How to Save a Rotten / Dying Desert Rose / Adenium Caudex - Part 1

Hello! Welcome to Garden Chronicles! My name is James David and in today's video I want to talk about this particular plant called Adenium commonly known as "Desert Rose." Now the factor here is that this particular plant can be considered hardly when the conditions are right but if they are actually facing over water and this is the problem that you'll actually face which is known as root rot. The problem with root rot, here is the fact that how do you mention it, that you will not be able to identify until it is too late. Hence this is one of the problems that you will face when it comes on rainy days.

if you notice, here this is actually a root rot. Now the factor here is this: if this is not attended to soon, the whole caudex or the supposedly modified root ball will actually rot. Actually it's rotting. It is actually uh in a context about 50 rot. okay, this is actually not my plant, I actually found this in the dump and I realized that somebody had decided that it's a goner and threw it away but somehow one of the ways to know that it can be saved or not that this particular plant is actually alive is to watch and look for a one or two living root ball. so if you notice here that this particular root ball is still fresh, here it is still fresh, similarly over here this is still fresh.

so in a way it can be saved, it's more of a 50-50 chance and the rot is only here and it and so these are the portions that uh need to be treated. so I will show you exactly what to do and how to do it. In a way this is actually not a goner yet, now sometimes you can just have to hold and see it can feel hollow so when you press it is sort of mushy and if it's mushy then this part need to be sort of like surgery you have to cut it clean and not replant back but to leave it for a week for it to fully dry and then replant. that also with treatment, so I will show you exactly what to do so these are the conditions this particular plant is actually facing so in most cases some gardeners have no clue what to do.

they will just ditch and throw away this particular plant. so in this video I'm going to explain to you how to do it, so the first thing first, you may have just to trim off the excess and remove whatever that is rot, like over here is way too mushy, this whole piece, I have to how do you say cut it and clean it off first. so I will show you what to do on this so if you can on the surface just trim off and take off uh whatever that is rot. so of course don't try to pull it because what happens is that the damage is going to be real because uh how do you how I say that when you pull all the bacteria and virus and fungus will just go back more further into the plant. so what you need to do is trim, not pull in this portion of the stem with scissors. This portion is trimmed with scissors.

So for now what I'm going to do here is that I'm going to clean up all this and I may have to wash off the root ball and take away the soil mass. just to make sure there is no infection taking place. one of the things that I want to mention to you here is that if you were to find this root rot and most

An amateur mistake that can be done here is that most beginner gardeners will re-pot them back using the same medium. so the factor here is this, this one medium is actually infected with fungus. so you may not actually see it but the spore is all around it, this bacteria and the fungus. so do not use back the same soil media because the infection is there. So you may have to throw away or put in the sun or something like that the older the one that is being infected and use a fresh new soil medium matter because one of the things is that you don't want to have a recurrence of the root rot that took place. so what I'm going to do here is that I'm going to clean up all this and remove all these rotten pieces of root ball.

Another thing that you have to notice here is that you can actually see this. This is actually a fungus. Can you see this fungus, fungus, fungus. All this is a tell-tale sign of a fungus problem. so these are the things that you have to watch out for when it comes to cleaning up, so what we can do here is that you can actually soak it uh using

using a fungicide in one or two days' time but basically what I will do here is that I might use a toothbrush to scrub off all these pieces and clean up and not immediately pot it. keep it maybe like two or three days in the sun and let it fully dry off and observe and see that there is no new infection of rot.

[adamkazmierski]

Thank you. I had just thrown my 15 year old adenium in the garbage, then I saw your video and will try to save some parts of the plant. The top is dead, the main caudex is rot, but there are some firm roots I will try to save. They are cut, and I applied a turmeric paste to the open parts, and will let them sit and dry out for a week.

[DM-llhe]

What fungicide are you using? What soil are you using? How much sun or shade does it need? What about fertilizer ? How often and what type .

[musickmedia]

Do you think mixing clay in with the fungicide would help with the drying process? What about a fan?

[AL-runk]

I have had 2 desert rose and both have gotten root rot and not from over watering Im pretty sure. The second one was going ok then I went to repot and there was a lot of root rot and sogginess. I have it in a new pot with new soil but its not showing any signs of being ok. It now has some more soft parts that I cut off but I feel its too far gone.

[DM-llhe]

Showing the result without showing the “How To” …….not helpful.