I have always admired Adeniums , but held back on trying to grow one myself. After reading this forum with all the great info and all the great photos. I picked up a nice looking plant a few weeks ago and noticed yesterday that flower buds have formed.

Good for you, Scott.............and flowers as a bonus.

Scott, You live in a climate which is great for growing these. Nice to hear that your first one has given you some blooms. There are many sources for these in your State.
Rick

@ScotTi
Hi, Scott! What a coincidence...I have been admiring the Cordylines in your thread! Glad you took the plunge and now have an Adenium. Please do post pictures when your tree blossoms open.

For years I had been growing only the common green Cordyline that I use to make Hawaiian pork and fish Laulau. Finally, earlier this week I got cuttings of a red variety that I am rooting in water. I intend to plant them in the ground as accents for my "Adenium Garden." Will post a picture on your Cordyline thread so as to get the identity of the Ti variety.

Rainbow said:@ScotTi
Hi, Scott! What a coincidence...I have been admiring the Cordylines in your thread! Glad you took the plunge and now have an Adenium. Please do post pictures when your tree blossoms open.

For years I had been growing only the common green Cordyline that I use to make Hawaiian pork and fish Laulau. Finally, earlier this week I got cuttings of a red variety that I am rooting in water. I intend to plant them in the ground as accents for my "Adenium Garden." Will post a picture on your Cordyline thread so as to get the identity of the Ti variety.

Happy to hear you are admiring the Cordylines and look forward to you posting photos of yours. I stayed away from the plain green until last year and now am happy growing the green. Maybe you can share the recipe for your Hawaiian Pork as I would like to try cooking with the leaf.

@ScotTi
I posted a picture of my Cordyline cuttings on your thread: http://garden.org/thread/view_...

Okay, my recipe for Hawaiian pork Laulau: Cut up pork roast, butt or shoulder, into individual serving sizes. Marinate for about an hour with 1 tbl Worcestershire sauce, 1 tbl shoyu sauce, 1 tsp liquid smoke...rub with rock salt, ground black pepper and garlic powder if desired. Wrap the chunks in taro leaves of the variety that does not have excess calcium oxalate, or use regular taro leaves boiled twice to remove toxicity (see a web site for preparation instructions). You could substitute bok choy for taro leaves. Then place the bundles into the common green ti leaves and wrap into packets tied with string. Pressure cook for about 1 hour or steam cook for about 3 hours. For the real Hawaiian Laulau, include black cod or butterfly fish in the packets. Ono!

I will give it a try soon.

Thank you for the tip, Scott!

I need advice on my plant. It is growing in a 1 gal. pot and is very root bound and soil dries everyday. Should I repot ? If so what size pot should I use.

Scott, please post a picture of your adenium out of the pot. This could be of great help in determining size and shape of new pot. In the meantime, please continue to water daily because plants in flower mode need water. Also, I recommend placing the budding tree under shade if it is outdoors.

Here is my plant!

Scott, that is one gorgeous and well-grafted Adenium obesum tree!
If it were mine I would plant her in a decorative clay or ceramic container that is about the same depth but 2 inches wider. From my understanding and experience, grafted trees do not develop very large caudexes over time so it is fruitless to lift the caudex. When you do transplant, leave the root ball intact...just add more media at the bottom and the sides. The more feeder roots grafted plants have, the better they will give you a proliferation of blooms.

Just my two cents worth. Perhaps others with more experience could pipe in.

Note: If you choose a decorative clay pot, the interior of the pot needs to be painted with a compound of some kind to help keep the moisture from being absorbed by the clay...consequently drying out the media faster.

Hmmm... grafted trees are usually grafted on to a seedling. So they should behave just like a seedling and develop the great caudex. I think?

The root stock should grow as it was destined to on genetics. They can become just as large.
This is the negative to purchasing grafted trees without being able to chose what root stock that they have been grafted onto.
Rick

Got my first flower!

Yay! Such a gorgeous bloom, too!