I dropped by the UWO greenhouses yesterday and was shocked to discover that one of the Desert Rose (Adenium arabicum) plants I donated had a rotten caudex. These plants are relatively sensitive to over-watering. Clearly. Broken-heartedly sensitive. Fortunately the rest of the plants are alright. This includes my plants that I brought there for the winter. This plant probably dropped it's leaves for no reason (which happens frequently with my plants at least), then a combination of several cloudy days and over-watering resulted in disaster! I literally gasped out loud. MY BABY!
I moved the plant to a different section of the greenhouse where things are watered about once per week. These plants are really resilient and I've seen photos of some that recovered from similar damage. It's a matter of cleaning them up, letting them dry out, and then being VERY careful with watering. Hopefully this one survives but I'll just have to wait and see.
I have yet to actually see flowers from these plants. I see buds every time I go, but I constantly miss the flowers! These plants were grown from seed which results in a large caudex. You can take cuttings, but generally they won't develop an enlarged stem. I thought about taking one from the living stem on the left, but I really have enough plants. If I want this one to survive, butchering it more won't help.
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