Adenium 2 (and 3)

Last year I bought an Adenium obesum, which I found hiding amongst the more mundane plants of a market stall in Guardamar. It was a lovely plant and produced numerous flowers, a real sight to see.

Sadly, my lack of knowledge about this type of plant, perhaps coupled with a surprisingly hard winter, meant that I discovered a few months ago that the caudex or fat stem of Adenium had turned to an unpleasant mush and the plant had to be consigned to that great greenhouse in the sky (if you believe in that sort of thing).

After some searching, the Lady of the Market Stall was able to find me another Adenium some weeks ago. It was clearly a different type, but that's not a problem at all: it's a nice specimen with a good caudex and some pleasant high roots that lift out of the potting medium. It lost most of its leaves shortly after I repotted it, but has now regrown most of them and is starting to look very attractive again.

A couple of weeks later, Our Lady of the Market Stall had another Adenium and wondered if I'd be interested. Of course I was! Adenium 3 has a less interesting caudex, but does possess a pleasant trident-like symmetry. Again, it lost almost all its leaves after having been potted up, but these are now growing back and it has even produced a very nice flower, so seems to be doing well.

Neither plant yet matches up to the glory that was Adenium 1, but there is plenty of time yet. This coming winter I shall ensure that the two Adeniums are kept dry and, should the temperature here ever drop below five degrees again, will protect them from such extremes.