Viewing post #3046397 by Ylis

GigiAdeniumPlumeria said: Great tip on the toothbrush and good save on your spider mites infested adenium. I wonder if the hard crust is calcium build up?

It felt similar to calcium, but if that was the case, I would have thought that it would have been the same for my other house plants as well as they are watered with the same water from the same can. None of the others had it, including the ones with a similar caudex, like ficus microcarpa and ponytail palm.

Our tap water is
pH 8,1
2°dH =20,0 mg CaO/l
Alkalinity 65 mg/l

GigiAdeniumPlumeria said: I lost a lot of seedling from adeniums, mainly because they weaken the seedlings. I am experimenting right now where before it gets too bad, everytime I water the seedlings, I gently wash the leaves (especially the underside) to disrupt the breeding process and allowing the new leaves to grow healthier. This is not easy since the seedlings are so tiny. So far it has worked, I still lost a few (the ones that lost leaves) but a lot of the other seedlings are growing healthy leaves.

Fingers crossed that they make it through!

I've been waging war on spider mites for 3 winters now and every time I think I have them beat, I find them on some new plant.

There are so many leaves, stems and pots to wipe down. I don't dare to bring in new plants anywhere near my adeniums for fear that they will have "guests". Only growing new plants from seed and preferably hydroponic to not risk bringing in contaminated soil. Gotta protect my babies!