RoseAud,
Looking at the photo. The leaves are wavy alone the edges, but this can be completely normal with many hybrids. I do not feel that you have anything to worry about.
For where you live. Having them in early day sun is a good idea. Just watch for drying back too much. The upward appearance to the leaves can just be a reaction to sunlight. I like to mist the leaves every so often, but if you do make sure it is in early morning where moisture can dry before harsh sun hits leaves.
Outside of the dust on the leaves I think you are doing a wonderful job with your plants.
Rick

Dear Rick,

Thank you very much for your input. I am going to work on spraying the leaves and cleaning them up more often. Though about the soil I am still worried. The moist meter always tell me the area is moist near the roots and that is 1 week after watering. I assume scientifically is normal, but still worries me a little.

Still also wondering about the blooms but maybe its just as you stated. Might be due to the kind of breed. Sadly I don't know the breed I have.

Thank you very much! Will continue to look after this beautiful plant.

I have the same problem here in jamaica all the leaves are wavy and no flowers :-(

I have the same problem here in jamaica all the leaves are wavy and no flowers :-(

Hello and welcome!
When you say your compost is the 'regular' type and you also added some 'sand' for drainage could you tell us a bit more please? Such as....

1/does the compost contain peat, should say on the bag?

2/when a handful is damp to moist, does it stay in a 'ball' when you squeeze a handful together for instance?

3/ what grade/particle size of 'sand' have you used?

4/ Am I correct in thinking you didn't add any other ingredients to the above?

Rick gives you good advice and I think there may still be a slight problem with your mix as you say it's staying wet at the roots after a week.
Please come back as I'm sure we can help you even more so sorry for all the interrogation!!

Gill UK

Dear Gill,
No worries! I will try to answer as much as I can!

1/does the compost contain peat, should say on the bag?
Yes it contains peat.

2/when a handful is damp to moist, does it stay in a 'ball' when you squeeze a handful together for instance?
Partially I guess. I taken a photo doing the same and attached it to this msg. Hopefully it shows up.

3/ what grade/particle size of 'sand' have you used?
I am not really sure, it was available in the back garden naturally. Could say really really small?

4/ Am I correct in thinking you didn't add any other ingredients to the above?
The only thing was added is just some pebbles around the edges. Added NPK 10-10-10 twice and a liquid fertilizer once and that about it.

Below photos of the plant after a fresh misting to clean off the dust, another close up showing the soil. Lastly, a demonstration of question 2.

Thank you so much!!

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Hello again and thanks for answering my questions. The pics really do help so that's great! On looking at the soil
I honestly think you need to alter it. If the sand you used was similar to 'beach sand' in size, I would say that is not good, especially as it appears to be your natural garden soil, that is rarely a good option. The grain size is way to small. DR's (adeniums) prefer to grow in fast draining gritty mixes so that when they are watered the water drains out of the hole/s in the bottom of the pot almost as fast as you are pouring it in. There are lots of ways of mixing your gritty mix, a search on here for 'gritty mix' aka 'Al's gritty mix' will tell you lots.
I don't know what components are available in your area as I'm from the UK. That said, for my own DR's and my C&S I grow them in a mix of 25% of each of the following 4 ingredients....vermiculite (although most advise perlite instead, but personally I prefer vermiculite), horticultural gravel (from garden centres, about 1/4inch grade, roughly), small bark (sold in pet shops for reptiles etc) and a good brand of gritty cactus mix ( if it's not gritty enough I just add some more of the hort. gravel till I have my 25%'s worth).
If the plants are tiny/seedlings, I seive all of the above to get a finer gritty mix. It works fine for me in the conditions I have here but obviously yours will be different. So, I hope someone else will come in and consider what I think you need to do to try and help your plant more.

Gill UK

Gill, thank you so much that was informative. I will have to visit a garden center and ask about the availability of what you suggested. Will post updates when available.

You're welcome, but as I said, do a search and see what US residents use in their mixes as I've read of various other ingredients that are available in your areas.

Gill UK

RoseAud,
Gill knows her stuff.
What might be an idea and that may assist you. Contact Sundaram from India. Meh is very highly respected and also very helpful. He lives relatively closer and may have ideas and info. for you.
Try Facebook at. Abena Nursery, Adenium Tips & Tricks or Sale Adeniums.

I believe you can reach him at abenaadeniums.com also.

In Austrlia they use quincan gravel (similar to pumice, Turface), coarse river sand, composted manure (coarse particles).
As Gill mentions. The size of particles should be close in size and not too fine.
In climates such as yours, Australia, Taiwan, etc., they can get away with smaller particles because their soil will dry back quite quickly.
Here where I live it takes longer to dry back.
You are obviously doing things well, as your plant does look healthy.
Rick

Rick, Gill, thank you so much :) Really delighted to have an informative conversation with you both.

I visited a garden center yesterday and asked an assistance there about what is available for an adenium soil. He assured me that what's being used is a regular compost (similar to what I have) and well drained sand. He showed me a sample and it was different than what I mixed. The sand particles were visibly larger but for a sand its still small. Each particle has a color. I think this sand is the same you would find at a desert dune.

The assistance went ahead that what they do at the nursery is they mix the compost and this sand to get the appropriate mix. I am still hesitant with what he said but I ended up buying the sand and a compost bag.

Adding on that, at home I found out we have 2 types of gravel. First picture is river stones. Each stone is around half the size of a kidney bean. They didn't seem to be polished.
{{!gwi}}

The other type as the picture below of another kind of gravel. I am unsure what's it called. Its not polished but larger. We used this gravel to level up a pathway.
{{!gwi}}

That been said. I am thinking to mix up what I bought and with one of the gravel above. Would you think I should go with any of them at all?

Thank you!!

Posting updates here. Looking further about the gravels turned out the first is for decoration purposes on the surface and the second is too big. So I went ahead and prepared the mix similar to the sample they had at the garden center.

When I removed the plant off the pot I was surprised to find out the roots are healthy despite the soil issue. I was actually happy. However, the second plant looked like it was starting to rot. Some parts were peeling off like a paper. Though there were no soft parts at all. I forgot to mention, the second plant I will call it plan B had some odd substance stuck into the root system. It looked a lot like a grey clay. It was hard to remove but ended up cleaning it off before re potting. It was too moist too even though I didn't water for sometime. Sadly I didn't take a photo of it.

Now, both roses been potted back in the new soil and will monitor for some weeks how they behave.

Root system of plant A. Looked healthy and no rot or softness spotted.
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Plant B that has some problems where some parts were peeling off. I noticed this as well after peeling a really thin part like a paper. Is it normal?
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New soil mix.
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Desert rose in it new home.
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Thank you and pardon for the many photos.

Pleased to read plant #1 had no rot and it's roots were healthy, that's obviously a good sign. Once potted and settled in go steady with the water and see how it goes. Hopefully, now that plant #2 has been checked over and the peeling parts removed it should benefit. I don't know what the 'gash' on the caudex of #2 is, maybe from a rough re-potting in a previous life, or even from rot that had been evident at some time?
I must mention that the new mix does look a very fine grained mix, and therefore different to what I was trying to explain....but as I see you are from the UAE it should dry much quicker than if I used it here in the UK!!
I hope all goes well for your plants, please keep us updated?

Gill UK

I hate to brake it to ya but sand is not a high drain soil. I too was surprised to hear that so to prove them wrong I put 100% sand in a pot watered it and sure enough, while it appeared to drain and the top was bone dry with in 24hrs, the bottom 30-40% was still wet after a week. Why? the particles are so small you don't get alot of air flowing thru there to help evaporate moisture and since the particles are so small and numerous per square inch you have a tremendous amount of surface area that water cohesion sticks to.

Now you rarely see a pile of sand wet or not get fungus or bacteria colonies so that is good, but that's mostly because they have no nutritional value, they are very small stones if you think about it. So mixing them with soil to get some nutrients then thinking they are a low water retention component will disappoint. Test it in a sample pot for yourself to confirm.

Soil with grit or small stones is good and in my testing dried out completely in about 2-4 days. Pure Coir (fine shredded coconut husk) holds water for a long time too but Coco chunks (about the size of thumb nails) drained completely (in seconds) but hold water in their fibers for 4-7 days. Thats ok since the chunks are so large their is plenty of air in the pot and they are not sitting in water (which is what we are really trying to avoid), plus the roots go crazy burrowing themselves in the Coco chunks. Coconut husks provide much needed initial nutrients and root stimulator for coconut seeds which in nature can grow in nutrient void sand along beaches. Alot of thai growers use them sometimes 100% as their soil mixes. I'm currently testing a few coco soil combos with some seedlings to see which grows better over time.

Gill, thank you and hello :)
Surprisingly, the mix when I checked was almost dried out. I think its a good sign. Yeah I am not sure about plan #B. I hope it gets better.

jasonwipf, I really understand the issue with the mix but there is the problem of having the material available here. So I went with what the garden nursery guy suggested. I will however monitor the soil moist with the meter and see how it goes. For now, I can say it dries out way faster than the older mix I had. With the older mix, there was always lots of moist 10~12 inches below the surface after 1 week of watering taking in consideration the heat here.

For an update, I noticed today little sugary cubic substances inside the leaves growing part. You know where the new growth emerges? I have no idea why I didn't check this part since it was curled up but when I did I saw a little insect so tiny like a red ant coming out of that part. I took care of that and cleaned that off. Saw some scales on the back of the leaves too.. Cleaned that off too. Not sure if it was mealy bug or not but it looked a little different. I thought the plant produce honey like substance from the leaves emerging spot.

Sorry didn't take photo of the substance.

ya sounds like bugs. I have had to remove a few from my plants too with 50/50 alcohol/water solution.

hi,
red insect could be spider mite
great advice you already got for it's control
keep a close watch as they come back often coz what you removed are adults , eggs will still be their & trouble you when they hatch, spraying every 4 th day for a month maybe helpful
you need to stop them from laying egg's
neem oil is good to use but it's only for repelling bug's hardly for cure
happy gardening

Hi I have the same problem and I am living in Dubai as well!