It’s a great time of the year for a plant health check up. Now’s the time during plant dormant to clear up weeds in the soil, check roots, growth space and do a general assessment of your plants.
First, Happy holidays to all and we wish you the best for the New year. Thank you for your support, questions and business.
Plant Health Check
Many plants are in full dormancy by this time of the year. Even plants that do not drop their leaves go into a slow growth phase (not all during winter) and need a plant health check. During dormancy, slow/no growth periods, reduce watering to once a month. Check root space and if the plant is getting to large for the pot then its time to re-pot in (roots fill up more than 70% of pot).
Please note for very slow growing plants you may not need to up size the plants pot. However, you still need to check the soil and roots.
Roots need some space to breath and to grow. They grow to search out new nutrients and increase watering intake. Plant health check includes determining next growing season needs. you need to prepare the plant now for the new season growth. If you wait until the season starts blooms, fruits, berries and overall plant growth will suffer.
This is great time to re-pot adeniums, most tropical and other succulents. Old soil gets depleted of nutrients and ability to retain moisture. Have you taken a plant out of a pot and just get a big root ball with very little soil? Why- because the plants takes all the nutrients and whats left is very little if any soil. Soil is a general term which includes soil-less mixes too.
When you replace the soil, consider mixing in a time released fertilizer. The fertilizer releases nutrients over several months to replenish the soil. Also, it decreases the recovery time of the plant. Mix the time release fertilizer in the fresh soil . If you top water the plant them place the fertilizer on top of the soil.
AdeniumRose Company LLC uses the soil and the same time release products offer on their website www.adeniumrose.com We are testing other products and plan to offer a 8 -9 month time released fertilizer in 2021 for tropical and other plants. If you overhead water (water from the top of the soil) or if the plant gets a lot of rain then the time release fertilizer is a great product.
I live in kona Hawai’i , on the dry side. I cut one of my desert roses ( it was long and spindly) but I allowed this one to get rot or fungus. I have removed all the rot., and the cauduex is healed and firm . The wound isn’t the same as the rest of the cauduex. The cauduex isn’t soft but nothing is growing, it’s been at least 4 months. What can I do to help it please.
Only time will tell. Adenium plants are not fast growing plants and it could take a couple growing seasons for the plant to show new growth in the damaged areas.