Desert Rose (Adenium Obesum) Seed Pods and Seeds

This has been an interesting journey. I finally had two desert roses blooming at the same time so I decided to look up on how to cross-pollinate them. I came across this really interesting post someone made on how to cross pollinate them. The pictures are extremely helpful; it showed me where I could find the pollen and how to do it correctly. Though they weren't kidding when they talked about it being difficult to see at certain points even when you tear the flower apart and get everything set up for a crossing. I did this on only a handful of flowers.

June 22, 2016 - Desert Roses

June 30, 2016 - Desert Roses

July 7th, 2016 - Appears to be a successful cross!

Somewhere around the 4th, 5th of July, I noticed these two little nubs seeming to stay around a while, while the others would dry up. I didn't want to get excited but eventually it seemed like these two were the only ones that were growing in size!

July 10, 2016 - More growth!

By now it became obvious that I did succeed on just one flower. I made several more attempts after but this would be the only one to succeed. I was prepared for the possibility that nothing would take because of the article stating success rates would be very, very low. So this was exciting!

July 28th, 2016 - Seed Pods growing bigger!

August 6, 2016 - Huge pods!

August 28, 2016 - Seems to have maxed out!

It was incredible to watch this explode in size, especially on such a small plant! The pods were so heavy that I was worried the branch would snap under the weight of it. At first I twined the branches together for more support, and eventually propped the seed pods up against the branches of my larger Desert Rose for more support. And then pretty much left it alone since.

October 10, 2016 - Adenium Obesum seed pods opening

October 10, 2016 - Close up of seed pod opening

It was pretty neat to finally reach the day when the pods started opening and little fuzz balls started popping out.

A seed with the ends puffed out!

I was curious to know how many seeds each pod had so after I prepared the seeds, I counted them. A total of 163 seeds were there, with 48 of them not appearing to be good (they were shriveled up and I felt no lump in them).

I'm thinking next spring I gotta put more effort into seeing if I can get my bigger one to be the mother next time.

UPDATE July 27, 2018: Desert Rose (adenium) seedlings growth

Crossed Tall Bearded Iris

I thought I blogged about this before but I guess not. I wrote the flower off as 'dead and gone' when it bloomed. But anyhow....

In 2013, I crossed an Immortality Iris with a "Purple Mom/Black Dad" Iris, and I was successful. I got a seed pod, I winter-sowed them and posted a picture of them growing the next spring/early summer. 

During Spring 2015, quite a few flowers came up. 

I started documenting the flowers coming up...



...and all of them were purple...



What's this?!



It was the only "white" one to come up and I was completely obsessed with it. Unfortunately around this time, I caught something bad. All I remember is that there were a lot of pollen flying around and then all of a sudden I had a fever, a lot of sweating, and after a week of that, a cough moved in and then went deep into my lungs. That was a nightmare that lasted for way too long. I even went out with a paint pen and scribbled on the leaves so that when I got better, I'd be able to find it and separate it.

By the time I got better, all the original leaves in the pot had died down and gave way to new leaves. I had no idea which one I wanted to dig up, and pretty much wrote the flower off as dead and gone.

Then cue 2016. For some reason the garden did not bloom much this year. I had very few amaryllis blooms, as well as a handful of iris blooms scattered around. I don't know if it was because winter wasn't cold enough? I don't know.

Then to my complete and utter surprise...



Only one iris bloomed in this pot and it was the one that I thought was long gone.



I was absolutely determined to separate it this time while I still can. After the flowers ran their course and shriveled up, I got it repotted in a pot all by itself.



There were two teeny, tiny rhizomes attached to it so I'm hoping it'll eventually take over the whole pot with a bunch of new rhizomes to carry on the legacy.