use the correct soil and allow for fast draining (put a large pile of rocks in the hole first) to prevent root rot. We have tons of rain this year so the desert rose plants will rot unless you properly plant them. If you plant to keep them in a pot make sure the pot has drain hole and use clay not plastic! Plastic pots will get too hot and cook the plant. Its better to re-pot every year as the plat grows verses putting a adenium in a pot too large. They grow (caudex size) faster if they are not put in oversize pots.

Hello, I love your beautiful Adeniums and your helpful advice. Can you answer a question for me? I have a desert rose with a small, but nice character caudex, and many long branches. Total height from soil to highest branch is maybe 3′, but the caudex itself is only like 5″ high. I would like to hard prune it, making a thicker, bushier desert rose, and hopefully get the caudex to grow. It is at least 3 years old, not sure how old before that. Can I cut all branches down to about 3″ above top of caudex or is that too much? also, I live in Fort Myers, FL is it bad to re-pot and prune now, or should I wait until spring? I would attach a picture but not sure how to here. Thank you so much for your advice. I enjoy your valuable blog but wasn’t sure how to post there. Heather

Hi Heather:

I put this in the blog so everybody else can see the reply and post a reply themselves concerning the desert rose plant that needs cropping.  Yes, it sounds like the adenium plant needs to be cropped/pruned since is 3 feet high with only a 5″ caudex.  It’s hard to say where to crop the adenium without an image because I do not know the branching of the plant.  Is it a grafted plant? If it is make sure you do not crop the hybrid adenium plant below the graft point or you will loose the hybrid flower. Ft. Meyers is tropical like we are in southeast Florida. You might get 1..3 days of freezing weather a year( if that).  We crop adenium plants just about year round here in Miami. If you want flowers in the spring then you may only want to crop a few branches now so the non-cropped plants will flower in February/March or crop them all and the desert rose plant will flower a bit later in the year.  Your growing season is very long and may times the adenium rose plants flower more than once a year (ours usually flower twice).

Now where to crop your desert rose plant depends on the graft level and branching of the plant. Once you crop the plant make sure you keep the cut dry for 4..5 days to give it time to heal to prevent tip rot.  If it’s not a adenium grafted plant then I would crop the branches at 12″ to 18″ (about 6″to 12″  above the caudex).  Each plant you crop should produce 2..3 new branches.  Again, without seeing the desert rose plant you will need to see how the overall plant looks before cropping the plant. Send me an image if you can. If the adenium plant has a bunch of branches then crop 50% and then the rest once you see new growth on the cropped branches.

Q: I have a desert rose plant that has done very well until the heavy rains this summer. I have it planted in a 20 gallon bucket. The leaves are turning yellow and falling off. The leaves also get brown spots on them. I re-potted the plant about 2 weeks ago changed  out the soil to a well draining mix. I had been told that it is possibly getting to much water so I have controlled when it gets watered. This is affecting new growth as well as old. It won’t be long before all the leaves drop. PLEASE HELP IF YOU CAN…

A: The plants are starting to go into their dormant phase in South Florida. You will loose leaves and they will grow back.  Did you use super thrive when you re-potted the adenium plant to give it a growth boost? 20 gallon pot (if a true bucket I hope you made drain holes in it) seems very large unless the plant has a very large caudex (10″ or large across).

The spots are normal for our area due to high humidity and tons of rain. Our plant racks start at 45″ above the ground to help prevent brown spots (less moisture from the ground). However, due to our very heavy rains this year over 80+ inches you will get some brown spotting. Now that we are so called dry season; I would remove all the adenium plants leaves that have spots on them now. Then over the next couple months the leaves will grow back and them start flowering in Jan/Feb/march time frame. Our office is in Doral but the adenium nursery is in Homestead. We lease a portion of a wholesale palm nursery land to grow the desert rose plants so we are not allow to do retail sales from the nursery. When we grow larger we will open a retail location.Do not worry about loosing all your leaves they will grow back if you properly care for he adenium plant.

Mike

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.