Still interested, Meli?

For the sake of having fun with both sides of the issue, I'll play plastic pot advocate:-). Keep in mind I can only speak from my personal experience of growing tropicals in containers here in Oklahoma over the last 30 or so years. What works for you somewhere else in the world may trump anything I might say. All plastic pots is a stretch :-). I use the Rootmaker inc. plastic pot which probably is the best plastic pot in the world. The one gallon pot has 28 holes (actually 56 with 2 side by side) in it and it dries out faster than your clay pots. I've done side by side tests with a decent number of plants to see. The black plastic Rootmaker 1 with the predrilled holes all around the container dry out faster than a red clay pot of similar size in full sun. I grow almost exclusively in plastic. Big plants weigh too much on their own even without the clay pot. I will put some specimen Adenium down the road in very nice very shallow ceramic pots. If I want an adenium to develop a more shallow and wider root span, I'll take a 10 inch hanging basket (I have a bunch of used ones laying around) and drill 1/4 inch holes in it for faster drainage. The 20-30 holes will be on the bottom and on the sides maybe an 1/8 inch above where the bottom of the pot is. With bulb pans I dont bother. I can make a plastic pot drain much better and faster "easier" than I can modify a clay pot. A modified plastic pot can give you a good run for your money. I've got literally hundreds of clay pots I bought at a garage sale about 15 years ago that I don't use. As far as adeniums overpotted, no matter the pot make up, they will rot if grown in marginal soil. Crappy soil is crappy soil. A pot will not make the difference. Personally I think soil is the most important part of what we do with plants outside of care. Containers or container sizes are probably next. 3 years ago I skimped on soil with a bunch of adeniums because money was tight and I paid a huge price. Over half rotted and many were slow to recover. A few with nice blooms I rerooted after I lost most of the root system. I just don't loose adeniums with good soil. Never have and hopefully never will :-). I can put a nice adenium in crappy soil and kill it over the winter unless I'm totally focused on that plant and watch it very close. I can put a another nice adenium in a great soil mix and rarely have to focus as intensely on it as I do the one in crappy soil. Bad soils can hide rot problems sometimes until it's too late. Good soils with good care hide nothing. There's nothing to hide. randy

I like to germinate under a lid on my dvr, and as soon as they are up, they go full sun, with no lid. The lid then would kill them. Honestly, the only three reasons I can think of not to go full sun immediately are; if you don't bury the seeds and plant on top as I do, they may blow away, you cannot control the weather outside, and you may get a hard rain that will unpot some or all, and if you have a lid over them. Just remember that if you let them grow too long under anything less than Sun, that you will need to slowly acclimate them to full Sun. Do it when they have 1-2 sets of leaves, and you'll be ok - just watch for storms! I'm in Galveston and you guys seem to get a thunderstorm most days as of late.

Fresh seed is good but even older seed is good /if/ properly stored. The problem is that most people don't bother and higher humidity levels render the seed nonviable quickly. Silica gel can be used but can lower the humidity below 5% and damage seeds. Mark Dimmitt says, "My seeds remain highly viable for at least 4 years at room temperature and less than 10% humidity. Silica gel can over-dry to less than 5% moisture and kill seeds. Unless you can monitor the moisture content, use powdered milk as the desiccant. It dries seeds to the ideal level (of 5-8%), and will not over-dry." Refrigerating them also helps as it slows down metabolic rates of both the seed itself and pathogens such as molds, mildew, bacteria, etc.