Please share your thoughts ... What would you do for these two plants?

Any problem with my leaves, I remove them if possible, especially when the plant is dormant, it will make new leaves in spring.

Hi Maria Elena,

I am new to adeniums, although not to gardening, just a caveat lol, However, the curling of the leaves in your first pic would have me first suspect insect damage. Sucking insects could cause the yellowing. If not, then I will leave it to others:)

Regards to sunburn, has something changed in the position of this seedling, or was something removed resulting in more light? It is unusual to have a plant that has not experienced any change in the amount or intensity of light to suffer sunburn.

I also remove yellow or damaged leaves.

Thanks, everyone for you input .... greatly appreciated.

Agartta: I also remove yellowed or dry leaves. I am on the equator on a tropical island, so we don't have winter. I've seen semi-dormancy in these, which does not involve shedding of leaves at all, just slower growth when overnight temps drop to 68-72 degrees F in Jan/Feb. Daytime highs always go back up to mid 80s during that time.

JStropic: Welcome to the wonderful world (and addiction) of adeniums! All of my plants are in the same location, and are growing under the same culture.

Only 2-3 of them have the yellow spotting. I check my plants daily, sometimes 3x daily. I do not have mites, aphids, mealy, or scale. There are predatory garden spiders but they don't harm these. Curling leaves can sometimes be a normal characteristic due to hybridization. Sometimes a leaf is deformed but that's what happens when everything is outdoors. They get pecked by finches, hummingbirds, grey king birds and trampled on by geckos, lizards, and iguanas. All sorts of moths want to lay their eggs on them. Right now, I am vigilant for hornworms, which are all over the neighborhood eating all the plumeria and adenium foliage. About sunburn, nothing has changed but while most adeniums can handle zone 13 scorching sun, there are some adeniums that are more sensitive. I believe that's due to genetics and hybridization. I certainly had to move anything with white variegation out of this sun.

Rick: The thin single layer of napkin square at the bottom (to prevent soil from escaping a new repot ... It usually disintegrates to nothing fairly quickly but I think with the heavy rains it created a mildew in the soil. I have noticed that once I changed the soil and washed off the roots, new growth was not yellowing. However, what's already yellow just stayed that way. I don't know. Maybe this particular lot of paper napkins was bleached. Wild guess. I will lose that habit after this experience. And I will prune off the unsightly yellow mess once they bloom.

Yes, I label and keep a log for all my plants and note everything from DOB to repots to oddities to root formation. That's exactly how I know this was my lightly variegated seedling among the sea of 200 or so plants. I'm going to follow your advice and move it to the porch with my other variegates. Thanks.

Maria Elena

Maria can you use coco choir i have the same problem i bought 500 small pots the bottom was like a cob web the substrate just went straight through so i put course choir in the bottom followed by medium choir it works well any way best of luck:×)

Maria Elena - wow your plants look so healthy and the cute seedlings are so happy. you happy you have no winter, sounds wonderful, I would like to live there. Here in Western Australia we have mild winters but it gets sometimes to 32 Fahrenheit at night. My plants lost leaves, went dormant and my baby Adeniums are growing very slow almost dormant. I just managed to finish my greenhouse yesterday so they slept nice and cozy last night :)

Gotta be happy with that Agartta

Peter - Took me a month to do the greenhouse myself, only 1 woman power. All this time was a nightmare bring in plants in house at night and out in the morning, everyday and quite a lot of them, now its so much easier, they live out all the time.

If using a Peat or Coconut coir based medium, with huge amounts of rain over a period of time. This will cause issue even if you live in a tropical climate. Soil stays wet consistently with no time to dry.

Rick

Great recommendation, Peter, but Rick is right. Coco coir is not right for my climate. As it is, I want to add something non organic to my current soil/perlite/bark mix, like tiny stones ... I just don't know what to add. My problem is that gritty mix is too hot for this climate. It'll cook the roots. My mix stays a little moist and warm against the roots but dries out completely in 2-3 days after a good rain. I'll just not use anything at all on the bottom. After a while, everything settles and soil loss isn't an issue.

Yeah good point

Maria Elena,

Jericson Pastor had a womderful photo tutorial of his soil mix, free draining and looked wonderful. If I lived in a climate similar to his, I would definitely give it a try. Have tried looking for it in Adenium group, but have not seen it. Wonderful mix.

Rick

We do have similar climates. I'll message him, Rick ... Thanks. If I find that pictorial I will post it here.

Maria Elena. Thanks for the welcome! I find adenium very beautiful but I don't need another garden addiction!! :) I am always interested in learning and am enjoying this forum and all the wealth of knowledge you all so generously share here. I am looking forward to starting some seeds after seeing the gorgeous pics everyone posted of their seedlings and am sure to have lots of questions.

Also, re those little orchid pots I have used coconut fibre (not coir) to hold in various types of mixes and it has never broken down and allows for maximum drainage. Don't know if you've tried that.

Anyway thanks again!

Hmmm ... Coco fiber sounds interesting. Is that the same material used in orchid basket liners?

Yes, I pull it so it is just thin enough to hold back the mix.

Maria Elena,

I use Coconut Husk chunks in all my adult mix. Love it. I find that the Fir Bark if it gets really dry, very difficult to get moisture back into it without soaking it. The Coconut Husk Chunks moisten easily, but do not stay saturated.

The other product which is highly used abroad are Rice Hulls. They are used in replace of Perlite and are a renewable resource also. They are light, add porousity to the soil and allow for air and good water movement.

Going to start using the Rice Hulls for seedlings and starting mix.

Rick

Very interesting to see these various products being used in our mixes. Plus they're by products of other foodstuffs that would otherwise be thrown away, and in today's 'greedy' world, that has to be good!

Gill

Thanks, Rick. Will definitely get the coco husk chunks. I need something else to keep the soil drier under all the rains.

Those "Grow Stones" that Tracy uses always intrigued me. They where of fairly uniform size and looked like they would be great for drainage and aeration.

I have not found them here.

Rick

Thats what i use coconut chunks sorry i call it coir it works for me

Rick,

I recently asked Tracy about her mix ... It is a 1:1:1 gritty mix of pumice, coco coir cubes, growstone GS-2 soil aerator with added Botanicare. I cannot use gritty mix in this hot humid climate but will amend what I currently have with coco cubes and growstone for added drainage. I cannot afford to invest so much time in these plants only to lose them to rot because of heavy rains.

http://www.dealzer.com/growstone-gs-2-mix-this-soil-aerator-9-l/?gclid=CjwKEAjwrO_MBRDxgqLa-LX041QSJABgmcMsPoSwhWZTRBWKxLEIB_zazj6oP9oYe2CCTyvCmh5WHhoCwKfw_wcB