A Little Late, But Repotted Finally

[MrSeedy]

I've had pretty good luck with my Adenium obesum, or desert rose and really had no problem getting winter flowers after a year or so, but it seems the more I've read about them, the more I tend to fret over any kind of "seeming" abnormality in mine. I bought some new cactus mix last spring and finally just yesterday repotted the desert rose. I had a suspicion that the long thick caudex or tap root like projections from that were not making any contact with soil at the bottom of the pot , since the soil there had long since washed away through the drainage holes. It was in one of those very cheap plastic nursery pots with the very big holes in the bottom that allow soil to wash easily out the bottom, unless you place some fine screening or something similar over those holes, to reduce errosion out the bottom. I wasn't surprised to find the bottom most roots had absolutely no soil around them, and it was a sure sign the poor thing should have been repotted much earlier. The strange thing though is that the roots from the sides hadn't developed very much at all, but the whole rootball was so tight in the pot , I had to cut the pot right off rather than take a chance of trying to forcibly remove the plant from the pot and possibly damaging it. Oh well, I made a bit of a smorgasbord of additives to the cactus potting mix, adding a bit of compost, perlite, vermiculite , a dash of limestone for calcium, some Osmocote (slow release fertilizer), and a dash of "Holytone" for lots of micronutrients. Oh well, I hope my little experiment with all the additives doesn't back fire , since it was done without any kind of "recipe", but after all the reading about "nutritional" problems with the Adeniums, I decided it might need a little extra BOOST!! Normally going into fall I'd not do fertilizing or even repotting for most plants, but I found my Adenium can grow at any time of the year if it's indoors where it's warm in the winter, and it really doesn't require any dormancy period to speak of , unless it should drop most of the leaves, at which time watering should be reduced for a couple of months. Oh well , only time will tell, if I've over done the ammendments , but I'll be a bit nervous for the next several weeks or months every time I check to see how it's doing , and hope it likes it's new soil mix and the very heavy stoneware pot it's been moved to.

[MrSeedy]

I guess a picture says a thousand words should apply with this post , since nobody seems interested in commenting on the topic, but here's a picture of my Desert Rose in it's new "prettier" stoneware pot and in it's usual winter place in my south window. Forgive the nasty appearance of the window that looks so "dirty" but the seals long ago failed on that window and it needs replacing , since I can't clean the nasties from between the double panes. I must say though , one advantage to the "nasties" though is that they provide a bit of "shading" in the window during the times, when the sun is at it's hottest, so there's less possibility of the plants getting burned in that window. Some plants will "BURN' badly close to an "unshaded" south window during the late spring through early fall, so one must be careful. I used to use "sheers" years back for the same use of shading those hot south windows, though for some plants the sheers weren't even enough shading . I'd guess however , the extra shading during the winter months isn't a positive thing since it cuts the amount of light during midwinter , when the light is at its' lowest strength, and daylight hours are so "short". So far a week after the repottingor so, the plant isn't growing at all , so most likely it may decide it's time for a rest and may lose most of it's leaves. I was hoping it would grow a bit longer yet, so the roots could readust to it's new pot.

[grindle]

after all that TLC you've given it I'm sure it will do well for you, don't most plants go into some sort of shock after they've been repotted

[MrSeedy]

I really broke one of my own rules by repotting this time of year , since most plants are slowing their growth in preparation for a winter rest, but sometimes if you've found a plant that wants to grow all winter , it's somewhat safe to repot in the fall, and in the case of the desert rose, which had all those bare soiless roots at the bottom of the pot , I probably did it a favor. I'm just hoping after having been lucky enought to get blooms last winter, I can get the "repeat" flowering this winter again, since it seems some of my plants may bloom onces and then refuse to flower again for some reason. I suspect with the somewhat odd growth it was making this last summer with the sort of elongated growth and small leaves, that it may have been suffering from some nutritional disease , and I guess the desert roses are susceptible to quite a number of nutritional disease that may produce some unusual or distorted growth and lack of flowers.