no gardening experience - just bought a desert rose... HELP!

I just bought a desert rose from a local plant store, and I need help as to what to do with it! I've been researching a lot about this plant on the internet and this is what I've come up with so far: I need to buy a shallow, unglazed terra cotta pot, keep it well drained, water the plant once a week, and use cactus mix for potting soil.
I want to keep the plant in a pot, and try to keep it small. Right now, it is less than a foot tall, and I don't want it to grow very big. Some of the site say that it won't bloom if it doesn't have enough room. Can I keep it small, or do I eventually have to move it to a larger pot? Any other advice on what to do with this plant? I am a little interested in bonsai, and I read that this is a natural bonsai. What does that mean, and how would I prune it?
Thanks so much!

If this is the plant that you bought, http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/527/
Then check out this forum, http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/f/fatplant/all/

Hope the guide and the forum will help you and Welcome to DG.

8)
Larry

Hi - I have one of these and it is very easy to care for, they survive well with a little neglect....
it is important that they get at least a few hours of sun or very bright light everyday, or you won't get flowers. They like more acidic soil, so I would use a mix with a little peat in it, and some sand, and make sure the drainage is good. Pot it into a somewhat shallow container, that also goes with the bonsaii look.

I don't believe in watering on a set schedule, and with this plant, you want it to get fairly dry between waterings. If the top few inches of soil feel dry, it is time to water again, but I would always check first.

As for pruning, I don't know. Mine doesn't grow very fast, so I haven't had to. Good luck!

They're not like a traditional bonsai where you can prune and shape them. But I think some of them will stay smaller if you keep them in a pot, but beyond just keeping them in a pot I don't think there's much you can do to keep them small.

I would also consider getting a regular depth pot for it. These are succulents and don't need a ton of water. What happens in a container is that there's a layer at the bottom of the pot where there will almost always tend to be some water, and if you have a shallow pot, the plant's roots will be sitting right there in this area. Especially for a plant like this that doesn't like a lot of water, that could be very bad. And don't follow the once a week watering to the letter--how often you need to water is going to vary depending on the size of the plant, the size of the pot, what sort of conditions you keep it in, etc (and your watering frequency will likely be different in the winter than it is in the summer). A better approach is to stick your finger a few inches down in the pot and if it still feels wet, then you don't water. You can also buy a moisture meter that does basically the same thing as the finger test. Or once you've had the plant a little while, you can often pick up the pot and feel the weight and tell if it needs water or not.

As far as blooming, I'm not sure if the pot size matters, I've seen ones in fairly small pots that were blooming, I think it may have more to do with the age of the plant than the size of the pot.

I recently bought a rather healthy desert rose from Home Depot. I have had them in the past & they always end up with these grey bugs that seem to kill the plant. So when I bought my most recent I asked for a insectiside to keep them away (i have tried soap & water to prevent bugs with no luck) . Before I applied the insectiside (Garden safe brand multi-purpose garden insect killer by Shultz) the Desert Rose was hearty with beautiful blooms & many buds, the day after I applied the insectiside, the blooms were brown & shortly after the leaves started to yellow. I rinsed the plant, but everyday more leaves are falling & the blooms & buds are completely gone. I have attached a pic of the evil insect. I would sooooooo appreciate any knowledge on this bug & a safe way to keep them away from my plants. Also any general suggestions on how to feed (if at all) the desert rose. Many thanks from sunny South Florida!!

I'm not sure what it is from the picture--could be mealy bugs or maybe cottony cushion scale. Mealies the easiest way to get rid of them is take a q-tip, dip it in rubbing alcohol, and then rub them off with that. I'm not sure if that approach would work on the scale or not. When you've had them in the past, did you always get the plants from Home Depot? Could be theirs tend to already be infected with nasties by the time you get them, so you might try getting them from a different source. Some reputable mail order sources I know of are Buried Treasures and Logee's, and I'm sure there are a number of others as well that I'm not familiar with.

They are mealy bugs. You can see one clearly on the left, peaking over the edge.

I have purchased them from lowe's & Home Depot. Actually I had a miniature rose bush that the same bugs got to. Yuck! So Mealy bugs huh? Yummy! *lol* They are flat, oval like shape, grey little buggers! So do you think that the insectiside could have caused the leaves to yellow & die? Or is that something else I am doing? ;) I know they should be in a shallower pot, I used cactus mix & I only water when dry, could it be too much water? I know that will sometimes cause plant leaves to yellow. Thanks so much everyone!! This site is great!! I could have saved lots of poor plants this way!! hahaha!!

Overuse of insecticides can cause damage to plants, but if this was something you only sprayed once or twice then it's highly unlikely that it caused any damage to your plants. I suspect a cultural problem like overwatering which just coincidentally happened to show up at the same time as you used the insecticide. Adeniums are pretty easy to overwater, so with the description of the leaves yellowing and falling off that would have been my first thought on what was wrong. When you say that you only water it when it's dry, how are you telling that it's dry? If it's just that the surface looks dry, it's probably still wet an inch or two down, what you really need to do is stick your finger down into the soil and don't water until it feels dry a couple inches down.

my desert rose got mealy bugs last summer and my nursery recommended a horticultural oil mix.....you can find recipes for these online. i dont remember how much water to the teaspoon of oil and teaspoon of dish soap (without oxy clean) or i'd help with that...anyway, after i sprayed her, she dropped most of her leaves that were infested with mealy bugs. you'll really be able to see the weak spots on the leaves once you get the mealy bugs off and those are the leaves she'll most likely lose. but given proper sun afterwards, she'll recover in a couple of months and you'll see new leaf growth. i also changed the soil when i treated her since you want to make sure there aren't any mealy bugs lurking around in there.

I have two desert roses I picked up a couple years ago at a reliable nursery. I've never had any trouble with bugs, but today I noticed some on one of them when I was taking pictures of the first spring blooms. They look a little like lady bugs, with that hard, domed shell. They aren't red, they are kind of a green/ brown color, small as the head of a pin. Any clue what they might be and how to treat them? The nursery where I bought them has changed hands and they don't seem to know their ear from their elbow. They had no idea what they are. If you can zoom in on the tallest bloom on the right, they are quite visible. Thanks for any information you can give me.

No. sorry. Can't see them. Can you get a closer shot?

I have a desert rose but why did the branches become soft and are bending.

I dont know what does that mean, can someone tell me why and help me solve the problem.

This message was edited Jun 11, 2012 3:11 AM

How many times do we give the Desert Rose water and how much , plz tell me how much exactly in ml or L In the summer

plz answer all my questions fast !!!!!!!!!!!

An tell me Y did this happen ?

2 possibilities that I can think of:

One is that the stems were just a little too weak to hold up all the heavy leaves on the end. Weak stems can be a result of not enough light (plants tend to stretch for the light, putting out longer but floppier growth as a result). Also if you give it a little too much fertilizer or a little bit too much water that can cause faster/floppier growth. If it's just weak stems causing the problem then there's really nothing wrong with the plant, but if you don't want it to continue you'll need to fix whatever condition is causing it.

Or, you could be watering too much, these are succulents and don't need a lot of water and wilting/flopping is one possible symptom of too much water. Unfortunately nobody can give you an exact amount/frequency of water because it depends on too many things (how hot it is, how much sun the plant gets, how well your potting mix drains, how much roots the plant has relative to the amount of potting mix, what sort of pot it's in, etc, etc, etc). The best way to figure out if you need to water is to stick your finger down several inches into the pot and see how wet it feels. If it's still at all wet, you shouldn't water yet. If quite a few days go by and it always feels wet when you're sticking your finger in, then your potting mix doesn't drain well enough. I also notice you have a saucer under it to collect water--you need to make sure you empty that promptly after you finish watering so that the pot's not sitting in water.