Some of the world's best Adenium breeders and growers are in Taiwan. Here is one of them: Skillful Hands. Mr. Ko is very nice and can probably help you out better than us because he speaks Chinese.

Spider-mites: the easiest way to get rid of them on Adenium is to either wait for all the leaves to fall off during dormancy, or clip them all off yourself. Throw away the leaves, do not save them for any reason. New leaves will grow back easily. There is a product in the US called anti-stress 2000. It is not a pesticide, it is a polymer that forms a protective coating on plant leaves to reduce transpirational water loss, but it also incidentally kills and prevents mites. It is 100% biodegradable and safe.

The next step is prevention. Avoid warm/ dry conditions. Fresh air circulation and regular watering during warmth is essential.

Without a photo, it's difficult to say if the leaves are falling due to dormancy, drought or rot. Dormant leaves tend to remain firm, they just turn yellow. If the roots are rotting, the leaves curl up and then become limp. If rot, take the plant out of the pot and cut off any infected roots, let it dry out for a few days, then replant in dry soil and keep warm until new leaves grow.

If the plant is dormant, reduce watering and wait until new leaves grow again before watering heavily. A obesum can be kept growing all year if you have enough warmth and light.

Fertilizing and periods of drought will help induce flowering.

I apologize, I misunderstood the language problem

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You can treat a couple times a week with just soapy water to smother the mites. The ones that don't die will move elsewhere because they can't stand being wet.

I'm not sure how effective drought is to getting this species to bloom. Drought causes leaf drop and then dormancy in native habitat. Regular care will get most hybrids to bloom over and over the entire growing season.

What a woanderful explanation. May I have permissiion to use it in our newsletteer for my club. Norma

When I say periods of drought induce flowering, this means like a week or 2 without water, not months. Plants kept constantly moist favor leafy growth, those that have a little time to dry out favor bud formation. Sometimes forgetting to water Adenium (obesum) for a week or 2 will result in many buds.

Some species only flower in response to drought: A somalense, A arabicum among others.

Different strokes for different folks. My experience says otherwise, but then again I only grow obesum, Thai Soco, and arabicum and only have a few thousand of them.

The only plant I have a few thousand of is grass!

No doubt your obesums are not being grown the same as mine

No doubt. :-)

If it works for you and your pleased with the results, there's noting wrong with it. I'm just more comfortable with providing water and fertilizer on a consistent basis.

It'd just seems to be unnecessary because of the quality of the hybrids now available. I have a number of named obesum that have bloom cycles 3 to 4 times over the season. With holding water might cut that down to only one or two.

There are growers in Vietnam, India, Taiwan, Indonesia, and other tropical areas in that part of the world that pull plants out of pots and let them dry for a week or so in the open air to encourage more blooming. Others from the same region say it doesn't help and is a waste of time. Both groups of individuals have beautiful plants and have won awards for specimen arabicums and soco's.

If I lived in a tropical zone and could have plants growing year round, I might be tempted to try it. My growing season is too short as it is. I don't want to shorten it more by with holding water a few times in the season pushing for more blooms. If I want more blooms, I get more plants. :-)

Good luck and have fun with yours.

I do not intentionally withhold water, I too prefer to keep them moist and fed during the summer growing season, mainly to fatten up the stems. Flowers are a bonus!

But it does seem like when I go away for a week or 2 on vacation, or am so busy that I don't have time to water during a particular week, that there is a flush of blooms as soon as I resume watering as usual. It could just be coincidence.

I have dozens of obesum seedlings growing now from named hybrids, in the spring I intend on planting them out in the garden and see if I can get increased growth with free root run. There will probably be mainly inferior [flowers] seedlings so I don't mind some experimenting and then having to dig them out and repot in the fall. If I can get 3 or 4 keepers I will be happy.

Have you ever tried putting your Adenium out in the "field" for the summer?

I have a true soco that I stupidly left too close to a heater that is in my propagation area for the other Adenium, and all the leaves and half the growth tip dried out. The bottom half and the caudex are fine, I anticipate some branching in the summer as a result of this inadvertent pruning.

2 yrs ago I forgot about a Pacypodium lamereii that was left out and got hit with frost in the mid-20's. All the growth points died back, but then in the spring so many branches resulted that right now I may need to cut some back because they are interfering with each other!

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There is a bunch of brick left over from the house remodel years ago that will be used to build a raised bed with. I'm seriously considering putting a bunch of adeniums in it just to see what they do.

I have a question about pruning these plants I hope one of you experienced growers will answer.

I just purchased one of these plants a couple of years ago and just repotted it late this past summer.

How do you prune them and when? Do you cut a whole arm off next to the body or just a portion somewhere along the arm?
How do you decide when they need pruning and what time of year? Do you wait until they are dormant and have lost most of their leaves. I absolutely love my Desert rose and want to do right by it.

Thanks in advance.

I prefer to prune during the growing season well after it warms up when sun intensity is high and temps are hot. That way growth is compact and healthy.

As far as what to prune, that's a very open question that doesn't have one answer other than it depends on each individual plant. As with plants trained as bonsai, you take what the plant offers and use those characteristics to your advantage.

I have some seedlings that have fantastic branching on their own with no need to prune. Others that have had some pruning look just as nice.

Below is a link to a page of some of Adeniums I've been pruning on.

Here is a link that might be useful: Adeniums