Hi, everyone.
I have just logged into this site for the 1st time about 10 minutes ago. I saw "adeniums" and I clicked on it right away. I am what you could call an adenium addict. Following Wilfred's very detailed instructions, I managed to get my adeniums to produce seeds by cross-polinating the flowers with a long-haired, very narrow brush. My efforts produced 4 seed pods. When they opened, I cut them off the plant and dug out the seeds. Each seed has one of those horrible tufts of fluff at each end. I removed those fluffy nuisances right away. That's a task best done inside as they fly everywhere on the wind, and even in the breeze of the air conditionner system. Chasing seeds on my desk is not something I enjoy doing.
So, I managed to produce 162 seeds. I soaked them in a glass of room-temperature tap water overnight. The next day, I swirled the seeds and water in the glass and dumped the whole thing on the surface of a plastic tray containing 2 inches of potting soil. The water drained through the potting soil and the seeds sat on top of it. I then added a thin layer (1/8 inch) potting soil over the seeds and left them to their own devices on my patio in full sun. Within 3 days, everything was sprouting. I couldn't believe it. I have now thinned out and repotted over 150 seedlings. They all look very happy and healthy.
This is the best success I have had yet with adenium seeds. I believe Wilfred once said that those seeds have practically no shelf life and must be planted while very fresh. That would seem to be the case. I remember ordering seeds from Thailand and only getting 2% of them to germinate. At 92.59% germination rate, I am extremely pleased. I will be polinating again today.
Take care, all.
Sylvain.
