Hello!
One of my desert rose seems to be very thin and squishy. I also noticed today (this plant and my other one) that the new growth has just shriveled up and died. I live in Florida and I do water it a few times a week. it's so thin and soft compared to my larger one, the trunk is full and more on the hard side... the bigger one recently had new growth all over it but dead too. it was moved from its original spot and had the roots pulled out that were growing into the mulch from the old pot. i just repotted them both (big one today, smaller one about a month ago)... In regards to the dead stems, I an not sure what that means. Any help is appreciated. Thanks :)

dead stems are a symptom of under-watering ...but from your description, of "watering twice a week" - your dead stems may be from over-watering -

the first thing I noticed was that your soil is too dense .. meaning it (the soil) is holding too much water ...too long

cut back on watering ... to once every 5 to 7 days ....as summers grow hotter (upper 90's) increase the amount of watering

pull the entire plant from the pot ...and mix in more perlite, rocks, pebbles and sand to make the soil more "chunky" .... try to sift out the fine silt so you have a predominantly gritty potting medium ...this will be a faster draining, less water holding mix

as for the shriveled up stems ... cut them off - back to solid wood ...and new stems will emerge

deepsouth said:
the first thing I noticed was that your soil is too dense .. meaning it (the soil) is holding too much water ...too long

pull the entire plant from the pot ...and mix in more perlite, rocks, pebbles and sand to make the soil more "chunky" .... try to sift out the fine silt so you have a predominantly gritty potting medium ...this will be a faster draining, less water holding mix

Thanks for the reply! It's so confusing because the first rose I posted and my large one were in the same type of soil for 2 years and the big one is doing great but small one still had a skinny squishy trunk (which is why I repotted it to see all the roots). This small one I repotted it with succulent soil in hopes it would do better and the trunk would get more "full" but no luck. I'll try to take it out and put different soil in it. I just repotted the large one yesterday to move up and that soil probably will not be okay either so I'll redo it too.
Here's the big one:

adeniums are pretty resilient ...they can take a lot of abuse .... but they will not survive wet conditions - the result of too much water is, root rot

to prevent root rot is to make the soil fast draining - and we do that by adding rocks, pebbles, perlite, sand ....this makes the soil more porous ....
a potting mix that I have used for years ..... some of it may, or may not be easy to find ...

Mix together:

2 Part: Coconut Coir -
1 Part: Poultry Grit (chicken grit) /or Pea Gravel
1 Part: Sand - coarse Builder's Sand, or Leveling Sand, or Horticultural Sand (sift out fine silt)
1 Part: Perlite - coarse
1 Part:: Lump Charcoal - Break-up (crush larger pieces) (sift out fine silt)
1 Part: Lava-rock – (volcanic cinders or pumice) (crush larger pieces) (sift out fine silt)

If unable to locate the ingredients above:
Use a half and half mixture of Orchid / Phalaenopsis Soil Mix (mostly bark and rocks) - mixed with Cactus / Palm Mix

I do not know how your weather is like. Every locale is different, but for example, on my side, we got back to colder than what Adeniums like so it promptly dropped some of its leaves. But is now growing new ones. I have stopped doing watering and just let it feel the change in temps. Thankfully the caudex is staying firm. It is now growing slowly again a new batch of leaves.

I do agree your media looks too heavy and dense. I would improve that and make it much more grittier and well draining than that. It will also give you the chance to inspect the root zone and see what is going on below soil level.

Trim off all the obviously dead branches, and dab some light cinnamon on the exposed cut. Give it time to recover. Watering it twice a week is too often if your temps is not yet consistently hitting 90F and higher. So be very, very careful with watering. So I would improve the media first, make it grittier, water it thoroughly at least once a week, positioned in full sun.

sorry for piggy backing on this thread but i wish to ask a new question about
my desert rose and i don't know how to start a new thread , please help .
All good I worked it out !!! sorry
Cheers
Stormy

I'm a first time Adenium keeper and I've only had mine for about 6 months now. I haven't run into any issues yet. One thing I try to remember is that the soil must be completely dry, top to bottom, before I water my Adeniums. Since mine are currently in clay pots, it is pretty easy to get a sense of the moisture in the soil and they tend to dry out faster.

Before the rainy season hit, I was watering about once a week. Now, its been a while since I've seen dry soil and I haven't watered them in about a month.