Hello Friends!
Today am gonna reveal you an interesting story on my 5 adeniums or desert rose plants.
I will share my complete experience on growing adenium plants and reveal three nursery gardening
secrets to grow adenium from seeds with 100 % success results.
I will also show you the comparison between adenium seeds purchased from amazon vs the
fresh seeds harvested from adenium seed pods.
Please watch it till the end.
Before we start, make sure you have subscribed to this channel along with the bell notification,
so that you get notified as soon as I add another useful episode.
Well!
To begin!
I received these 5 bare rooted baby adenium plants about an year back, gifted by my dearest
gardener friend Ram from terrace gardening channel.
These travelled over a 1000 miles to reach the destination in a great condition, This
is because these are excellent drought tolerant plants and rightly called desert rose.
So, you can safely purchase adenium plants online if it's not available at your local
nursery.
For beginners, Adenium Obesum is a succulent plant which stores lot of water in its stem
and also the modified part of the stem called the Caudex.
We have discussed these in detail in my other adenium videos.
You can check the adenium playlist from description below.
Before I reveal you the three nursery secrets on growing adenium, I will quickly brief you
on 5 important care tips for adenium.
1.SOIL: This is the most important factor for successfully growing adenium.
It's a desert rose and hence prefers a sandy soil.
Make sure you have atleast 50 percent sand or perlite mixed in your potting soil.
For details on the perfect potting mix for adenium or any succulent, I have detailed
episode on this topic.
You can check that link at the end screen of this video.
2.WATERING: If your soil is really well draining, the frequency of watering does not matter
much, like for instance if you have lot of rains in your zone, its almost like daily
watering.
And also make sure, you have good drainage holes in your container.
Otherwise, generally watering weekly twice is the general rule for adenium like any other
succulent.
3.SUNLIGHT: This is a very important factor for proper flowering.
Adenium needs maximum sunlight and good humidity for flowering and growth.
Atleast 6 hours of direct sunlight is a must!
4.FERTILIZERS: Most recommend chemical fertilizers like water soluble NPK, but I always use organic
ones like simple decomposed cowdung or vermicompost like a handful of it once a month.
And during repotting mixing a table spoon of steamed bone meal will do the job and induce
enormous flowering in all seasons except in it dormant season - that's winter.
5.PEST CONTROL: Its commonly affected by sucking pests like aphids, mealy bugs and mites.
Weekly spray of 10 ml neem oil in 1 litre of water will easily control this problem.
Now, lets look into the three Nursery secrets on how to grow adenium from seeds.
To start this story, I purchased adenium seeds from amazon and followed all tips perfectly
to germinate adenium seeds.
I have shown this in a detailed video some time ago.
You can check a link to that episode in the description below.
But the result of these amazon seeds was really bad, not even a single seed germinated.
Then recently, one of my adeniums started developing a seed pod.
First thing you need to do when you notice adenium seed pod is tie some thread around
the pod to prevent spillage of seeds before the seed pod matures and releases seeds.
It has a special seed dispersal mechanism by wind, where each seed had this fluffy stuff
which is easily carried away by wind.
Here you can see, I have protected the seed pod from its natural dispersal mechanism.
When the seed pod starts drying and cracks open, it's the time to harvest the seeds.
Separate the seeds by gently pulling this fluffy stuff as shown in this clip.
So these are fresh adenium seeds we just harvested!
Now the first secret to get a great success rate in germination?
These seeds are very delicate and are more prone to fungus.
So what you need to do immediately is pour in some antifungal powder like bavistin or
any antifungal powder like Carbendazin + mancozeb combination like the SAAF brand powder.
Coat the seeds with this antifungal powder whether you keep them aside for storage or
plan to sow them immediately.
Now the second nursery secret: The growing medium.
You can use pure sand or some cocopeat mixed in it.
What they actually do is, take fine sand and sterilize it by keeping in full sunlight for
atleast 2 or 3 days or if you are growing in small scale, you can even microwave this
sand.
I think if you are using anti fungal powder, this step is perhaps optional.
Now the third secret and then finally the results of this process on day 6, day 10,
day 12 and day 15.
And one more thing: You also mix some antifungal powder into this sand or cocopeat.
And while sowing the seeds try to maintain a space of atleast an inch to avoid overcrowding.
You can do this better, here I have not done this perfectly.
Then finally, you also mix some antifungal into the water or spray can and use the same
solution to spray or gently sprinkle some water once every two days.
Do not flood the seeds with water, this can damage the seeds.
Now the time for results!
You can see on day 6, there is some activity already the little ones are trying to push
up the sand.
On day 10, some more activity.
You can see little babies popping out more and see this little baby adenium in this zoomed
view.
On day 12, more improvement and formation of these tiny babies.
Then on Day 15, you can see so many beautiful baby adeniums.
You can repot these into independent containers after a month or so.
So, there you have it folks.
That was an interesting story of my adeniums.
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Happy Gardening!