Hi Gill, All your plants are looking great and healthy. Maybe because they are more mature now that they are able to cope better with the winters and low temps. Touch wood...they should flower soon for you I hope...

They are looking wonderful, Gill. So full of leaf and good shape. They are odd this way. How some years they hold leaves and others not. As you say temps. and light is lower. I find many to do the same and yet others that she'd leaves every year.

Rick

They do look terrific, Gill. How fortunate you have been to have this occur. Your Adeniums have such character too. I enjoy seeing them. Have you reduced your watering at all? Have they shown any reduction in uptake? I didn't wait for mine this season, I just stopped watering them completely when I brought them into the house (my adult plants) and they are all heavily into dormancy now. The seedlings of course are in full swing under lights.

Fingers crossed that you get some blooms soon!

Tracy

They look terrific. Indeed!

No offence but there seem to be a misunderstanding here (or not?). The fact that they are retaining lush green leaves (or even flowering) does not mean that they are not dormant. This is crucial when deciding to water - or not. Dormant adeniums certainly can retain their leaves and flower, but dormant adeniums are not actively growing (the terminal buds are inactive/no growth of new leaves or stem elongation). I have killed many trees in full leaf, because I thought they weren't dormant...

That is a good point Martin and it is something that we could easily assume. I have not looked at it as being dormant and only water if requiring it, so have not had issues.

Definitely something we need to think of when not in active growth.

Rick

Hello everyone and thanks for your continued interest and encouragement.....

Sinha, I would love to get flowers that are mature enough to open before they fall off, this year was closest to that happening. The flowers reached around 2inches in length in what seemed like an age from me spotting the buds....then they went limp and dropped off. It was just too late in the season I think. Thankfully the winter temps are higher than usual here, it's rather mild in fact, spring flowers are out in some places...(I have roses out) hope it lasts till spring, but I doubt it!

Frank, they have only ever had the leading shoot pinched out once. A couple if years ago they developed what I called 'crispy tip syndrome'. The leaves failed to burst forth and the ends dried up, they popped off completely so losing a few mm in branch length on a few limbs. No other pruning, training, nipping or fiddling, they've just done their own thing. Plant 2 has so many branch ends its impossible to count them unless it's leafless, then it's a nightmare. All the branchlets are around 1cm in length, it's very compact and just what I like to see as I prefer short fat styles.

Rick, they have lost their leaves completely, but only a couple of times. These are just plain pink as far as I know, nothing special noids from eBay....but they are very special to me. The two hybrids from Brian do tend to drop their leaves and the three arabicums are still hanging onto theirs.

Tracy, yes I gave reduced their water considerably, they had a lot this summer even though the temps weren't that good, the caudexes were/are rock hard. I prefer to drench thoroughly, then drain. I must try to get some good food for them this coming year, I had other issues to deal with this year so a lot of things have been pushed aside. As for uptake, it's difficult to judge as I'm currently not offering water in such copious amounts so don't get as much run off.

Martin, no offence taken, I appreciate you pointing that important fact out. Maybe if I could now edit the title to say 'Adeniums still in full leaf in the U.K.', that would have been more appropriate...but it won't allow me to do it. Now realising my error, these three particular do indeed appear to be dormant as they are not growing visibly to me. Ok, so I really need to do some very careful watering I guess...???

Gill UK

I had also always thought dormancy=leaves dropping. It makes sense that that does not have to be the case.

Gill, if the growth of new leaves have stopped completely, I would cut back on the watering, maybe ones every other week (but don't soak the soil, water carefully). Despite dormancy, your trees are still photosynthesizing now, so some caudex growth is still possible.

But I think, you are in control of the situation and know when to water etc. ;-) After all, these mighty fine trees have experienced winters in your care before...

Dormancy?

This may be correct:

http://adenium.tucsoncactus.org/dormancy.html

but it is a little hard for me to call a healthy blooming plant dormant.

Two of the four plants in my community pot are still blooming but stem growth has stopped. If I don't soak it once a week and add some water mid-week the flowers wilt.

Martin, yes, that's exactly what I currently do, just enough to keep the caudexes rock hard :)

Boulder, thanks for the link. I am familiar with the site but hadn't looked at that particular article. Yes, it's difficult to define dormancy I think, we all have our own interpretation, hopefully we get it right and our plants survive. If however we get it wrong......

Gill UK

magnificent … all I have are pots with barren little trees saying … don't water me ...

More on dormancy.

I bought four fancy Adeniums from an eBay seller in Thailand for $44 with free shipping which I thought was pretty reasonable. They arrived mid-November. I probably over-watered them and two rotted after putting out new leaves. The two remaining ones are to the right in the photo. I simply pulled up two smaller ones from my other community pot, which was pretty crowded, and put them where the two rotted ones were. All are doing fine and don't appear to be "dormant". So, I just soak both community pots once every two weeks or so.