New guy

10 years ago

Hi all, my name is Mike and I'm just getting into growing adeniums after years of growing cacti and some pachypodiums. I have but one solitary adenium plant which I posted a pic of. I got it on Ebay a couple years ago, supposedly a seedling of Black Fire. After repotting it last fall it responded well this spring and tried to bloom. However the flower has never gotten past what you see in this photo--and it has stayed just like this for about 2 weeks now. It won't shrivel and die....yet it refuses to open up. It also has 2 more very small flower buds that seem to not be getting any larger over the past couple of weeks either. No clue what the problem is--just going to keep watering like normal...

I also have a small batch of a. obesum seedlings that just came up last week and I've ordered seeds of several kinds of arabicums and some Thai socotranum. Even though I knnow I'll be buying a few adenium plants in order to get specific flower colors, there's someting to be said for the satisfaction of growing your own plants from seed to blooming size.

Anyway, nice to be here and I hope to learn lots about these amazing plants.

Mike C.

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Comments (5)

ginger9899
10 years ago
Welcome Mike. I can't help you but your Adenium looks and is acting just like my King Violet of the same age. I hope someone with knowledge has an idea as to why the flowers get huge but won't open. Good luck.

-Heather
jv44
Original Author
10 years ago
Thanks for the welcome Heather....I'm not overly worried about mine--it's definitely healthy so whatever it is, it's a minor issue. The good thing is: when I carefully roll back a petal, it's red with a darker edge and the throat is yellow--no pink to be seen anywhere!

I want to try the "Al's gritty mix" when I repot my seedlings. I found the Repti-Bark easily but the chunks seem a bit large for use with Turface (which I already had) and I read that the mix works in part because of the roughly equal size of its 3 main components. So.....I also already have lots of pumice on hand, which matches the Repti-Bark in particle size. Then I just found pea gravel, which is also roughly the same particle size as the bark and pumice, so now I have my three main components. If I could find a screen with 3/8" openings, I could screen all three parts and have a smaller size for seedlings and a larger size for bigger adeniums.

Mike
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greenclaws UK, Zone 8a
10 years ago
Hello Mike and welcome to the forum, I hope you enjoy it here!
Sorry but I can't advise you on the flowers on your DR as I have yet to get mine to flower being so climatically challenged here in the UK as far as DR's are concerned! I did get one plant to form buds twice, but they never grew or opened, they simply just fell off : (
I grow all my plants from seed and enjoy the challenge it gives. I screened my gritty mix ingredients and did the same as you, saved the larger stuff for my 3 bigger plants and used the outfall for the seedlings. It works well I find as there's so much less chance of rotting from wetness.
Gill UK
ladylotus
10 years ago
Welcome Mike,

The flowers will get better as the plant matures. It looks like a young plant. The first few blooms I have on young plants don't always open completely or don't look as nice as they do the following years of flowering.

Your plant does look very healthy and the flowers is a beautiful color. Very nice!
ginger9899
10 years ago
FYI Mike, I just posted my flower pics in the Adenium Flower Photo's "April/May" 2013 thread....I want to thank you, your post and "talking" about it must have finally broken my dropped buds bad luck, as one finally opened! So hang in there ;)

-Heather