Growing adenium from seeds

The original adenium plant is popular among gardeners due to its unusual appearance and fabulously beautiful flowers with long flowering. It’s especially nice that you can grow this miracle yourself from seeds in ordinary, home conditions.

Cultivating adenium from a small grain is a fascinating process, thanks to which new varieties can be created.

How to create conditions for growing adenium from seeds

What time of year is it best to grow adenium from seeds?

Not every plant can please you with plump shoots already on the 3rd day. It seems incredible that a fairly large seedling can emerge from a small seed. You can grow adenium from seeds at any time of the year.

The main thing is to fulfill several basic conditions:

1. Seedlings need high temperature and humidity to germinate.
2. The structure of the soil for crops should be sterile, loose, well permeable to water and air.
3. Lighting for 16 hours.

Such conditions are easier to fulfill in the spring and summer. The good thing about sowing at this time is that the seedlings will need a minimum of additional lighting in the first months of life.

    Seed treatment before planting

Experienced flower growers involved in breeding adeniums have developed an optimal algorithm for pre-sowing seed preparation.

Seeds are immersed for 30 minutes in a weak solution of potassium permanganate or, no less effective, phytosporin to destroy a possible pathogenic environment on the surface of the seeds. This will reduce the likelihood of seedlings being damaged by fungal diseases. Seeds after protective treatment should be dried.

There is no need to soak the seeds for several hours in biostimulants or warm water, the likelihood of putrefactive processes occurring is too high. In moist soil, grains germinate well even without soaking.

If, after all, the seeds were pre-soaked before sowing, the soil is not moistened for the first 2 days after sowing.

    Soil preparation

Under natural conditions, adenium prefers to grow on rocky soil with a lack of nutrients.Therefore, the planting soil should be moist and breathable, and moderately nutritious.

Dense and heavy soil is not suitable for growing adenium from seeds, as it hardly allows moisture to pass through and then takes a long time to dry out. At the same time, a sufficient amount of oxygen does not penetrate into the soil, which contributes to rotting of the roots.

Important! The acidity of the soil mixture should be neutral or slightly acidic.

When preparing soil at home, acidity can be determined using litmus indicator paper.

• a red indicator strip indicates that the soil is acidic
• orange - indicates that the soil is moderately acidic
• yellow - that the soil is slightly acidic
• green means that the soil is neutral.

If you prepare the soil for sowing at home yourself, you should take care of disinfection. River sand and garden soil are treated with a 1% solution of potassium permanganate.

To prepare the planting soil, take 50% of the soil mixture for cacti or succulents. It is undesirable to use peat due to its high acidity. The remaining 50% consists of raising agents:

• perlite (preferred) or vermiculite;
• coarse sand (river);

Many people add a little charcoal to this mixture. This soil is well structured and does not become compacted after repeated watering. Charcoal disinfects the environment around the roots.

    How can you germinate seeds?

The main criteria when choosing containers for growing adenium at home are the size of the container and the presence of drainage holes that facilitate the free flow of excess moisture.

For group sowings, a disposable plastic container with a transparent lid is suitable, which will serve as a mini-greenhouse.For single crops - any flower pot, disposable cups, seedling cassette.

Important! Using large containers for sowing seeds leads to mistakes with watering. In order not to accidentally destroy the seedlings, choose dishes of minimal volume.

What is the best way to grow seedlings together or separately?

Adenium seedlings are quite large; the choice between sowing the seeds as a group in one container or sowing each grain in a separate pot depends on the grower.

The advantage of single sowing is that it allows you to delay the moment of transplanting seedlings into individual pots, which allows the plants to grow roots more intensively and receive more light. But, individual seedling pots require more space both on the windowsill and under the phytolamps.

Sowing in a common container saves space, but there is a possibility of uneven development of seedlings. Therefore, the sprouts need to be transplanted into separate pots. This need occurs 2–3 months after sowing.

Planting seeds

Adenium seeds are beige miniature tubes 5...15 mm long, identical in diameter along the entire length or barrel-shaped.

Planting and growing adenium seeds is carried out in several stages:

1. A layer of drainage is poured onto the bottom of the seedling container, then soil.
2. The soil is shed with filtered warm water, and the excess is drained from the pan.
3. Before sowing, the container with soil must be kept in a warm place for 12 hours.
4. Adenium seeds are distributed horizontally over the surface of the earth. This arrangement eliminates the need to guess the top or bottom of the seeds. The distance between them is maintained at least 3 cm, and the top is covered with a 10 mm layer of earth.

The container is covered with film, a transparent lid or a plastic bag.When using film to cover a greenhouse, you must leave a third of the container without substrate. The growing seedling will need space between the soil and the film.

    Optimal conditions for seed germination

If you plant the seeds in the right soil, but do not maintain the temperature and humidity conditions, you may not wait for the seedlings to appear.

How long does it take for seeds to germinate?

In favorable conditions, the seedlings will hatch in 3–5 days, maximum in 2 weeks. Seeds that do not germinate during this period are considered non-viable. The first shoots look like plump cylindrical columns without leaves.

Video about caring for adenium seedlings:

Seedling care

Sprouts grown from seeds immediately begin to grow a caudex (thickening at the base of the stem) and produce branches. After all the seeds have germinated, the heating can be removed and the seedlings moved to a south-facing window with shade from direct sun. In open sun, seedlings can get burned.

The greenhouse is left with the same ventilation regime. Each time the ventilation time is increased, and after 15 days there will be no need for a greenhouse.

The soil around young sprouts is moistened with warm filtered water only after the soil has dried.

For seedlings grown indoors, at the age of 1-2 months, you can carry out the first feeding with a mineral complex containing nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus in equal proportions.

Transplanting into pots

The guideline for transplanting plants into an individual pot is the appearance of two true leaves. The diameter of the pot is correlated with the diameter of the caudex at its widest part. The distance from the trunk to the edge of the pot for young seedlings should be 3-4 cm. If the seeds were immediately planted in individual pots, then relocation can be postponed.

The soil for replanting is used the same as for the greenhouse, but the plant will also tolerate replacing the soil with purchased soil.

Important! Adenium will experience the least stress when transplanted using the transshipment method.

With this procedure, the sprout along with a lump of earth is transferred to a new place. Water the young seedling after transplantation moderately, with light drying of the top layer of soil.

To mitigate the stress of replanting, care must be taken to maintain an optimal temperature around the plant.

Video about picking seedlings:

What problems may arise when growing adenium with seeds?

When growing adenium from seeds, inexperienced gardeners make such a common mistake as not planting seeds deep enough. As a result, the sprout emerges from the ground along with the shell, which must slide off as it grows through a 10-millimeter layer of soil. If it does not fall off on its own in 1–2 days, you will have to remove it yourself, otherwise the seedling will die.

To do this, you need to moisten the shell with water using a brush or spray. After 3-5 minutes, you should try to remove it with tweezers, being careful not to damage the cotyledon leaves. If the first attempt fails, all steps are repeated again.

Flowering does not occur. If you follow the rules for preparing and planting seeds, flowering occurs within 2-3 years. Flowering problems can occur if the plant receives excessive amounts of nitrogen fertilizer. In such cases, the flower quickly grows green mass, but does not bloom.

Insufficient lighting. If the adenium begins to actively drop leaves, this indicates that the flower does not have enough lighting. You can solve the problem by moving the plant to a brighter place.

Excessive watering especially in the cold season, leads to the death of the plant.

Is it possible to collect adenium seeds at home?

When growing adenium in an apartment, it is difficult to obtain seeds without hand pollination. For pollination, you need to choose two plants, since adenium does not pollinate well with itself.

A pair is selected based on the beauty of the flower, the width of the trunk, and the timing of flowering.

The mother plant is the one that will be pollinated. It is responsible for the shape and size of the flower of a new plant.

The paternal plant will be the one that will pollinate; pollen is taken from it. It is responsible for the color of the flower. Therefore, for pollination, the parent flowers chosen are those that you want to obtain as the final result.

For the pollination procedure you will need a thin art brush, toothpick, tweezers, and a magnifying glass.

Technology of manual pollination of adenium:

• Choose a flower (on the 2-3rd day of flowering, in spring or summer).
• Open the flower, then the middle. You may have to tear the flower.
• Use a toothpick to open the stigma.
• Now you need to collect the pollen with a slightly damp brush so that the pollen does not fall off. A magnifying glass may be needed here.
• Open the second flower (mother).
• Transfer pollen to the stigma of the pistil.

If pollination is successful, the flower will fall off in a few days, and after two weeks the ovary will appear in the form of horn-pods.
The pod matures for 2-3 months, after which it cracks and scatters 30-40 seeds, which should be stored in a cool, dry place.

Video about pollination of adenium:

Continuation of the topic:

1. How to care for indoor adenium
2. Propagation of adenium by cuttings
3. Beautiful photos of adeniums
4. Adenium obese: all about growing and care
5. Venus hair flower