Adenium Obesum- Hack

Adenium Obesum is a genus of flowering in family of Apocynaceae. It's also commonly referred to as Desert Rose. It can reach 5 feet in height and some parts of the plant are toxic so care should be taken around children and pets and growing it.

You can hack (propagate) A. Obesum using two methods. You can stake cuttings and allow them to dry out for a couple of days and then plant or you can grow it from seeds. Growing A. Obesum from seed will give you the caudex (fat trunk) that makes these plants so popular. Growing it from a cuttings will give you a great plant but it won't produce the same caudex.

I accquired some Adenium Obesum seeds through a trade on Gardenweb from an experience Cacti & Succulent grower. He couldn't give me much info on them so I had to turn to Google.


When searching for info on germinating Adenium Obesum I was only able to find one website that dealt with them. The info there was sparse, but I was able to gather that the seeds should be soaked for a couple of hours in warm water and sown on the surface of the soil. The images on this site showed them just placing the seeds on the surface of the soil under a misting system.

I did basically just as I saw on the site. With the exception of using misting system, I don't own one so I just covered the pot with a plastic sandwich bag. Within a few days the seeds had germinated but I noticed that the seeds that had been partially covered in soil germinated before the seeds that were resting on the surface of the soil.


Because they were covered with a plastic bag and were sitting under a light a fungus or mold began to develop along the surface of the soil. I sprinkled cinnamon ontop of the fungus or mold that was developing and it was eradicated by the next day. In the photo attached to this entry the red stuff on the soil is the cinnamon I sprinkled.

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