Adenium Plum Beauty

Day 203: Last fall, I purchased a couple of new Adeniums for my indoor windowsill, on sale because it was the end of the season. I potted them up when they arrived, and almost immediately, they began dropping their leaves. Now Adeniums are spindly things anyway, generally a tall stalk topped by a few leaves on the newest growth, so I wasn't overly concerned until Plum Beauty had lost every leaf, every single one. I called the company I'd bought them from, and their advice was to flush the potting soil thoroughly because the genus is sensitive to elevated levels of fertilizer salts. Since I'd put them in enhanced soil when I'd potted them, it was possible that they were responding to being over-fertilized. I did as I was instructed, fully expecting to lose the one, but as you can see from this photo, it responded quite well to the treatment. Since this photo was taken, it's put on two more enormous blossoms and the first is still holding on. That's the reward for living with almost bare stems during the non-flowering months. When Adenium "does its thing," it makes it a major production number.