Tampa Bay Succulents
I’m back from Florida, and while I didn’t make it all the way to Tampa, I did get a comment on the blog from a garden writer there, Penny Carnathan.
She occasionally blogs about some of the great succulents they can grow outside in Florida that we have to bring inside.
Plant No. 5 – Desert rose (Adenium obesum)
This isn’t my desert rose, but it looks just like it. My blooms haven’t opened and, in fact, the leaves are curling up and dropping at an astonishingly fast pace. But that’s normal! It’s winter. This is dormant time for desert rose.
The tips I’ve learned for this plant: Don’t water during the winter, when it’s natural to drop leaves and go dormant. (I take mine inside during winter rains.) In the growing months, it needs lots of sun, and water and fertilizer about once a month. Prune after it blooms and you’ll be rewarded with more branching and more blooms.
There are a lot of cultivars of this plant out in the trade all with slightly different flower colors, or completely different flower colors. On this trip we saw new Adenium cultivars growing as full blown shrubs with flowers constantly, and completely covered in glossy green leaves. Apparently if you live in the right climate, it can work! We grow them primarily for the caudex and the up to twice a year flowers.
