Oh maddison, I would happily pay you for shipping one of your trimmings of that plant. I'd like to graft with it.

Yes, cost me a pretty penny to purchase lol I have just tried pollinating to see if it will produce any seed pods. Wish me luck. The flowers are gorgeous. There should be online sellers where you might be able to purchase a plant?

maddisonp45, thank you so much. I'm so happy that I found this forum, and am learning how to handle these trees. I bet your tree could benefit from some careful trimming. It's beautiful! I've planted up the trimmings from the smaller Adenium. 2 out of 3 cuttings seem to be growing now.

Cuttings don't develop a caudex though do they? I do have a member of the family who wants a cutting off my plant. How did you prune? I have never done it before and this plant is so special I do not want to wreck it or shock it. Also when is the best time to prune?

Others here can answer you better than I can. I just dipped my pruners in alcohol and cut it all off! The cuts were sealed with the wood glue. Today I did a finer pruning of the air roots with a new razor blade. After that I sealed with the Elmer's waterproof wood glue. I think I've read that the cuttings don't form a caudex. I figured I'd be happy if they just grew enough to bloom for me. I'm amazed at how you can treat them, and they still respond very well. My plant looks so much better now. I do see flower buds! These LED lights are marvelous!

So when you prune you have to seal the cut ends off?

You don't have to seal them, but some believe that it can help reduce the chances of problems with it being exposed.

Don't worry at all about pruning it. The plant will look so much better for it, and as you can see from Karen's results it will be beautiful!

I would also be willing to create an extra grafted version of your plant for you. However, I'd want to split the shipping on that. I have some young seedlings, and I'd graft an extra for you. Let me know what you think, I'd love to have this specimen.

-Jedoba

I am located in Australia I am not American haha I am not sure if we are able to send any plants internationally without a permit.

I would also appreciate an opinion on my other little rarey this single petal black and red Adenium, my husbamd purchased for me the other week. It is a young plant, but the caudex seems very small, and it is grafted. I have re potted and raised and seperated the roots to try encourage larger development. Do you think this will work? I think it has been raised wrong

Maddison,

The longer the caudex stays under soil, the faster and bigger it will grow. I'd put it back down, if that was my plant.

Pagan

Thanks for the reply -

Oh really is this because it is young? I have always been told if you raise it up when you re pot it develops a larger caudex. I want it to grow into a beautiful fat plant, the red and black flowers are so pretty. It has only just started to sprout 2 more branches of the single stem

The caudex will continue to grow very slowly above the soil, but it's really faster if you keep it under for a while.

Ok thanks I will bury it again then haha my poor plant.

I have sometimes even repotted without lifting. If I see something that I believe will look better in a year or two, I'll just replant it like it was. Sometimes I'll readjust a few roots just to see what they look like later.

As to the international shipping, I'll look into it. You could get a copy of your plant, and I'd get one too. It's worth some of my time. I'll get back to you when I have a sec to research.

Thanks Jedoba

My adenium has been under my new LED Mars-Hydro 400 light for about a week. It's forming flower buds at the ends of each branch, so I'm very happy to see them. My question is whether I should leave the plant under the light until the blooms are completely formed, or will they burn or be deformed? The light seems so strong. It's now about 6" from the plant. I started at 12" and have been moving it down. So far there is no leaf curling or burning. I'm just worried about how to treat it now that the buds are forming. I really want to see this bloom well after all of this work and time and don't want to inadvertently hurt it Thanks for your advice.

~Karen

I would raise it away some to give the flowers a chance to form without burning. Happy to hear she is blooming! Pictures when you have time?

Tracy

What height would you recommend, Tracy? My husband made a light stand so I can make it any height above the plant. It's not in a tent right now either. I'll get pics soon.

I have tested my 3 Mars Hydro units (5w LEDs). If I recall correctly, I started at 6 inches. At that distance my adeniums seemed fine. At first. But the light is way too intense! Raise the unit to at least 15 inches. Even at that distance, your adeniums will grow super compact.

Thanks, Martin. I had my plant outside under the very strong Arizona and New Mexico sun all summer and it was very compact. As soon as I started using the light indoors at 12 " the spacing between branches lengthened out. It isn't as compact now. That was a bit disappointing, but it still looks good. I'll get a pic, and I'll raise the light right now.

Do you use a grow tent? If not, you won't use the full potential of your LED unit.

EDIT: And please, take a macro photo of a branch which has grown under your LED light.

I don't have a grow tent, but it's on my ordering list. I'm taking some photos right now and will post as soon as I get them downloaded.

Ok, here are a few pics of my plant. Now that I look at the photos I see that the branches did not elongate under the lights. They raised up, but are very close together.

I hope these are ok, and not too large!

I have looked at the older photos of your adenium. Your adenium did not grow etiolated under the LED light. It simply just grew. ;-) Some hybrids won't grow super compact (nodes almost "stacked onto each other") no matter how strong the light is. Your plant looks great, though. If you want a nice display of flowers, wait, but otherwise I would prune it soon (make the cuts at 45 degrees angles.). I am an avid "pruner/defoliator". If an adenium dares to grow leggy, I will hack'n'slash it. ;-)

Almost forgot... Does this container of yours have drainage hole(s)?

I think the plant looks great! I'd leave it for another season, personally. You should get flowers soon.

Thanks for writing, Martin. Yes, the pot has one large drain hole. In the future, I'll drill more holes in the single hole pots.

I want to see the full flower display this time, but I'll definitely prune it down again since that works so well with these trees. In the first pics up top you can see what it used to look like. It's much better now, but can still be improved. Getting the grow tent will probably help a lot.

~Karen

Thanks jedoba! I am very happy with the improvement in the tree. It's all due to to the wonderful advice here on the forum.

Hello again, I've been so happy seeing all of the buds forming since I got my new Mars-Hydro led light. Now I have a problem. I hope you can see it from these pics. It is some sort of very tiny pest. I think you can zoom on the pics. They are brownish specks and a bit elongated. What are they and how do I treat?

Here is a pic of some buds forming. I've noticed a few of the budding areas are sticky and glossy, with leaves sticking together. Is that normal? They were directly under the LED light until I was told to move them slightly out of the direct light. Could that have caused this? Thanks for your help!

~Karen

My leaves often stick when indoors under lights. I think it may be the temps. I just stopped worrying about it because I didn't see any pests. Maybe others will have more useful information.

Thanks, Jedoba. That's good to hear. The bugs do worry me. I hope someone knows what they could be. During the summer it was outdoors, but it's been inside for over a month and they just became apparent.

Karen, I have the same problem. Misting every other day with warm water seems to help keep the leaves from sticking and getting deformed. I have not been able to confirm the presence of a pest, but occasionally have to fight mealy bugs off with some insecticide.

Thanks, Dain. I've been afraid to wet the leaves under the strong light. Is that ok?

It is fine to water them under the light, Karen. You should see how I water everyone in my tent, even the tiniest of seedlings. You would think I had sprayed them all with a firehose when I was done. Some have to be put back into the soil. LOL. They can take some water.

Tracy

Thanks, Tracy. I'll do the warm water spray on the areas that look like they've been glued.

Any idea what my pest is? Can you see them well enough?

I don't see a pest but it is difficult to assess under the red light. You need to examine the backs of the leaves and look for activity under white lights. Use a flashlight if you have to. This will rule out pests. Dain has issues with dryness and wetting the growth tip occasionally has alleviated some of those issues. If it is not a pest then spritzing it should fix the issue. But don't just assume it. If it is a pest it MUST be contained immediately so check the backs of the leaves and inspect the growth tips with flashlights and report back ;)

Tracy

First two photo's look to show aphids. Look too big for spider mites. Treat with a safe pesticide available once and then 5 days later, once more 5 days later possibly to get rid of eggs hatching. Rinse off after an hour or so if going under bright sunlight and possibly LED's. Most are contact sprays.

Rick

Rick's eyes are much better than mine.

Hard to tell, they could be mealy bugs. I couldnt see very well on my phone , but clearly there is some kind of pest.

I'm very familiar with mealy bugs, but thank you. I've fought the mealy bug problem on a lot of my plants over the years. Whatever these are is something new to me. You can click on those photos to zoom in. It looks pretty clear on my monitor but I'm sure on a phone they must be invisible!. I sure hope one of you knows what they are.

Rick, they are on top of the leaves, and nothing is underneath. If they are aphids they are the smallest ones I've ever seen! I have aphids on my greenhouse tomatoes right now, and they are in a lot of different colors. These really don't look like aphids, but I'll take it out of the grow tent tomorrow and try to get better pics in the light. I'll get a bright light and my magnifying glasses and report back tomorrow. Thank you for all of your responses.

Karen

I just blew up my photos larger than they can be zoomed on the site here. I do see aphids, and there is possibly something else there too. I'll see what I can do tomorrow.

I'm in a rural area with not much access to pesticides. What do you all use? Would soapy water work on the Adenium? I have been doing that with my tomatoes and it seems to be solving the aphid problem on them. If soap is ok, will it hurt the forming buds?

Anything on the buds might burn them. I would try soapy water and rinse the buds well before placing back under the light.

The best thing to use is actual soap (castile or other), which is distinct from detergent (ie: dawn and friends - if you look carefully you'll see they never use the word soap on their labels). Often you can find peppermint castile at many places, but there are other kinds of real soap as well.

Detergent has been shown to have some effectiveness, and is often recommended, but it's not soap, and is more likely to contain chemicals you might not want on your leafs, and is likely less effective than actual soap at deterring/killing your pests.

any kind of "insecticidal soap", like that sold by safer and others, is made of real soap and not detergent.

I think it's likely the curling/misformed young leafs in your photos are caused by whatever is there, and if you don't address it will get worse. Leafs like that are usually caused either by pests or some kind of nutrient uptake issue caused by salt buildup in the mix [too much fert, not enough flushing], overly alkaline irrigation water, or other reasons.

Daniel

Thank you all! Tracy, I'll take some more pics and then try soap. Part of the deformed leaf thing might be that in the early part of the rehab in New Mexico I was using water softener water. I'd forgotten about that being bad. My Arizona water is extremely alkaline, too. I wonder if I should try to raise the PH when I'm there using that hard water? Dan, I'll find some real soap. Up to now I was using Dawn.

~Karen

Here is what the plant looks like now.

Ooops, I meant to add other pics. Here is one of the pests, that are aphids. You were correct, Rick. You should be able to zoom in on this and see them. I'm sorry I'm not a better photographer. I just washed them off with a water spray, and will use the soap treatment if they are still around. I really appreciate your helpful comments.

Edited to say that I just looked at it today, and I'm not seeing the aphids. I really hope they're all gone, but I'll be vigilant about them.

Karen

I'm still battling aphids. A few days back I took my plant outside to gently spray off the aphids. Somehow I dislodged what would have been my first bud to open on this rehabbed plant. I felt like crying! I have plenty of other buds forming, but that one was huge, and probably a day or two from opening.

Hi Karen,

They can be really pesky little bugs. I have been using a product here called Bug-B-Gone for spider mites, but also is good for aphids. I am liking it, as there has been no sign of any issues with after effects. Leaves do not get burnt. It is a safe product and contact type.

One time with a few of my trees that seemed to be bothered continuously by aphids. I ended up filling a small bucket with my product a little weaker than normal to be safe and inverted the tree. Dipped it into the solution to ensure I contacted all of them. I did this twice about 4-5 days apart. Had to put some cloth around the top of pot so that the soil would not fall out.

Just want to make sure that you know the product you are using and that it will not effect the leaves.

The flower you lost may have been damaged and this made it easier to dislodge.

I hope that you can eliminate them.

Rick

Thanks so much for that information, Rick. I will try that if I can find your product. Up to now I've just used plain water and water with real soap in it. No detergents. I do want something that won't hurt the plant.