Tropicals & Tender Perennials: Some other H Australis from Seed, 1 by bmedel

bmedel wrote:
I was just checking out Hoya 24's seedling thread and am so impressed with his great batch of Hoya Seedlings all growing in their little cups now. They look fabulous!!

I've posted in a couple of spots here and there that I too received a seed pod with my Hoya co-op order. That co-op order was my FIRST Hoya's other than what I had found full grown at HD along with a small order from Robs. I am mentioning this so you all will realize how totally new I am to Hoya's!! And all plants in general for that matter!

I actually tried to give my seed pod away here at DG two times but could find no takers! So when the seed pod burst open I took my zero lack of knowledge and dove in. I had just received an order from Park Seed with the set up you'll see that I used. I took tweezers and picked up 120 individual seeds and poked them into these dirt/foam pellets things. I watered off and on with Eleanors VF 11. I did not use the heat pad as it was summer and I had these upstairs where it gets fairly warm, but we are talking 5200 foot elevation in Idaho here! No way could they ever go outside as even during the warmest part of summer our night time temps regularly hit the low 40's and even upper 30's. Just giving some details on my growing conditions.

Most of mine (I believe I have 35 Australis seedlings that are big enough at this point) are now ready to make the move to their own little cups and I'm sure hoping I don't mess that up! I have slid some of the pellet things up and down in the Styrofoam and everything comes out nice and easy and there are nice white roots growing from the bottoms.

But the thing I am finding most perplexing is that I seem to have two different types of Hoya's growing?? The Hoya Australis seedlings popped up in about six days with some taking a little longer. But then I had some seedlings come up a good month or more afterwards. I had just assumed I had buried those particular seedlings too deep and they had to fight their way to the top but now they are getting bigger and they are different plants! There is no way anything else got into this set up as it was closed up nice and tight under the lights. And they do have thick hoya looking leaves, just completely different from the H Australis seedlings. Cross pollination of some type maybe??? Can seeds pods be like dogs and have different fathers for the same batch of pups? LOL

I took pictures regularly and because I'm a really anal type of gal :))) I'm going to start at the beginning of my little Hoya Baby journey here and walk you through via pictures from beginning to now. Just give me a minute or two to get the pictures all posted and then you'll see my "different" seedlings.

Now that you have my whole story I'd really appreciate any input on how you'd get two different plants from the exact same seed pod!!! I actually even have a stranger looking third entry too!

So I'm starting with a picture of the seed pod the day I received it, which was on June 6th and I'll move forward from there.

~Brenda