Desert Rose Care: Growing Desert Roses Indoors or Outdoors

The desert rose plant (Adenium obesum) is a succulent plant known for its cacti-like swollen trunk (or caudex), bright green leaves, and vibrant, often pink, red, or white, flowers. The plant’s small but robust stature is reminiscent of a bonsai plant, so many hobbyists enjoy keeping it as an indoor plant. Other common names for the desert rose include impala lily, mock azalea, and Sabi star.

Desert and tropical plants, desert roses hail from North Africa, South Africa, and the Middle East. They do best when basking in the light and heat of the full sun from early spring through the winter months.

As long as you provide optimal conditions, desert roses can grow inside by a windowsill, in a larger DIY container garden indoors, or in pots outside. They can be rewarding houseplants if you keep them in direct sunlight and modify the indoor temperature to suit their climatic needs throughout the entire year, including winter. In the United States, desert roses can survive as outdoor garden plants in USDA Zones 10 or 11. If you live in one of the other hardiness zones, you can keep them outdoors in the springtime but must bring them inside every winter.

Desert rose seeds are resilient and can grow to full size so long as you assist them with the right care. Here are five tips to foster their new growth:

1. 1. Choose where to plant. Decide whether you should keep your desert rose plants indoors or outdoors based on your local climate. If you live in an area where the temperature routinely gets close to freezing temperatures, it’s best to either keep them indoors entirely or think about repotting the root ball of this plant once winter arrives for your outdoor garden. If your climate is consistently hot, you can keep them either indoors or outdoors depending on preference.
2. 2. Avoid overwatering. Keeping your soil moist is important for desert roses throughout their time as growers, but you should forgo watering them when they enter their dormancy period. This means watering them throughout the spring and summer but taking a break from late fall through winter. Don’t forget to ensure you have good drainage holes, too—otherwise, you risk these plants succumbing to root rot and other issues when they inevitably become waterlogged.
3. 3. Get the soil right. You should ensure the growing medium is appropriate for your desert rose plants. Make sure you have a potting mix with lots of sand or perlite to mimic their natural growing conditions. You can also use a liquid fertilizer as extra plant food at the start of their growing season in early spring.
4. 4. Fend off pests. Desert roses can attract the usual suspects when it comes to plant-loving pests. Aphids, spider mites, and mealybugs especially are drawn to their flowers and foliage. If you notice an infestation on a desert rose plant, wear gloves and wipe the plant’s leaves with a homemade or store-bought insecticide. Keeping your potting soil mix healthy can also help as a preventive measure and repel these nuisances.
5. 5. Propagate periodically. If you wish, you can propagate desert rose plants from cuttings. Prune your plants and place the cuttings in new, appropriate soil if you’re ready to begin a new growth. You can also use their seed pods if you’d like to grow directly from seed. It’s worth taking into consideration you should repot your desert rose plants regardless once their root networks grow too large for their containers.

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