Aaahhhhhdenium!!!

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.