Epic Grower LLC – Growing Blog

Question about the adenium plant seeds. I have what looks like seed pods on my plant for the first time in about 12 years these seem to appear after I planted new adenium plant near by in pots. One question is did this happen due to knew plants in the area. If i plant the pods how will i go about starting a plant from seeds.    – Carolyn  (I put your question on the blog for all to hear the answer about adenium growing).

Answer: Yes and no.  The same plant can pollinate its own flowers to produce adenium seeds. You can cross pollinate one flower with another to create a new hybrid flower. Most of the time adenium plants need to be many years old before they produce seed pots. We have had a few adenium plants produce seeds as young as 4 years old, however, most are 8 years and older before the desert rose plant start to producing viable seed pods.

Depending upon your growing location, soil, water and other things will all effect whether an adenium plant produces viable seeds. Usually the younger the desert rose plant the less likely the seeds will produce healthy plants. Your adenium plant is 15yrs old so the seeds should be easy to grow.  if you plan to collect the adenium seeds we highly recommend that you do NOT take the pod off the plant. Instead wrap plastic around the pod before it splits open to catch the seeds before they go airborne. The adenium seeds from the pods have whiskers to help them float away in the wind once the desert rose seed pod splits.Also, remember that the adenium seeds do not always produce the same flowers as the mother plant if the mother plant is a hybrid adenium plants.

Now is the time to start your summer adenium plant bonsai training. Ideally you adenium plant is beyond the flowering period if you are in the Southern USA or near the end of the flowering period further north in USA. Yes, some adenium pants flower more than one time per year depending upon your growing environment, plant treatment and weather. Making you adenium plant flower more than once per year will be another topic in the near future. One of the great benefits of growing adeniums is the ability to train them into a adenium bonsai plant.

The plant shown above is an adenium plant already in bonsai partial form.  Adeniumrose company started to create this bonsai when the plant was 3 years old by cropping the top of the plant to force large caudex formation and many branches.  the caudex is approximately 8″ across and 6″ high. You will notice this adenium bonsai has the beginnings of a canopy. Now would be the time to start wiring the branches as they grow out words (not up) in all directions to form true canopy adenium bonsai plant.

When you wire the branches make sure you use thick bonsai wire and do NOT WRAP the branches tightly. You want room for the branch to grow without impressing the wire marks on the branches of the adenium desert rose bonsai plant.  As your desert rose bonsai plant branches grow extend them to cover the caudex in size. One they are as wide or wider than the caudex crop them so new branches will start to grow.

Look at the image to the left and notice the canopy extends outward beyond the adenium plant caudex. This plant is 6+ years old and just needs a little more cropping to make the adenium bonsai canopy fuller. The first image will grow a thicker canopy faster than the second adenium plant image because of more branching at the caudex. Sorry both of the above plants are already sold to customers.

There is confusion concerning adenium plant flower names in the market.  Many growers in Thailand and other parts of the world do not conform to any standards in naming adenium desert rose plants flowers. Plus, many adenium hybrid lowers look very similar but are different due to size difference, slight pedal shape and even leaf shape or size difference.

Here on this post are two different named adenium plant flower hybrids one called white house and the other Nafta. If you look quickly they will like almost like the same adenium desert rose plant.

However, if you look closely at the Adenium plant White House triple layer white flower the pedal shape of the adenium plant you will see a different in how the pedals are layered and the edges.  Now this is not to say that many growers use different names for adenium flower types. If you look on ebay you will see the exact same flower with different names from different growers.

The AdeniumRose company uses the name provided by the actual grower (Nursery) of the plant. The only time we modify the name is when a name conflicts with USA trademark and copyright laws: Case in point: there is a adenium plant sold by many Thailand adenium plant growers name “Lady Gaga” which I know is a trade marked name by the performer. I know they did not get permission to use her name on the desert rose plant so we renamed the desert rose plant to Lady Gatong.

Over the past year we only renamed a plant 3 times due to conflicts with other names given by growers of adenium plants.  Yes, we keep a image and name log on all names to make sure we are consistent with the desert roses.

The floods in Thailand have greatly delayed new shipments of adenium plants to nurseries. Many Thailand adenium plant nurseries have lost most of their stock in floods this past winter. However, shipments of new adenium hybrid plants, desert roses, will start arriving in a couple of weeks.  Thailand is on the cutting edge of adenium hybrid plant cultivation and grafting. Desert rose plants from the Thailand area greatly exceed expectations in colors and adenium growing.

Expect to see more three and four level adenium flower pedals and even some 5 level pedals. Many of the flowers of the adenium plants are rivaling rose bush flowers in colors and shape. However, they still do not produce a fragrance like rose bushes. The desert rose plants are easier to grow than rose bushes and have less problems. If you are interested in seeing new adenium plant flowers images then go to the AdeniumRose Company photo gallery.

Here is one example of a new hybrid flower of a desert rose adenium plant for 2012 include the flowering “Happy Gold” (below). Notice the pedals layering just like a rose bush  but not.

You do not what you will fined in a regular nursery. We visited a nursery a couple months going out of business and found five good size desert rose adenium plants.  They were against a fence not in good shape. However, by knowing how to grow adenium plants I knew with a little work they will thrive. Desert rose plants are not hard to grow and they do take a bit of effort to destroy when they are large.

This adenium plant has a caudex of 5.5″ x 6.5″ x 7″ and 21″ tall.  The estimated age if this adenium plant is 6 to 7 years. If the top is worked right it will create a great canopy by using some simple adenium bonsai techniques.If you have not read other postings an desert rose plant is the common name for the adenium succulent plants. There are three main types of adenium plants and several hybrids.

The adenium bonsai canopy is made by spreading out the longer top branches by using bonsai wire. Loosely wrap the wire around the branches of the adenium branches and bend it down and out to from the center to flatten out the top (make canopy).  This adenium bonsai has about 8 branches that ready to wire is a canopy shape. I would lower the branches to the level of the thicker part of the upper trunk of the plant. Make sure you are careful not to breach the branches.

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.