This is the Chai Lai adenium I mentioned in another post that I was having problems with. It was shipped last September bare root, it had leaves on it but they were severely wilted and fell off within a week. This was the newly potted plant back then, I found a photo I posted at the time, the one on the right is Chai Lai. I didn't really notice or pay much attention to the brownish tips and that possibly was the start of the rot.
It appeared to have some new growth starting in January, but they stayed very tiny, dried up and fell off. The same thing happened this July... tiny new growth, dried up and fell off. It was then that I started squeezing the tips and noticed they were soft. I cut those tips down to get rid of any soft parts, coated the tips with cinnamon, let them callous a few days indoors and then coated them with crazy glue. There also was a hole in the grafted spot near the 2 stems, it came with that hole there. It stayed clean and didn't look to be any problems, but I also filled it with crazy glue to keep any water out of it. The hole is visible in the 1st photo from last September.
A month later mid-August there was still no sign of any growth, so I unpotted it to check the roots and found 1 mushy one. It was quite a tangle of roots though and by then I just decided to cut the bottom of the caudex off to be sure of getting rid of any rot. I coated the cuts with cinnamon and hung it indoors in the shade to dry for about 7-8 days. I coated the cuts and root ends with TiteBond 3 and let that dry another 2 days. The caudex has no soft spots at all, it's always been hard. I just never thought to start squeezing the tips of the branches before.
I repotted it with an even grittier mix (3 parts Jack's Bonsai Mix and 1 part Jack's Pumice) at the end of August, watered it for the first time a few days later. And then one of the raccoons pulled it out. Which ended up being a good thing, I found a slit on one of the inner sides of the caudex that I missed. I cut it off to that damaged point, same treatment with cinnamon, drying time, TiteBond 3 and just repotted it 3 days ago again, gave it some water the first time yesterday. The raccoons had "skinned" the caudex in a few places, I put cinnamon and then Lime Paste on those patches, they looked very clean and not cuts at all, just a slight peeling off of the top layer.
I'm bringing them all in at night because of the raccoons, and this one will stay out of any rain. I plan on watering maybe every 10 days while it's still hot out, is that about right or less water until it starts to hopefully show any new growth? Anything else or different I should have done for next time?
I used deep south's potting mix for all 3 adeniums and the other 2 are thriving and blooming, so keeping it too wet during the summer wasn't an issue. It's a very fast draining mix he posted.
