Oh no! Sorry you were having such issues with them.

Kirk

I dug them out of the trash, rode out on the bike path, and gathered up some sharp sand and fine gravel left over from last September's flood. Made a potting mix of equal parts of those two and my commercial cactus-palm potting mix and put them all in a small pot with three large drain holes. The brown leaf tips were cut off. They get direct morning sun and a nearby tree shades them after about noon. Also, they are getting watered every three days.

They are looking good now....I hope they like their new home and grow fat for you.

Marie

I really don't think I live in good DR country for sure. Last year I kept them outside all summer, but the night temps get in the low 50s here and I didn't have nice leaves or any flowers on any of my DRs.

This year I was moving my big guy in and out and the flower buds kept falling off so I got tired of that and it is back to living in my sunroom. Still don't have a lot of leaves, but at least it's blooming. And the flowers last pretty long so that's a plus. This is just a Lowes plant.

But I have a double yellow that is always on the verge of blooming so I can't give up until I see that. It has started to form buds again. It has enough time before fall and I'm not going anywhere so I'm hopeful.

These guys may be looking for a new home very soon--they take up valuable Echinopsis hybrid real estate :-).

My rescued plants are doing fairly well. I finally decided to take a photo every ten days to check on their growth so I could cut back on watering if they seemed to be going dormant as some of the many adenium sources predict. Well, they are still growing.

BoulderGrower, it is so wonderful to have you check back in and provide a report on how your plants are doing.

It has been a very tough summer for adeniums here. The temperatures have been very cool. So, I took all my plants and placed them in my greenhouse kept all the doors closed allowing the temperatures to climb to 90's + and I have finally seen some growth and the plants that were newly purchased this summer finally are putting on leaves. UGH!

What a crazy year.

Thank you for the update. Glad your plants are still doing well.

They survived the winter and got repotted.

Most of the leaves grown during their winter in a south window were misshapen. So for the winter of 2015 I may let them sit in the garage dormant.

So glad you saved them--they are looking very good now. Soon they will flower.

We visited Boulder during two summers and loved it; and Denver twice during the winters (ccccold). Was just there last December for son's wedding (watched a little bit of snow fall).

Kadie

We get lots of intense sun in Boulder and the room gets quite warm but the length of the day must have some effect on growth also.

FINALLY

Five of the six have buds and one opened. It was supposed to be one of these:

but here it is:

Well, I can't complain. It is a large flower and quite spectacular. From what I have read, seedling adeniums rarely look like what you expect.

Congratulations on the lovely flowers Bouldergrower.Your adeniums made a fantastic recovery despite the initial issues in 2013.They seem to have found their feet(roots). :)

Beautiful plants, and it's true that Adenium seedlings are not true to their parents. At least not yet, I still hold out hope that some day soon we will end up with some types that are very predictable from seed.

Watering in warm dry weather

For the past month or two we have had high temperatures of about 90 deg F with our usual relative humidity of about 15 percent during the day. I try not to over water my house plants and stick pretty much with a routine of soaking everything once a week. This adenium is outside in full sun with a few of my succulents. I noticed the first flower starting to wilt slightly and thought maybe they didn't last very long. Wednesday is watering day and today the flower perked up considerably after a thorough watering.

Apparently with my growing conditions, the adeniums don't like to dry out.

Plants inside for the year

The predicted low temperature for Friday night is 43 deg F so I brought all six pots of succulents in for the year.

Apparently the flower size of these seedlings is variable. The first plant to bloom has flowers a little over 3 inches in diameter. The second plant to bloom has flowers half as large...still no sign of a color as advertised. It looks like they will all be red.

Those look so good, bouldergrower. Nice forest of Adeniums. Beautiful and delicate bloom.

Rick

You have done an amazing job with these plants! Beautiful flowers even if they're not exactly as you expected. I'm so glad you saved them!

Mealybugs!

I was looking at these plants this morning and noticed a mealybug on the largest flower. I can't believe it. The pot has been outside all summer sitting on a wicker table nowhere near another plant. A close inspection turned up some smaller bugs on another bud cluster. I wouldn't have believed mealybugs existed outside in Zone 5.

I took the plant back outside and sprayed it thoroughly with Bayer Rose & Flower insect killer. We are supposed to have above normal temperatures this week so it can stay outside for awhile. I will spray it again before bringing it inside.

Hope they recover soon!

They have probably recovered already...Bayer Rose and Flower spray is very effective.

The "runt" isn't going to bloom this year but the other two are in bloom or bud. They were from this group of eBay pictures:

and they look like this:

These eBay sellers must buy Thai seeds and sell the seedlings based on the Thai descriptions. The three larger seedlings were from Florida and the three above were from Lithuania.

It is hard to get seedlings that are similar to the parent photos unless that seller hand pollinated their plants. I did read where I believe it was Jericson indicated that the parent plants needed to be stable for several generations for a higher percentage of the seedlings to be similar to the parent plant. Good luck with your plants.

Actually, all of the blooms are really very nice and the first one to bloom is much larger than the others. Five have bloomed and all are red/pink. I hope all of these forum participants starting seeds will post pictures of their plants blooms in a couple of years.

The adeniums have been in for the winter for about a month and are still blooming. I added four grafted plants from Thailand but one died and got replaced by the runt from my original community plot.

Today is watering day and, for better or worse, I pruned the tops and roots of the four biggest adeniuims and repotted them. I just don't have room for huge plants and the final bloom had faded. It will be interesting to see what happens.

Another one of the Thailand adeniums bit the dust but the other two are doing fine. Red Angel has bloomed much more quickly than I expected and Monkol Violet has small buds. They are the two on the left in the earlier picture just above the picture of the thermometer/hygrometer.

If the are both in bloom at the same the colors are going to clash!

Luckily, Monkol Violet isn't very violet. It is a huge bloom.

I like that one above.... the Red Angel is rather nice too! Glad to see your plants are doing well now. I'm eagerly awaiting one of my seed sown guys to develop its buds, it's had a go before but they always drop off as they run out of energy at the end of Sept. Hopefully these Spring buds will do the trick for me and I will be posting pics of the big event for sure, of that you can be certain.....as the plants were sown in 2008!

There are many examples of fantastically coloured blooms on eBay and the like, sadly a lot of them are courtesy of Photoshop. Hopefully we will get to that elusive stage when we can buy stable plants, till then........

Beautiful blooms, both. The Monkol Violet looks like it could change on next blooming. There are definite signs of a nice purple within the petals. Could be interesting.

Rick

Good point you make Rick about colour developing with time, I forgot that. It is also known to happen in plumerias, which I used to grow.

These plants have a two-arm graft from what I assume is a much older plant that has surely bloomed before. I would think this color is what it will always be given the size of the bloom. The petals are very thin and the plant has only a few buds unlike the red one. Here is a better photo:

Your bloom is outstanding as is. Would be a favorite of mine.

It could very well be as it is now, but the site in which it grown and other variables can make a difference as it did with one of mine.

Similar to this tree of mine.

This bloom from 2014

Same tree. This is the bloom from 2015.

Rick

The runt died. Re-potted so there are three plants per pot. Removed decorative rock top "mulch" because it made the pots too heavy. One bud.

Almost ready for moving out for the summer but night temperatures are still below 50 deg F.

I had not seen these grown in the oblong pots. As they grow do the branches get tangled up with each other? Are they same type and color? what about the roots when it is time to repot or check the health of the roots? I love that shape pot.

Well, if you read this thread from start to finish you will see everything these plants have endured.

Two are from Thailand and the remaining four were supposed to be fancy seedlings but they turned out to be very nice, ordinary adeniums.

good job... never give up. I gave my neighbor one of my 1 1/2 year old seedlings... and she KILLED it. sent her husband to bring me the pot.. chicken $h!t.

Outdoor night temperatures at or near 50 deg F...in for the winter.

Down to three. The non-bloomers got composted.

boulder I am getting close to 50. I will close it down and when Spring comes I will prune for more branching and more flowers.

Your plants are spectacular! I just started to sow and grow Adeniums from seeds and every time I see pictures from trees in full bloom I regret to have not known about that plant for so long. I guess that I just need to have more patience to see what my plants will look like.

Last bloom of 2016...very large but never fully opened.

Apparently I was wrong about the last bloom of the season. All three plants have healthy buds and the Monkol Violet is blooming. Maybe there isn't any season when indoors most of the year.

Nice treat Bouldergrower going into the New Year. Add some special color for the Holiday Season.

Hope you, family & friends share some special times over the holidays.

Rick

I brought these in for the winter, pruned them, and a few new leaves sprouted. Then, buds started to form and they went into full bloom. I watered them a couple of times each week and yesterday I looked closely and noticed they were completely covered with aphids...blossoms and leaves. I couldn't believe it. After spraying them with an indoor/outdoor rose and flower spray there were hundreds of aphids surrounding the pot. The flowers were full of holes and I decided the easiest thing would be to just start over. Plants and soil are in the compost container and the pot is in the trash container ready for pick-up next week.

Dont throw them remove the growth and flowers bin them .change the soil and was the roots i done it last autumn now after winter they are going off no bugs at all if they don't have food they will not say around:×)

One of them was retrevied from a compost bin when it was younger. Maybe they will survive severe pruning tops and roots.

Go for it what can you loose

I came to this threat late but wow, they look great and are doing so well for you! I love how you have several young adenium to a tray and several plants blooming all at once together. Good job! Clearly they love your south window. Keep it up.

No Bugs Yet

Boulder they are looking great the one on the left looks like a fat fellow two legs and big stomach:×)

I think I will end this history here. The middle one shrank...just kidding. It rotted because I probably over-watered it so I replaced it with a new seedling from an eBay seller. The one on the right recovered fine. The one on the left isn't doing much of anything.

I, for one have enjoyed these updates. Will miss the great pix and visits.