Beautiful little flower! Sometimes small flowers are good, especially if you can get a lot of them later.

very nice. just a note, however. if you are going to continue to be careless and lose the IDs, send it to me *grin* and I shall call it … martin. ha! i have at least three or four noids now. the labels grew legs … i hate that

Label the pots. Tags always fall out too easily.

Thanks!

I usually do label my plants. Sometimes even the containers. But almost all of my arabicums are 'RCN's which make things a bit easier. ;-)

I can't get enough of the Arabicum bloom! So small and sweet. Absolutely stunning. Congrats Martin.

Tracy, thank you. I like it, too. ;-) As Pagan stated, a canopy full of this kind of flower would be a nice display. Hopefully, the flowers will stay small.

I am not sure whether the small flower size is a characteristic of the 'RCN' cultivar or not. The leaves of my 'RCN's almost all look similar. They are always glossy hairless and somewhat dark green.

What about the flowers and their size in your arabicum forest? ;-)

Martin I have discovered that RCN is considered "high arabicum" in the hierarchy of Thai Adenium. Shiny leaves and small round flowers are traits of all High Arabicum, similar to Th Soco. This is more desirable that the "Low Arabicum" which have more saddle shaped fuzzy leaves and larger flowers. My RCN hasn't bloomed yet, it has struggled to leaf out even. But the rest of my forest has been putting on a show. Their blooms have all been small and awesome! Arabicum blooms are so delightful. The bloom size shouldn't change.
Tracy

Tracy, thank you. Nice flowers. Did you somehow fold the flower in the third photo? ;-) It has faint fold marks...

Actually I prefer fuzzy leaves but small flowers. What to do, then? ;-)

Btw, I think that my biggest arabicum (NOID) has decided to flower...

Low Arabicum blooms are still small in comparison to A. obesum bloom. Just not as small as High Arabicum and Thai Soco blooms. I like the fuzzy leaves too. Not sure about the folded flower in Peth Phunlan. Perhaps the insects pollinating that bloom caused the crease? She's got pods now!

EDIT: Adding the rest of my comment that the Houzz app has lost. The 2nd photo is Maneeratana v2 (hybrid of RCNxCDP). She is making blooms and look how dark they are! They look red but they will probably be lighter when they open. The 3rd pic is from today a new bloom on Thong Tonnam. The last photo is a bloom from Dino King, who has the tiniest blooms of them all!

Tracy

Just realized that the Houzz app renders the order in which the photos appear differently than a desktop browser, so now I know which flower you are really referring to. The app drives me nuts.

The Maneeratana v2 buds look dark pink, not red, to me or am I mistaken? I love red and I am crossing my fingers for you!

I promise. This is the last photo of the 'RCN' flowers. ;-) The next photo will be one of my... *drum roll*... new somalense flower.

Sweet! I can never tire of this RCN bloom, don't stop posting it. The yellow throat really makes this so special. I could look at it all day.

Is that a New somalense as in, I got a brand new one? Or an existing somalense with a new flower? Can't wait you big tease.

Yes probably dark pink, but a girl can dream of red blooms right?

Tracy

It is a somalense seedling from last year's seed batch flowering for the first time. So it is pretty exciting but honestly, I expect nothing fancy. It is pink for sure. ;-)

I dream of red flowers, too. ;-)

Tracy is right. It"s a special pink flower Martin. I love it too.

Stuart, thank you. I think that the intense yellow colour does the trick.

This is my largest and fattest arabicum (NOID) from last year. I know, it needs a bigger container. But it has decided that the time is right to start growing flower buds. ;-)

EDIT: Two other 'RCN' seedlings have buds. Exciting!

Fantastic branch structure on your NOID. I want it!

Tracy, yes, I guess good genetics. ;-) I decided long time ago to just let it grow. Without pruning, that is. I might put some cords on the branches but that's it.

I like the form on it. Very nice.

My 15 months old arabicum NOID now with visible buds:

Yes, I know, the seedling is beginning to push itself out of the pot even though I have tried to restrict its growth. It simply wants to grow fast. ;-) And look, the pot with the "botanical garden stamp" has been turned counter-clockwise (well, actually the seedling has turned ;-) ). 3 weeks ago, the stamp was almost directly in front of the seedling. But now is not the time to repot...

That's one hell of an arabicum Martin, and budding too. I guess the flowers will be pink, so let me know if you don't like it :-)

Conny, thank you. :-) I feed it raw meat. ;-)

Yes, arabicum flowers are pink but I liked my very first arabicum flower. I think, I might keep this arabicum NOID, then. ;-)

Oh well, you know how to get in touch with me should you change your mind :-)

Looking luscious Martin. With the slick leaves, it could be an RCN, it's a high arabicum for sure. Not sure if Kasset is a member of the low arabicum family with fuzzy leaves since I haven't grown any? Definitely a keeper and I think keeping them pot bound does help to develop a more squat caudex. Watch you will be repotting her in February when she gets up and walks away from that pot.

Tracy

Tracy, thanks. The leaves look quite different from the leaves of my RCNs. This NOID has much thicker, stiff and quite fuzzy leaves. And all of my (sold) Kaset had a different growth form, vertical. I bought the seedpack in Germany, not from Kesorn in Thailand.

Tracy, btw, has your 'Maneeratana v2' (with the fairly dark buds) flowered yet?

The leaves appear slick in the photos. It definitely isn't RCN if they are fuzzy.

Yes the Manee v2 did flower! She has the darkest of pink flowers of any Arabicum cross I have have seen. She sold right after blooming! Shipped her to Michigan last week. I had two of them so I am doing some thinning of my duplicates. Check out the awesome roots on this precious girl! :)

Tracy

Pagan: don't look!

Tracy, oh, that is keeper. Definitely! And very dark pink indeed.

My arabicum NOID has only a single flower bud left but I think that other branches are about to grow buds, too. The bud looks fairly dark:

I repotted the arabicum a week ago. It literally pushed itself out of the pot tilting dangerously to the one side. It will stay in the Smart Pot until I find a suitable shallow one from the botanical garden shop.

That bud does look very red, Martin. Your plant is quite a special one. You always grow such nice plants.

Rick

Rick, thank you!

Yes, the bud looks red or very dark pink at this stage but I doubt that the colour lasts. It usually fades when the bud matures. But I am still hoping for something special. ;-)

Arabicum NOID Update

Well, the flower is not red but it has a yellow throat with a few stripes:

Arabicum 'PNW'

My only seed-grown 'PNW' (from last year). It was dormant all summer but started growing again a few weeks ago. Nothing fancy:

Looks wonderful, Martin. I actually like the look when they bloom off a branch w/o leaves. Something very simplistic about it.

Nice plant.

Rick

Love the smoothness of the skin on your PNW. The throat stripes are just icing on the cake!

Tracy

I have tried to pollinate this arabicum monster (5-5.1 inches wide) using pollen from my arabicum 'PNW':

Wow what a beautiful robust Ara! So pretty and love the masculinity of it. Really great job Martin. Does she stay in the tent or is she out all the time?

Tracy

Tracy, thanks. :-)

I haven't pruned or trained this arabicum NOID and probably won't. The branch-caudex:ratio is a bit off (the caudex is too small) but this is probably due to my generous watering regime. I think, I might shift to hard culture.

I keep it in the tent all the time.

I think generous watering and a larger pot would give the caudex the girth it needs to be proportional to the branches. Hard culture takes much longer to see the result IMO. It has superb potential!

Mark Dimmitt says that keeping adeniums pot-bound *and* cutting back on the water will force them to grow bigger caudices putting less energy into branch growth. This is hard culture. If I just keep my arabicum well-fed and well-watered with plenty of room for growth, the tree won't waste energy on caudex growth. It makes perfect sense to me. :-)

Hmmm...this is very interesting the "hard culture" info. I'm just thinking of Jericson. Doesn't he have some Arabicums that he grows to HUGE proportions rather quickly? Maybe I misunderstood him, but I thought he grew them hydroponically? No soil at all. No sure about the pots he may or may not use though. Maybe there is more to large caudex growth than food, water and pot size?

Any thoughts on this would be welcome. I purchased what I was told was a 7 month old arabicum a month or so ago. Still in the one gallon pot I purchased it in and a really odd mix, the largest part of which is 70% perlite fines. I forget what the other 30% is but it has the texture of very fine ash. I intend to repot it into gritty mix once it warms up.

I tried to insert the link to my previous post below that shows the plant I'm referring to. It's the plant on the left. My post was "Any excuse to buy more plants". Never attempted to imbed a link before so not sure I did it right.

Tyler

http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/4275819/any-excuse-to-buy-more-plants 

Mark Dimmit also said that under generous culture, adeniums could sometimes be leggy but would fill out like a full sized wild adenium after a few years.

I suspect that the ideal caudex growth program probably is a mix of these. I have two, admittedly non-plant examples to support this. Think about camels. They form humps to store water. Ones in captivity still have humps, even though they've never had to rely on them.

As with anything, genetics probably play a part. Some adeniums do end up being somewhat leggy without interference.

Here's my second point: Humans. Starving people stay skinny, even though they would store excess fat because they have nothing to add on. However, someone who does between excessive eating and diets will often actually gain weight and end up worse than before. There is a combination of genetic predisposition, stimulus, and the required nutrients to meet that stimulus.

In the case of adeniums, “fattening” them up is a good thing. I suspect that alternating generous culture with the the minumum length dry periods at appropriate intervals would produce the largest caudex.

Dimmitt's theories about hard culture of Adenium were all based upon his experience of growing in the Northern Hemisphere under limited conditions. After seeing the results that the Thais have produced under premium conditions using generous culture I have to respectfully disagree that this is the fastest way to produce a large caudex. Optimal conditions, repotting every 4 months providing ample growing space, and providing a generous culture produces a much larger specimen than the same allotted time using hard culture.

Merry Christmas Martin and to all. Here is a friend's Peth Dino tree grown using generous culture...

Nice Peth Dino but it has about 80% root mass. Can't see much of a caudex there. ;-)

True Martin. What about Petch Eisan? Which is in a 3 meter pot. Root mass? Or nice caudex?

At some point they become the same thing. Certain wild species of adenium actually form a caudex below the soil. Some wild specimens show a sort of reverse forking at about half their height that pretty obviously indicates that the area was once beneath the soil.

I mean, even cuttings form swollen roots. Isn't the reason we have a bunch of swollen root nodes instead of a single mass when you raise the plant above the ground because people cut the taproot for "centipede roots"? Without that interference, the adenium would just continue the swelling from above-ground to below-ground without branching off, resulting in a single, massive caudex.

Doesn't keeping all your water storage below the soil make more sense anyways? Less exposure to the sun and wild animals and such?

(Golden Bell 6 Months)

Rob

Tracy, yes, they are marvelous specimen with huge caudices but the photos don't reveal the cultural practices in detail. For instance, were the plants pruned and/or pinched consistently to keep the branches in check? There is of course no point in arguing that generous culture under ideal growing conditions will speed up overall growth considerbly, even caudex growth. But how to influence the branch:caudex mass ratio is a different matter. Well, at least I believe it to be more complicated than just keeping an adenium well-fed and well-watered with plenty of room in the container for growth. And of course, genetics plays a major part in this.

Rob, congrats on your flowering GB. That's a delicate flower!

I think you guys are looking at this the wrong way. That's clearly a normal-sized adenium and a 2-inch videographer.

Pagan

Martin - Yes it was a delicate flower. It flowered on the top first w/ 2, then a tiny bud appeared midriff.

The top of the trunk is taking on a "Black Hawk" color now. Since it's branching out; and has Pink flowers, I might remove the top and graft a different color there.

Rob