Seeking Adenium advise

7 years ago

last modified: 7 years ago

Ok, a year ago this past May, I got this grafted plant. It has grown..but not a lot. This is my first adenium though I grow about everything...seriously..being a horticulture student back in the day.

I had read to keep dryish during winter rest and obviously it went fine.

During the warm growing season, I have it in full sun in a very well drained media. I water it when rainfall doesn't (it's been wet last two years in Arkansas). Every day or every other day, since the pot doesn't hold a lot of moisture and is retaining only minimal water by the second day. I am a very sparse fertilizer user, particularly with succulents. Probably too sparse, I would say it's only seen fertilizer about 3 times in 2 years. For one reason, it seems mostly counter productive when tomorrow will see the pot flushed with rain anyway.

Advise on how to make more growth and retain more blooms? Last year (course it was freshly potted up from bare root) all the flower buds fell off fairly early in development. I chalked it up as, the plant will retain what it can support. This year, I got the first flower (taken today), but all other buds fell off.

Is this right and natural or is it the result of a failure in my cultivation?

The plant itself is healthy and trunk diameter is increasing. I repotted it twice or thrice last year, trying to keep the roots in proportion with the pot and every time roots starting to escape the drainage holes, potting it up. I haven't this year, because it seems stable now, in an 8 inch azalea pot.

Featured Answer

Maria Elena (Caribbean - USDA Zone 13a)

7 years ago

@dbarron,

Congratulations on that beautiful bloom ... Very nice.

Adeniums are VERY heavy feeders ... NOT your average succulent. Failure to feed = no energy to make and sustain blooms. They not only want to be fed monthly, but do better fed weekly at 1/4 strength from the age of 1 month. In other words, space out the feedings so they have a balance in their diet. as opposed to bombarding them with nutrients all at once. I feed with a 'complete' plant food (20-20-20 or 14-14-14) one week, earth worm castings the next, potassium broth the next, tomato fertilizer the next ... This is my feeding rotation. Tomato food is excellent for ALL succulents 1x month during their active growing season.

To make the home-made potassium broth: 3 ripe banana peels boiled, cooled. Discard peels. Water placed in gallon container and filled with rain (or fresh) water to complete the gallon. 1 tsp any sugar added to feed the microorganisms. Smells bad but the plants love it. It's a bloom boost.

Hope that helps.

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Comments (7)

Jay 6a Chicago
7 years ago
last modified: 7 years ago

I'm thinking it's all the rain we've had and it's not your fault. They don't get those oleander aphids too, do they? Good year for cardinal flower, bad year for royal catchfly. My Calotropis procera dropped its buds because of all the rain. The rain made my Euphorbia rot.
dbarron
Original Author
7 years ago
Well, I didn't actually realize the plant wasn't fully open, here's the updated photo. Wanted to share, because I really liked the bloom. Best I recall, this is absolutely true to the pre-buy photo.
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Jay 6a Chicago
7 years ago
Very nice! I'd grow a couple if I had decent indoor light. Some of your activity shows up on my notifications, even if I haven't commented. You must have had non stop rains too, because it was all coming from your area. I planted about 20 variegata plants in the ground yesterday. That's what's left after 60 seeds. Only about 50% of all the winter sown seeds germinated, so I have my hands full with the 50% that did. I'll have to limit the amount of species in the future so I can have a little free time. I guess my health is better. No cancer anywhere and I haven't been in the hospital for 3 years. I've been working on my old garden that wasn't touched for 2 years. I still live with my friend of 30 years, and I'm doing a lot of gardening here now too. My Allium stellatas germinated and I found a large colony of A. cernuum in my property. The rain messed up my Silene regia and I don't think I'll be getting any blooms, but the S. stellata is blooming now. The cardinal flowers never germinated, so another year without those. On a good note, after a few years of not having any Salvia azurea a few seedlings mysteriously appeared.
Jay 6a Chicago
7 years ago
You were right about me taking on too much, but I guess I had to learn the hard way. Your garden wisdom keeps coming back to haunt me. I did still end up with a lot of cool specimens I wanted like the Hieracium venosum.
dbarron
Original Author
7 years ago
Hmm, ok, well that's something I really didn't know (but kinda thought)...however always easier to deal with underfeeding than over ;) I fed today.
dbarron
Original Author
7 years ago
I almost think I feel the response in the Adenium today already.