What to Do After Pruning Desert Roses?

So you’ve pruned your adenium desert roses the way that you like, now how do you take care of them then? For after-care of pruning desert roses, there are only a few points you should keep in mind. It’s not too difficult at all. Roll with us & let’s see some of them right now.

1. Place Your Desert Rose Plant Somewhere Dry & Sunny

After you’ve cut off the adenium branches, its roots and caudex tend to get weaker than usual. That’s why at this stage they won’t have enough energy to absorb more water or nutrients, especially the rainwater which might contain many other things in it.

After pruning your desert roses, make sure to place your plants somewhere dry and sunny. This helps heal and dry the wounds. It also helps your plants avoid contact with excess water.

What you can also do is use a plastic grocery bag or a garbage bag to cover the caudex. This is to make sure no water can get through the bark and therefore not cause infections to our babies.

Don't water your plants at this stage as well. Just leave the babies there as they are. Let them bathe in the sunlight to heal the cuts. After they’ve recovered, they will have the strength to process and transport water and nutrients again.

2. Mist the Young Sprouts

Depending on the weather where you live and the species of adenium you have, your plants may grow new sprouts 10-15 days after pruning.

Some plants may sprout sooner or later than this because of the soil condition as well. It’s best to take note of the time to know your unique plants better.

As you can see here, we pruned this baby back on Halloween. And about 2 weeks later, the little eyes are opening up, shooting out new sprouts, yay:

When you see new sprouts shooting out, it’s time to mist our babies. This is a sign that the caudex and roots have started functioning properly again, pushing water and nutes from the bottom to the top. We know now they have recovered and can begin water lightly our babies after a period of no water.

3. Feed Your Desert Roses With Some Good Food

The way we feed our babies varies depending on the type of desert rose and its development stages. You can see how the prune-to-bloom days differ for different type of adenium in how to prune your desert roses.

The prune-to-bloom days of single petal desert roses are about 60 days. If you prune your plants around November, the expected time for blooming is 2 months later, which is around January.

Based on this rough estimation, you would space out the time you feed your babies accordingly.

Here's a timeline for feeding:

10-14 Days After Pruning

When you see new sprouts starting out, start misting and supplying some extra nutes to promote the new root growth. At this stage, mix some root hormones or powder and spray around the caudex once every 10 days.

The dosage depends on the product manufacturer. However, usually you can dissolve 1 teaspoon or about 2 grams per 1-2 liters of water.

We don’t want to spray too much at once. Because the powder may get washed away as the water drains out of the soil. And it may be too much for our recovering plants and may “fry” or “burn” the roots with no mercy.

Young Leaves Growing Bigger

As the young leaves are growing bigger, you can spray the root powder twice a month, on the 15th and the 30th. This also works. When you complete 2 rounds of spraying, you know we’re half-way (30 days completed) to blooming. Then, at this point, we will ramp up the N, P, K amount.

Feed the plants first with slow-release organic fertilizer that is high in nitrogen. This helps build up our plants and the overall bodies and leaves. The 30-10-10 one is a suitable choice.

Flowers Beginning to Bloom

When the blooming period comes near, you can increase the P, K amount. Phosphorous (P) helps the plants to bloom more flowers at once. Potassium (K) helps our flowers become more beautiful, brighter, and stronger. The 6-30-30 at this stage works like a charm. We can feed them 2-3 weeks before blooming.

Let’s quickly recap what we just went over to get a clearer idea:

This table lays out what you can expect at each different stage and what the best practices are. We can’t emphasize enough that the pruning, growing, and recovery process are very different and unique for each plant.

We recommend that you take note of the plant cycle. Some double petal desert roses will take longer to heal and regrow. Sometimes, the weather this year may also make the plants bloom sooner or later.

Although the time frame may be different for various plants, these are general guidelines for what to do at each stage and not hard-and-fast rules. You should also be flexible depending on where you live and the materials available in your area as well.

It's Recovery & Adenium Bloom Time!

As you can see, there are only several things you should take note of when taking care of your desert roses after pruning. It's not too difficult right.

Here are the takeaways:

• After pruning, keep your plants in a nice, dry, sunny place
• Prevent any water from getting into the plants
• Start misting your babies when some new sprouts start shooting out

The trickiest part of this process is probably the feeding stages. As a general rule of thumb, feed the plants slowly to prevent the nutes from being washed away with the water and to prevent the roots from being burned by too much goodies.

When your plants are regrowing, feed them with the "protein" Nitrogen. When they are about to bloom, increase the amount of Phosphorous and Potassium. Then you will get strong, healthy desert roses with bright, beautiful flowers.

If you like organic fertilizers, here is how to make potassium (potash) from banana easily without a bad smell at home:

Liquid Potash Fertilizer for Flowering Plants: How to Make

Let’s see how to make liquid potassium fertilizer from bananas, both meat & peels. We’ll base our process on the GE-making process. It’s really easy to do. Let’ jump in on the fun. First, we need to prepare a few different ingredients: Ingredients: * 2 bananas * 100 gr / half cup sugar * 1L

Zenyr GardenZenyr Garden

You might also want to check out:

• How to make nitrogen rich liquid fertilizer with EM
• Add nutrients to potting soil with red worms

Keep Every Desert Rose on Earth Alive

Hope this brief post helped answer some of your questions. If you have any more questions, leave us a comment. We and many other much more experienced growers in the community will try to help out.

We like this idea from Maria’s Garden: Our mission is to keep every desert rose on this planet alive! (and lower their death rates)! A good adenium can actually live for 100s of years, much longer than us human.

Responses to Readers' Questions

after cinnamon how long do you wait to put glue

--> Thanks for your question. You don't need to put glue after cinnamon. Just one of them is enough. As soon as it dries, it will protect the new cuts from water/fungi. Later, the plant will also heal that part. I hope this helps!

Update: If you would like to put glue on, wait at least 2 weeks. Applying glue immediately may block the moisture from escaping, potentially causing stem rot. Powder can be applied right after pruning as it is breathable.

I prunned my Adenium two months back at caudex leval, now the caudex keep thikening but there has been no sprouting of leaves, I have fed it with NPK 19 19 19 twice but no results, pls advise

--> Thanks for your question. How low at the caudex did you cut prune it? Can you check if there are any eyes/sprouting openings around the caudex? How old is your plant & are there still any branches? In the meantime, let me ask around if there's anyone with a similar experience. Send us a picture if you can for more clarification.

The plant is 5-6 years old I have recently changed the soil and added organic manure and after a week I put NPK 19 19 19

--> Thanks for your pictures. From observation, the plant may have been cut too low. It is normal after pruning to see caudex thickening. From a grower that I asked, you could dig the plant up, hang it dry for at least a month then replant. Luckily then, some new sprouts may shoot out. I hope this helps temporarily keep us posted!

(Update: Sep 20 2022) Hi again, it's been a while. How is your plant doing now?

You suggested to hang my Adenium to dry but it's Monsoon in Bombay till September, do should I wait till October

--> In such a case, let's wait till the monsoon passes and see how it goes.

Thanks

--> You are welcome

[Follow up] Hello, it's December at the moment, have you tried the method? How is your adenium doing now? All the best. Hien.

After,pruning,to leave the" stems",as such, or should it b covered with what?

--> Thanks for your question. You can cover the stems (the open cut part) with lime powder or cinnamon to prevent infection.

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