Sick Adenium Obesum

[lucky1]

It's so hard to keep scale off this Adenium!

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/southslope/6009397116/" title="DSC04857 by edible_plum, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6127/600 ... e55448.jpg" width="375" height="500" alt="DSC04857"></a>

Did some research and discovered that Adenium should be in fast-draining ACIDIC soil
Hard to fathom (for me) that a desert plant needs acidic soil, as they're generally growing on limestone, etc.?

Found a good document on it:
http://mgonline.com/articles/desertrose.aspx

Mine was so beautiful a few years ago...here's a pic of it in flower:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/southslope/3841471666/" title="DSC02742 by edible_plum, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2607/384 ... 45c103.jpg" width="375" height="500" alt="DSC02742"></a>

Seems to me it wasn't in acidic soil then either....
Hope I can bring it back to good health.

Anybody else have one of these?

Barb

[hardyjim]

Besides not having any leaves it looks healthy.

[lucky1]

I learned they're definitely deciduous, and no water/too much water can cause leaves to fall.
Repotted it in better soil, with some sand.
But looks like I've got to give it some Miracid if the "acid soil" suggestion is true.

It just seems strange that a desert succulent similar to baobab tree would need acidic soil.
Acidic soils generally occur in high rainfall areas where there's a lot of decaying organic matter.

Barb

[zomble]

Barb,

Have you tried Pravado for the Scales?

Also don't use tap water, catch rain in something.

A link Barb

http://plumeria2u.co.uk/page.html?id=8

[lucky1]

That Plumeria link is really interesting and includes black rot for adenium!

I'll deal with the scales later...the link gave some really good points about (1) warmth, and (2) NOT watering when there are no leaves, i.e. no transpiration, so rot can occur.

Thanks for the great link.
Barb

[bananieru]

I mentioned before that I got one desert rose from Florida last year. It lost all the leaves during the summer, and I had to wash it a few times to get rid of bugs. I took it out in full sun in the spring and look at it now, started to bloom: