Hi everyone,
I am new to this forum and this is my first post.
I have been gifted an old desert rose from my neighbour who moved away recently. She said it belonged to her parents and it has been sitting in the same pot for the past 20 odd years, so I am looking to repot at it.
I am hoping for a few pointers on the best way to go about this. Like the best time of year to do this, we are currently in early winter located here in Western Australia.
Also any techniques to remove it from its from its current pot without destroying it as I imagine it could be quite rootbound?
Should I trim any branches or roots and what type of pot should I replant into? The current pot is about 450mm or about 18 inches.
Any info/suggestions on this task is appreciated

to the Adenium Forum

I would wait to repot ...

get the plant through the winter months first, then wait until next spring for a repot ....
then, once re-potted the plant has all spring & summer to recover

during winter ....water sparingly once every 30 days - place under grow lights or in a east, west or south facing window

never allow the plant to sit in water ....and never allow it to freeze

If the seed pod is still attached ....allow the pod to ripen, spit itself open ...and release its seeds ...
from first emergence, seed pods take about 70 days ...you will notice a distinct color change as
the pod ripens (from light green to a "speckled" purplish brown)

save the seed in a cool, dry place until next spring

In the meantime ...source a few materials:

find a new pot slightly bigger ....shallow dish type & azalea pots work well

if your current pot is 18" diameter ...a 20" diameter will work fine
make certain there is at least 1 drainage hole

potting media ....

you will need to make a fast draining, chunky-gritty potting mix ....the mix should be mostly inorganic such as
rock, sand, grit

A tried & true potting medium for adenium .....

Mix together:

1 Part: Coconut Coir -
1 Part: Redwood Bark (or) Orchid / Phalaenopsis Mix - Break-up, cut or crush larger stems & bark
1 Part: Poultry Grit (or) Pea Gravel > screen out dust
1 Part: Perlite - coarse > screen out dust
1 Part: Sand - coarse = Leveling, Horticultural, Builder's Sand > screen out fine sand & dust
1 Part: Lump charcoal - Break-up, Crush to 1/4" to ½" sized pieces > screen out dust
1 Part: Lava-rock – (volcanic cinders or pumice) > screen out dust

In a re-potting mix pinch?

You can safely substitute a half and half mixture of Orchid / Phalaenopsis Soil Mix & Cactus / Palm Mix

bump the side of pot with your palm while turning the pot, to loosen the root ball ... if the root-ball wont budge ....take a sharp, stiff bladed knife to make downward cuts along the inside wall of the pot

knock off all the old potting media ..... rinse with a water hose and allow to dry .... if you notice any broken roots, or roots that were damaged - as a preventative measure, sprinkle a powdered fungicide or cinnamon on damaged roots ....and allow the root-ball to air dry for about 10 to 14 days ....

next ....decide if you want to "raise the plant" ...this, to expose more of the root system ....if so:
place about an inch of rock in the bottom of pot .... place root-ball in pot, and take notice of where the top of the plant sits in the pot ....

if too low ...throw a few hand fulls of fresh potting media in bottom ..... if too high, take out some of the rock

now is a good time to layer in a slow release pellet type fertilzer .

once the root-ball is set where you want it ...back-fill around root-ball ..... then saturate plant

adenium have only 2 seasons -
dry and wet
dry = winter months
wet = summer months

Thanks James for your detailed response
I might move the plant to avoid too much of the winter rains and start collecting the ingredients for the suggested soil mix.
Does raising the plant to expose the roots help the plant grow better, or is this more for visual appeal?

a little bit of both ....raising will give the plants finer roots more room to spread ....

adenium roots have no respect for pots ... overtime, roots can crack pots ...lifting and repotting lessons some of the stresses that cause cracked pots ... a benefit is that the plant stays in the same pot longer

some grow adenium as bonsai plants .... exposed roots make the plant look ancient (like a bonsai) - but the process only takes a few years

@BlueMoondog You are in good hands here!

Congratulations on your 20+ Year old adenium and that huge seedpod will give you a lot of baby desert roses to keep or give away as gifts. I have yet to find someone who refused my adenium rose gift. 😀

Once your seedpods are ripe and you decide to grow your seeds, please feel free to post here.
The thread "Chats about Adenium seedpods, seeds and seedlings" in Adeniums forum

Thanks Gigi, I will keep that in mind. I have wired up the current seed pod to hopefully catch a few of the seeds, and see how it goes when the time is right.

That looks like a skillful wiring of your seedpod.

@Bluemoondog any updates? Hopefully you were able to harvest a lot of seeds.

Its coming to the end of winter here so things are pretty slow moving at the moment, so no luck yet. As you can see though the colour has changed to more of a red so hopefully that means it might pop open soon. I've had to also rewire it a couple of times as it seemed to be bulging out of the wire.

Oh wow that would definitely bring you a lot of seeds! My neighbor's seedpod opened today and there was close to 37 seeds with 20 plump ones on Just half of the pod that split opened. The other half has not opened yet.

GigiPlumeria said:Oh wow that would definitely bring you a lot of seeds! My neighbor's seedpod opened today and there was close to 37 seeds with 20 plump ones on Just half of the pod that split opened. The other half has not opened yet.

37 seeds are considered medium to low average, last year I got one from my neighbour, 1 single seedpod had more than 80 seeds inside, thats the reason also that I have so many adenium seeds. ( the pink color one that I sowed yesterday for adenium challenge)

Wow, that's a lot!

So we are 1 month into spring here in Western Australia and have decided it is time to repot. I was hoping for the seed pod to ripen up and split open before the repot but its been about 4 months (which I believe is way longer than usual), so I am doing the repot with it still attached and hopefully it will survive the process and maybe it might open up later on. It is currently purple on top but still a bit green underneath. The plant has pretty much lost all of its leaves over winter, but I can see a few new shoots starting to form.

So after being in the same pot for 20 odd years, with a few taps and a bit of shuffling I managed to wiggle the plant out of its 18 inch pot fairly easily. I removed all of the old potting media (not much of it left) rinsing it out with the garden hose and revealed a fairly large caudex hiding beneath the soil.

I decided to trim up the roots a bit to neaten it up as well as to help reveal a bit more of the caudex. I treated the incisions with cinnamon as I progressed. Next I trimmed up some of the more scraggly looking branches and also treated with cinnamon.

So now its currently hanging in the shed to allow the root ball to dry for 10-14 days as suggested by James.

Gorgeous desert rose. Looks like this was cutting grown instead of seed grown and the roots have developed into huge roots.

If you have the cuttings you can try to grow the big cuttings for flowers and they could produce seedpods for you as well. And they will bloom ahead of the mother plant. I find the cuttings harder to root but I will keep trying.

I will keep trying and if successful, I can train the roots of the cuttings later on to give me interesting collection of desert roses for flowers and seedpod collection and to give away as gifts like my plumeria collection.

looks good ...

had me fooled with the beach scene



green line = lift to line ....

GigiPlumeria said:Gorgeous desert rose. Looks like this was cutting grown instead of seed grown and the roots have developed into huge roots.

Hmm interesting.. so the plant doesn't have a caudex, just large roots?

It looks like it but I am not an expert and I don't have any cuttings grown. That's why after reading the article below, I will not be throwing cuttings anymore. I will still try to root cuttings. Also, cuttings grown could still produce beautiful bloom and produce seedpods.

https://zenyrgarden.com/seed-g...

Here is one beautiful cutting grown Adenium:

deepsouth said:looks good ...

had me fooled with the beach scene



green line = lift to line ....

Thanks James, I was hoping to raise but was unsure how high you can lift in one go. The green line is about 4 inches from the original soil level

GigiPlumeria said:It looks like it but I am not an expert and I don't have any cuttings grown. That's why after reading the article below, I will not be throwing cuttings anymore. I will still try to root cuttings. Also, cuttings grown could still produce beautiful bloom and produce seedpods.

https://zenyrgarden.com/seed-g...

Thanks Gigi, interesting article. I will hold onto those branches I trimmed off and start doing some research on how to get them growing

You are