In wishing for my adeniums to spread their roots rather than growing like carrots, I've put a lot of them in shallow pots. It's a bit hit or miss and now and then, they push themselves into weird angles and threaten to tip over.



My favourite tool for fixing the problem is an old toothbrush. Gently poking the potting medium into place with the back of the toothbrush to give better support and then using the bristles to softly get any soil off the bottom of the caudex and roots that end up above ground.

I straightened up a few today, starting with this one, designated 2C.

2C was sown March 31 2021. In November 2021 - January 2022, I had an infestation of spider mites that resulted in a lot of my seedlings ending up like this:



2C was not in a great shape either. I'm not sure what exactly the stuff around the soil line was, but it was a hard crust that was not only on the plants, but on the pots and tags too. Most of the seedlings that got it died. I tried carefully scraping it off and while the plant survived, it was hanging on by a thread.



A year and another round of spider mites later, it was getting mushy in the scraped parts and I was pretty sure it was not going to make it. Still, I did what I could and cut away all the brown until only fresh green/white remained.

This is how it looks now.







Scarred, yes, but alive, with roots thick enough to be pushing it out of the pot. Dry and firm (the brown is from cinnamon).

Which brings me back to the toothbrush. By gently brushing the above soil roots and codex, there is nothing to potentially keep water there and get the rot started as long as they're not overwatered. I'm trying to remember to do this every so often and I'm cautiously optimistic as I have not discovered rot on any of the adeniums this winter. It probably also helps that I've grouped up most of the arabicums and socos to make sure I don't water them as often as the somalense and obesums.

Great tip on the toothbrush and good save on your spider mites infested adenium. I wonder if the hard crust is calcium build up?

I lost a lot of seedling from adeniums, mainly because they weaken the seedlings. I am experimenting right now where before it gets too bad, everytime I water the seedlings, I gently wash the leaves (especially the underside) to disrupt the breeding process and allowing the new leaves to grow healthier. This is not easy since the seedlings are so tiny. So far it has worked, I still lost a few (the ones that lost leaves) but a lot of the other seedlings are growing healthy leaves.

GigiAdeniumPlumeria said: Great tip on the toothbrush and good save on your spider mites infested adenium. I wonder if the hard crust is calcium build up?

It felt similar to calcium, but if that was the case, I would have thought that it would have been the same for my other house plants as well as they are watered with the same water from the same can. None of the others had it, including the ones with a similar caudex, like ficus microcarpa and ponytail palm.

Our tap water is
pH 8,1
2°dH =20,0 mg CaO/l
Alkalinity 65 mg/l

GigiAdeniumPlumeria said: I lost a lot of seedling from adeniums, mainly because they weaken the seedlings. I am experimenting right now where before it gets too bad, everytime I water the seedlings, I gently wash the leaves (especially the underside) to disrupt the breeding process and allowing the new leaves to grow healthier. This is not easy since the seedlings are so tiny. So far it has worked, I still lost a few (the ones that lost leaves) but a lot of the other seedlings are growing healthy leaves.

Fingers crossed that they make it through!

I've been waging war on spider mites for 3 winters now and every time I think I have them beat, I find them on some new plant.

There are so many leaves, stems and pots to wipe down. I don't dare to bring in new plants anywhere near my adeniums for fear that they will have "guests". Only growing new plants from seed and preferably hydroponic to not risk bringing in contaminated soil. Gotta protect my babies!