Lisa, what a super looking plant. Such a nice shaped caudex and Kadie has a lot of knowledge and gives good advice.

Not to hard to prune after the first few.

Rick

Ruffled leaves, non ruffled leaves, variegated leaves, skinny leaves, and fat leaves. All adeniums but different species? Think I have alot of reading to do. My one red adenium has the prettiest fatest leaves. It just finished blooming and it's growing new limbs and leaves fast.

My white one today after the rain. It's kinda fat leafed too.

And heart-shaped leaves. Yes, a lot of reading to do...but it's worth it to those who are serious about their adeniums, like you. Love the photo...becoming a nature photographer are you? Thumbs up!

-Kadie

Oooh! Love this white. I don't have any yet. Soon though...I'm in the process of rooting white cuttings from godmother's obesum.

-Kadie

Nice healthy looking plant, Lisa. So lush. A very pure white.

Your area is getting quite a bit of rain.

Rick

Thank you both! I love taking pictures but am not an actual photographer, it's the flowers that make the picture!

Oh yeah, we are getting lots of rain but they managed to launch that rocket just a few minutes ago. Lots of people in town to watch. They are expecting the showers to continue into next week.

This was my Mom's. It's at least 15 years old. I know it's begging for new dirt and probably a trim but.........

Lisa. It is flowering profusely and looks very happy. You know. I have seen them growing in the ground many places and they are not genetically predisposed to grow compact and tight as we like to have them a lot of the time. It makes it easier to have smaller and compact for moving them in an out though. Outside of the Arabicum and Thai Socotranums which will have a lower growth.

Wonderful plant.

Rick

Thanks Rick, I would love to put it in the ground but I am an apartment manager and for now I live in an apartment. Been here 14 years but the second I can find the perfect place I will be outta here! Ha! So far so good with the spider mites , had an agricultural agent from our county visit me today. He said they are in the big oak tree. Hopefully I can get my ladder and hatchet and cut the limbs back before the rain starts. ( Rarely ever goes below 50 here, I grow plumeria too and there are trees for days in the ground here)

Okay...time to cut off this post...lots of replies...113! Thank you folks for your input.

Happy growing!

-Kadie

Note to Lisa P.

Hi my friend,

This post had gotten so long that I thought it best to move on. You are encouraged to create a post and we can continue to communicate there. In the meantime, you can always message me through Houzz PM.

Your friend,

-Kadie

Beautiful Kadie!!!

;-)

Laura

Elmers waterproof wood glue found in Home Depot or Lowe's.

Laura

Love all the posts in here. Don't think I could deal with 200 seedlings at once though. But I'd be willing to try!

Lisa, I'd be tempted to just repot your mom's adenium. But I can only imagine what it would do after a good prune job if it already has that many blooms on it without being pruned. Amazing!

Kirk

Kirk, did you take a close look at that pot...the underground caudex has contorted it. Can you imagine how huge and nice that caudex might be?

Lisa, yes, after blooming, hard-prune, repot and lift the caudex. Would love to see the entire caudex before repotting!

I Ha!Ha! After reading this I took my flashlight to look at its caudex!!! And I was also trying to remember when my Mom had me put it in a bigger pot for her. I'm guessing six years ago. I will definitely take pictures, and I imagine I will come back to ask advice on pruning then. That is a very heavy plant. I have to move it with a dolly.

All right!! Your neighbors were probably wondering what you were doing sneaking about in the dark. (Looking for spider mites! Ha Ha!) Please do come back for advice and take lots of pictures! Better yet, start your own thread and you will get tons of help.

-Kadie

Fantastic thread!!

i would love to see more as well... Beautiful!!!

laura

Yes! Kadie, where have you gone?

Yeah, what happened to Chubbs and the other fatties?

Hi everyone!

Here's Chubbs Sep. 16.

Chubbs after transferring to gritty mix, raising caudex, and grooming.

Kadie! Hi, so nice to have you back here.....Why did you abandon this forum??Got bored of our slow growing adeniums, it seems! Your Chubbs is looking great after grooming!

That is bloody gorgeous!!

Wow, that's a looker! So, you've obviously pruned all the branches and halved the rest of all the leaves? What is the reason for cutting them in half when they are going to go dormant soon and drop their leaves...please? I must have read about doing it on here but can't find it. Seem to recall something that bonsai enthusiasts do to make the following set of leaves smaller, but do the half leaves fall off??? Thanks.

Gill UK ps glad you came back.

Thank you Phil and Gill!

Clipping the leaves in half is supposed to get new growth of leaves to grow smaller than previous. And these halved leaves will not drop off anytime soon. My adeniums will not go dormant here unless it is forced do so by withholding water and placing in a somewhat dark environment.

A few days after prepping Chubbs for bonsai, I had carefully cut out the interior leaves to allow light to get in. There are numerous branch buds growing along each stem and I wanted to allow those to grow out further. It has been a month now and in another month (when the roots are established in the new media), I will do bonsai training. Just practicing, mind you, as I am new to this form of culturing. Rick has been my mentor in this endeavor.

Glad to share!

Kadie

Hi Sinha, missed you too! Ha Ha! Thanks, Chubbs got chubbier!

You posted your response before Phil's, but due to international communication lines it didn't show up for a couple of hours. This always happens with yours and Satish's postings.

Chubbs is looking great, glad to see you posting again.

Tracy

Thanks, Tracy. Posies for you.

Hey, Look what the Cat dragged in. Ha Ha. You know I am joking. Glad to see you here again.

I do appreciate your thoughts Kadie, but I am no mentor. We work together and share information from our own trials and experinces. So much of the information that I share is from very good people that have been helpful to myself and so giving of their years of growing these Adeniums.

It is a great pool of individuals that we draw from here and outside of this site.

You Mr. Chubbs is looking pretty darn fabulous, I say.

Rick

Hi Rick,

Then you must be the great dane. Ha ha!

Kadie, your "Chubbs" has grown into a spectacular specimen. :-)

May I ask did you grow chubbs from seed and how old is it, that is the kind of plant that inspires me to try my best to grow something spectacular like that, can it be done in my led grow tent in the UK, I'll let you know in several years or so :-)

Kadie! I'm thrilled you're back, and it's so great to see Chubbs looking wonderful! That will be one spectacular bonsai.

I have my sad Adenium looking very good now since I followed your directions for it. I'll be posting it in my thread soon.

Phil,

All my plants are grown outdoors, but from what I have learned in this forum, you can grow the trees successfully under controlled conditions. Continue to peruse old threads on this forum. There is one thread where someone had raised their adenium in a tent in the garage and it grew humongous. I'll try to look around for it. for you.

Chubbs is odd! I think he's a wannabe arabicum.
He is not quite 15 months old. I grew him from seed, but I experimented
with many of my seedlings by snipping off the taproot when they were about 6
weeks old with 5 or so true leaves and also snipped the
terminal bud...Chubbs was one of them. After 2 months in his
own 4" container he was transplanted to a 5" or 6"
container and I had placed a flat round disk on the soil, spread out his roots,
then covered with media. Not sure, but around 4 months later, I
transplanted him, with undisturbed root ball into an 8" panterra bowl,
adding more soil to sides. Now he is in gritty mix, and prepped for bonsai training which will begin in another month.

Here is a very good source AdeniumCulture: Producing Large Specimens Quickly

Growing tip: To help grow fat caudex and compact, numerous branches, snip branch terminals as tree grows.

Kadie

Hi Karen!

I eagerly look forward to seeing your "happy" tree!

Kadie

Hi Kadie - thanks again for the info - holy shizzle, 15 months old, I am pretty sure I could not grow anything that size in 15 months even in my led tent lol

Sorry for being a little think, but which bit is classed as the 'branch terminal' as I thought trimming a tree slows the growth down or stunts it?

Hi Phil,

Okay, the terminal apex is the growing tip of the stem/branch. Trimming encourages growth of the lateral buds. Please peruse this thread Time to prune my favorite giraffe Adenium Scroll for Martin's post dated May 31.

I am certain you can grow a large caudex in a short time in your tent given the right conditions...if you don't mind the expense of heating, lighting, and ventilation.

Kadie

By the way...I saw your babies on your thread...niccccce! "A few of mine in the UK" So healthy and plump! Way to go, Phil! <thumbs up>

Hi Kadie thanks so much for the help and info (there's no thank you button via my phone), it's a big help for me.

I did snip one or two of mine when younger but they seem to grow very slow unless I am being a tad impatient again lol

Glad you like my young trees on my thread but I don't see them getting to anything like the size of say chubbs in a similar timescale lol but I will stick at it see if the adenium gods are nice to me and my growing regime :-)

Phil, what I have shared with you so far is my growing experience with A. obesums. Please peruse this thread to find out more about what I had done. So far I have not said "you have to do this or that". But now I will.

Shake those babies up! Challenge them! Transplant them into a media of 70% perlite and 30% humus in 5" or 6" plastic containers. Wash off all the old media, being careful not to injure any roots. Apply a liquid rooting hormone, and follow up with more for the next couple of weeks. Never, ever allow the soil to dry out while they are this young.

Do not cover the media with rocks, mulch, or anything. The roots need to breath and gases produced need to be able to escape.

After about a month, apply weak solutions of fertilizer every couple of weeks...if you had not already incorporated organic fertilizer into the media. Do not use fertilizer high in nitrogen!

What else can I say...just ask, I'll be glad to share!<smiley>

Kadie

Kadie - shake those babies up, are you referring to my youngsters from my thread I recently posted lol?

The media I use upto now is 50-50 coir and growstone and have tended to cover the surface of the media with growstone or similar as I find it dries out quite quick qnd don't want any mold or fungus to appear on it.

Fertilizer I have is Chempak no.8 but I bought some dyna gro foliage pro stuff a bit back and generally use a weak solution every watering, is this too much/frequent do you think?

Yes! Those youngsters! I gave you my advice...from my own experience. I have found that transplanting them frequently "shakes them up" to produce fatter caudexes. I believe it is a survival mechanism for them. They are stressed and threatened...so......they will work hard to survive by storing lots of water and food in their caudex after the "stressful" experience. The babies will be so busy storing energy that they will not produce flowers for a long time.

Thanks Kadie appreciate it :-) and will make note of the tweaks needed lol

Phil, I found the thread I mentioned earlier about growing adeniums in a tent.

http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/1651332/adenium-getting-to-big?n=30

Kadie

Thanks Kadie certainly an interesting thread. I never seal my cuts so I need to get some waterproof wood glue which I can also use for when I slice the roots off a tree and stick it to Styrofoam :-)

Phil,

It is wonderful that you are experimenting!

You been peeping through my window taking pics of me, that picture has a striking resemblance lol oh no maybe not that picture is far prettier lol

kawolski

Kadie. I live in a tropical climate too. What soil media/ compost do you use for your DR? I tried different formulas. The recent typhoon season really killed quite a lot of my 1 year old plants. Their leaves turned dark green, then black. The branch will then go mushy and dropped off. The caudex rotted next. I gather the 3 weeks of torrential rain put paid to that. Fungal infection and rot. The plants that suffered was potted up with grit/gravel, cow manure, rice husk and soil. Ratio 1:1:1:1. I sprayed plants with fungicide too to no avail. I may have to try to resort to a different mix. I am currently building a shelter with clear transparent roof to house the plants in anticipation of the next bout of rainy days. Any advice will be deeply appreciated. Thanks.

Kawolski,

Oh my goodness! I am so terribly sorry that I missed your post of July 20! I was reviewing this thread to look at the history of my trees when I discovered my faux pax. However, I think it was meant to be as I am sure I would not have answered your question properly at that time...now I can.

We had been getting a lot of tropical storms nearby, two typhoons hit us in March and May. This is all unusual for us at that time of year. We continue to have tropical storms around our area about every 4 weeks or so, and though thankfully we have not gotten hit lately, the rains thrown off the storms do blanket us. Sometimes rains over 5 days in a row. I have lost a number of 1 year old trees due to constant precipitation...rotting leaves and stems. Those trees that were planted in perlite:super soil:peat moss:vermiculite 7:1:1:1 have faired pretty well with no root rot, although some did get stem rot; others with more humus and were pot-bound had rotted at the root/caudex.

I think the worst of our weather is gone (crossing my fingers), but nevertheless, I have decided to shelter my plants from these unseasonal rains. So...I am going to buy a canopy A-frame. If I can get the transparent canopy as you have done, that would be great. Otherwise, I will get a white canopy.

Again, I apologize for not responding earlier.

Kadie