Hi,

Would it be safe to say these plants have only seen full sun outdoors in their dreams? :-)

As far as pruning goes, I'm not sure how much that will help. Until you can provide better growing conditions, it's just an unneeded band-aid.

There are a number of posts here that deal with some of your questions. Here's one below that might help. That might keep me from having to write a book just for you. :-)

As far as books go, if you want a good one, buy the Mark Dimmit/Gene Joseph/ David Paskill "Adenium: Sculptural Elegance, Floral Extravagance."

randy

Here is a link that might be useful: Another thread on this forum

Like I posted in the other thread, after you have read the link provided and have specific questions, I'll be glad to help if I can.

ole grumpy gills

About full outdoor sun pipedream, unfortunately that's correct. For years we lived in an apartment where they all sat on the window sill. We've moved. They now hang out on that shelf, right under a frosted glass skylight that gets full sun in the afternoon. I'm guessing that is still not the same as sitting outside in the backyard? I really rather not take them between indoor/outdoor since I will have to move them back indoors in our winters. If I don't take them outside, is it a lost cause? How to test sufficiency of their current lighting conditions scientifically, light meter maybe?

Sorry, I can't be of much help to you then. In my opinion there is no such thing as full sun indoors. There is only one directional diffused light that might pass for sun to some.

As far as moving plants in and out, I only move a few thousand plants each growing season. IMO there is no substitute for the real thing.

Good luck with your plants. Hopefully someone that does the indoors full time thing can help you out more. Adeniums for the most part are not full time houseplants as you have discovered.

ole grumpy gills

I put many of my plants outdoors during the summer so that they are as healthy as possible for the winter months ahead.

Randy's right - there is no substitute for the real thing.

Josh

Gills & Josh, I guess now that I CAN move them outside, maybe I should consider it... I'm really worried, though, about bringing in mites and other outdoorsy critter stuff into the house when it gets cold. How do you deal with that?

Hi Smoochas,
Whenever I bring plants back in for the winter, I will spray them down with an isecticidal soap to prevent any critters from coming in with them. Best to also isolate them for a while when you bring them back in just to make sure there is nothing on them.
Andrew

Smoochas,
I use soil-less mixes that don't really harbor pests.
In short, I don't do anything when I bring my plants back in - other than remove any
leaf-litter or other debris that might have blown into the containers.

Josh

As far as pests, I've never had a problem when bringing in plants in the fall. I did accidentally bring in a tree frog a few years ago. :-)

{{gwi:461625}}



Keep a lot of big plants in the living room over the winter. My girls freaked out that first night watching television when it started serenading us.

randy

AWESOME FROG!!!
Did you identify it? I used to have a ton of wood toads at my old house... now all I have is Bullfrogs.

Randy, that's exactly the critters I cannot afford to bring inside! DO NOT WAAAANT! lol

I've found that my plants come in less buggy than they go out (I have a mealy bug 'issue' in my office.)

In addition to the sunlight, adeniums like hot muggy weather. I've learned that drafts of air-conditioned air are not good.

don't forget to expose your plants slowly to direct sunlight, or they'll burn

Last winter I had six frogs slowly "reveal" themselves in the evenings....
they always end up in my Hoya containers, which I hang in the trees out front.
They're good critters...they eat other critters ;)


Josh

I got some tricks how to care for DR in
this forum under(desert rose looking nicely)

These are my pictures of 2010 and 2009 if link doesn't work copy and paste

http://picasaweb.google.com/longcucpaul/HoaSuThaiLan2009#

http://s585.photobucket.com/albums/ss298/Ltran54/Desert%20Rose%202010/?action=view&current=200.jpg&evt=user_media_share

I had some tricks in this forum under (desert rose looking nicely)
I have a collection of DR, most of them already bloom, but 2 slowly taking their time. These pictures I took this morning. First 2 plants are 4 years old.
{{gwi:562765}} href="http://s585.photobucket.com/albums/ss298/Ltran54/Desert%20Rose%202010/?action=view¤t=Picture891.jpg"; target="_blank">{{gwi:562768}}

{{gwi:342673}}
This plant is 7 years old, every year even when it was a baby still carried a full head of blooms.

Mark is the expert, and known for being so. Get his book. Norma

And here I thought it was one of those expensive (>$100) books, and it's not!

Here is a link that might be useful: Inexpensive Adenium Book

Jeffery,

One of Mark's main strategies in putting together this great book was to keep the average Joe in mind and make it affordable to most hobbyists.

randy

Randy,

Well, that's certainly refreshing to see that objective in mind when creating the book.

I finally managed to track down all the ingredients for the gritty mix and am in the process of re-potting all of my severely neglected adeniums and succulents. YAY!

I've taken the little adeniums outside for morning sun for 2-3hrs for a couple of days now. I think I'm safe to leave them outside for the rest of the summer, right? I'm a bit apprehensive as we are having a heat wave here with 90-100degree weather right now. Water everyday and they will be okay?

Now for the big tall adenium... This is what the caudex looked like when we got it out of the pot.
{{gwi:562770}}

How much can you expose the caudex without compromising the plant? We tried to find a nice shallow bonsai pot for it but there was none to be had at Home Depot. Maybe its not time yet for a shallow pot? So we lifted it up and since it had been sitting in the previous pot on its side, there is quite a lot of roots now exposed. Will they fall off after a while?

This is the super tall adenium repotted. I am trying to plan a strategy for it. Maybe have it outside in the full sun for 2 hrs/day this week and then prune it to where I have the blue tape? This plant is my Dh's baby and I'm so afraid of ruining it. The leaves are nice and green & glossy so it seems like a shame but I know its the best in the long run.

Thoughts?

{{gwi:562771}}

Smoochas, did you ever clip your adenium at the blue tape? How did it turn out two years later?