I picked up an Adenium obesum (desert rose) today cos it had a nice looking caudex, numerous top growths, was in nice condition and marked down. However it had a top dressing of gravel that was glued down. I had to snap the "patio" of rocks in half to get the plant out so I could wash off all the peat and pot it up in something proper.
You couldn't water through the layer of glued rocks and if the plant lived very long in that setup it would be constricted by them. They also had some Ficus or something that had some glued down top dressing... What is the point of doing that to a plant?
Here it is after repotting into a 6" pot of clay gravel, cherrystone grit and some fine shredded coir and a non-glued topdressing!
I like the number of branches and it has a great Jabba the Hut looking root system that will only get better with the deeper pot but the branches are all rather thin (sharpie marker diameter and less). Will they thicken up if I allow them to grow unpruned or will they just get longer but not much thicker?
You couldn't water through the layer of glued rocks and if the plant lived very long in that setup it would be constricted by them. They also had some Ficus or something that had some glued down top dressing... What is the point of doing that to a plant?
Here it is after repotting into a 6" pot of clay gravel, cherrystone grit and some fine shredded coir and a non-glued topdressing!
I like the number of branches and it has a great Jabba the Hut looking root system that will only get better with the deeper pot but the branches are all rather thin (sharpie marker diameter and less). Will they thicken up if I allow them to grow unpruned or will they just get longer but not much thicker?