Wendy, each of us live in different zone, I live in Houston Texas (zone 9) so I give my share of info that works for me. But I am sure many desert rose growers have different info that works for them also.
1. good drainage
2. small pot
3. full sun
4. I use Osmocote twice a year. April and late July.
Summer I water almost every day. Oct. to Dec. slow down on water, and when inside my garage, no water from Dec. to Mar.

Hi Wendy!

My basics are...

Fast draining mix. I use the Gritty Mix in all of my containers for my DR's

Full sun..

Repot every season and i lift the Caudex up about and inch or two at every repot.

During the summer i also will water every other day since my mix is fast draining.

I Fertilize with Foliage Pro and i also add Pro TeKt. I like to fertilize every week during the summer .

I cut back the limbs early spring to encourage branching (fuller head ) and to eliminate long stringy limbs.

Hope this helps...

Take care,

Nice to see you Wendy!

Laura

This is great info!

Laura, figured I'd have the pleasure of bumping into you here! Interesting about raising it up at every planting, I like that. Also happy that FP and PT will work for my DR, excellent!

1Tran54, thanks for your info. Interesting about the shallow pot, I am just learning about this. I will have to get a feel for depth and age, I am sure as I see pics and talk to everyone I will figure things out.

Keep best practices coming, I love hearing how everyone tinkers.

Best,
Wendy

Hi,

New to Adeniums here, have always admired them but haven't tried caring for one. This thread seems like a good starting place.

Some acronyms and terms in this thread are somewhat unfamiliar to me so I was hoping for a little help.

Gritty Mix -- is this Al's mix from over at the Container forum?

FP -- Foliage Pro liquid fertilizer?
PT -- Pro Tekt silicon supplement?
What is a DR?

What kind of Adenium would you recommend for a neophyte? Thanks for any help.

Hi haname! You actually have cracked the code! LOL! Yes, Gritty Mix is Al's mix, FP is Foliage Pro and PT is ProTekt - DR is just "Desert Rose", another name for Adenium.

There are a few different varieties of Adenium - Obesum, Arabicum, Somalanese (sp?) and a few more. The Obesum and Arabicum seem to be the most popular.

Honestly, I don't think any of them are too difficult for a beginner, I am also a beginner and I have jumped right in with 2 Obesum and 1 Arabicum. They are pretty hardy plants.

I bought one of my Obesum for $13.88 at WalMart and it's a very nice plant. your weather in AZ will be really good for them as long as the nights aren't too cool. (Just bring inside below about 55 degrees)

Some are grafted and some are not grafted, so depending on your preference that's something to decide. I am really enjoying mine so I'm sure you'll have fun - I had never even heard of these plants before and learned everything from this forum and searching the internet! Good luck and keep us posted!

Great info every one I think that no matter how many DR we may own we can always learn new things to help us grow, I for one have changed over to AL's gritty mix as I lost over a dozen plants over 2 winters from them being potted up in peat mixes that stayed wet so long in the winter.
I would like to hear more about insect control. I always have a problem with mealy bugs specialy in the winter.
Ronda

I've had mealy bugs on a ponytail palm before. The only thing that I found that works is spraying with a solution of dish soap and water, and I think you can spot treat with rubbing alcohol. I would spray with the solution, wait a while and then rinse. (trying to hold the plant sideways to avoid getting as much as I could in the soil, same when rinsing).

The trick is that these products dissolve their tough coating and then they can be killed. It's also able to get in the crevices you can't reach. You may have to repeat it a couple of times, I think mine took 3 treatments, but it worked.

If I can, I'd like to talk for a second about pot size. I'm not keying on Marie's suggestion to use a small pot. I try to offer this perspective whenever the question of pot size or whether or not a plant prefers to be root bound comes up. I'm going to post something I wrote a while back that addresses the reason we so often hear it suggested that 'this plant needs to be grown tight, kept root bound, or needs a small pot':

I would like to talk a little about, and hopefully dispel the myth that certain plants 'like' or 'prefer' to be grown tight (under root-bound conditions). Maybe we can also understand that no plant will 'do well' when it's pot-bound if you are using a plant with plenty of room for its roots as your standard of judgment and growth rate as your basis of comparison. If plants did better growing under root-bound conditions, it would seem that Mother Nature would have arranged for in situ (where they naturally occur) plants to grow with their roots in tight little cones or cubes, yet we never see that occur. While it's true that we may be able to use the STRESS of our plants being root-bound to bend plants to our will and achieve OUR goals, the fact is that this serves US well, and not the plant.

Let's first examine what 'growth' is. Growth is simply the measure of increase in a plant's biomass, how much bigger it has become (the weight of the sum of it's parts), and is the actual measure of how 'well' a plant is doing. We know that tight roots restrict growth, reduce the amount of branch/root extension, and reduce the potential for an increase in mass, so even if we THINK plants are doing well because we use the stress of tight roots to get them to bloom or grow in a particular habit that we like, the truth is, tight roots are stressful and plants would rather have plenty of room for their roots to grow so they could grow as mother nature intended. No one is more aware of the negative influence tight roots has on growth than the bonsai practitioner who uses that tool extensively to bind down the plant's growth habits so the will of the grower, not the plant, prevails. Using tight roots as a tool to achieve an end is all about the grower's wants, and not the plant's.

If we chase this a little further, we can see the reasons that it is suggested that particular plants might like root-bound conditions. Tight roots alters the plant's growth habits and the stress of tight roots can cause other physiological responses like bloom induction. Again, this is happening because of stress, and is the plants unhappy response. Bright flowers make the grower happy, but the plant's perspective may be entirely different.

Where I was really heading when I started to write this is: There is a relationship between plant mass (size), the physical characteristics of the soil, and the size of the container. In many cases, when we are advised that 'X' plant prefers to be grown tight, we are actually being told that this plant won't tolerate wet feet for extended periods. Someone somewhere assumed that we would be growing this plant in an out-of-the-bag, water retentive soil, and "a big pot o' that soil stays wet for a long time, so we better tell these people to grow this plant in a tiny pot so the plant can use the water in the soil quicker; then, air will return to the soil faster and roots won't rot.

If you place a plant in a gallon of water-retentive soil, it might use the water fairly quickly, at least quickly enough to prevent root rot; but if you put the same plant in 5 gallons of water-retentive soil, the plant will take 5 times as long to use the water and for air to return to the soil, making it much more probable that root rot issues will arise. So lets tell 'em to grow these plants tight to save them (the growers) from themselves ......... because we KNOW they're all going to be using a soggy soil.

Key here, is the soil. If you choose a very porous soil that drains well and supports no (or very little) perched water (that water in the saturated layer of soil at the bottom of the pot), you can grow a very small plant in a very large pot and make the plant MUCH happier than if you were growing it tight. You still have the option of choosing those plants you prefer to stress intentionally (with tight roots) to get them to grow as YOU please, but for the others, which comprise the highest %, it makes much better sense to change to a soil that allows you to give the plant what it wants than to stress the plant with tight roots so it won't die of root rot - trading one limitation for another.

The limiting factor is perched water - the soggy layer of soil at the container bottom that kills roots and inhibits root function. When you use a soil like the gritty mix, one that holds virtually NO perched water, you eliminate the limitation and free yourself to grow even tiny succulents in large volumes of soil, the benefit of which is better growth and vitality.

Al

that makes a lot of sense to me^

and yes, we all know the smaller the particles of the soil is, the more you'd get your plant suffocated and poisoned because of the poor gas exchange.
on the other hand, gritty mix is not entirely composed of gravel. (since gravel alone tends to get compacted because of its shape reminiscent of the pieces in a puzzle game where all pieces incline to associate and link with.)

regardless of that the townsfolk here have been growing these beauties for many years in our clayish soil that tends to get compacted easily, gets as hard as rock when dry and soggy when the monsoon comes. (the tallest i've seen has a height of 3 meters, and it's planted in the ground and open sky!)

Thanks AL!!

Lot of wonderful information that you so kindly give.

Thank you for taking the time to explain everything to us and explain it in a way we can all understand.

I have been using your mix and i will say that my DR's just love the Gritty Mix. My trees have really taken off and this year i have had more blooms than i ever have had on my trees. My thoughts on why my trees are so happy?

Good fast draining mix...

Great Fertilizer with all the essential nutrients...

Plenty of sunshine...

I leave them alone and dont fuss over them everyday like i really want to!! LOL....

I just wanted to say THANK YOU AL!!

You really have helped everyone all over the forums and we thank you for visiting here and offering your experience!

Nice to aee you!!! : )

Hope all is well up in MI?

Kevlyn,

Sounds like you have some real beauties!!! Love to see pics!!

Where do you live? I would love to see that huge tree you were talking about.. Sounds like a big one!!

Take care,

Laura

Thanks for the kind words, Laura! All's well up here - just finishing up the last of the tropical bonsai repotting - I'll be done by the 4th and glad to be able to return my focus to the gardens.

Keylen - The problem with soils comprised of small particles goes beyond just poor gas exchange. Water retention can be a severe limitation to growth/vitality, especially in plants that don't tolerate wet feet well, and smaller particles mean greater water retention, which is almost always accompanied by a sacrifice in vitality and growth potential.

Gritty mix loses it's loft to a minor degree, but it's designed to hold no or minimal amounts of perched water after it's well settled. Screening the soil so particles are of a fairly uniform size is an excellent guard against compaction - how much can a jar of marbles compact?

We may well be comparing apples to oranges here. I'm talking about a container soil, and clay in a container would probably be a death sentence for Adenium. If it's all you have in your garden or landscape, and the plant is zone tolerant in your neighborhood, you have to work with what you have, but because a plant grows large under poor soil conditions is no indication it prefers those conditions. You must allow that the same plant in another situation may well have had the potential to grow twice as large, twice as fast.

Getting back to container media - I've played with soils for a long time - more than 20 years, and in that time I've seen over and over the difference between thriving and just surviving. I'm ever on the lookout for ways to ensure the thriving part - want no part of a plant that's just hanging in there. So far, I haven't come across a better or more adaptable/versatile soil than the gritty mix.

Best luck to you & your plants.

Al

i forgot to say i live in a place with similar condition as thailand (the climate is pretty good year round for adenium plants and they're considered one the hardiest plants here)

i agree gritty mix was definitely designed for that purpose. (combination of small and big particles would trap the water overhead of the soil, and marbles too)

again most growers here use clayis soil in growing their plants(the only time an adenium die is when it's flooded for long period of time and because there's no fluctuation of temperature, their plants stay hardy and continue to survive)
heck, i never used clayish soil on my plants else the plants will only continue to survive, may resign, and not thrive at all. But i do not mind using soil with higher moisture retention as long as it's properly aerated. (orchid a plant that's very prone to rot can be planted in a hydropic (aeroponic) system here)
but orchids are native to tropical zone (they get a lot of water in the monsoon when it rains nonstop half of the year)
it could be the way they suspend their bodies on trees without the need for soil medium, which may have a poor gas exchange attribute.

loveplant,
i just bought one that's worth 19$! it's quite a big plant. (it's over 2 feet)
{{gwi:343272}}
the three meter adenium i'm talking about was in my school back in my elementary days. (I don't know if I can still take a picture of it)

tapla,
ty for pointing my mistakes and it's without a doubt helpful. if there's go ahead because right now i'm rushing to school