yup...LOL
on the plus side I get a LOT of "snow days" when I can't get to work because I can't get out of the driveway ^_^
October Flowers
Yes, I agree that -35°F is way too cold.
I'm a MN native and have only experienced -30°F, but once you get below 0°F it's just cold and no one should be outside. When the wind starts blowing, that puts windchill into the mix and that can make being outside very dangerous.
I don't mind the snow, but I hate the cold. Some day I will live much farther South than I do now... (:o)
Mike
I'm happy enough to only ever see that white stuff when I open the freezer door.
I hear ya, I refuse to any further north come Nov, so I don't see my sister after the 1st of Nov.
Dee
Aw, cold, smold. My house is warm enough, so is my car. You learn to dress for the weather or bore people to death complaining - of course you can do both....lol... Its getting up to 9C (48F) today, and we have our first frost warning tonight because its going down to 1C (33.5F) tonight. Not a day to leave the back door ajar for the convenience of our cats.
Anyway, my linearis has its very first flowers! This plant is a true joy; everyone wants a cutting of it because its so unusual looking. Every time I take a cutting, two new vines shoot off from the base. So its really getting bushy - I started it from two little cuttings just over 2 years ago.
I propped up the two flowering vines in neighbouring H. ischnopus, which is why you'll see some large leaves that don't fit the flowers. Its not a fabulous shot but you can see that one umbel's flowers are just starting to open.
Christine
H australis giving a nice show at the moment. 3 year old plant. Lost count of how many flowers
Ceedub It is the cutest bloom and propmaker yours remind me of Wedding dress for some reason.
Both of them are just beautiful. Love the pictures.
Charleen
Both of them are beautiful!
Gorgeous. Nice plant Dom!!!!
That is what they call "drop-dead gorgeous"
I hear it smells of chocolate...I dont smell that , I cant put my finger on the fragrance, tho friends have said they smell chocolate. Its a beauty
Golly, that is the best of both worlds.
Beautiful and Chocolate.
A question for anyone in the know......?
Im off to London on Wednesday for 5 days and these H magnifica buds are looking pretty good....the question being it looks like they may ( or may not ) open in the next few days. As its a first time bloomer for me, I have no idea how large these buds might continue to grow to... Any ideas as to how long they should stay open if they decide to open after wednesday? Gonna be a real shame to miss the show.
ps, thats dust on the leaves from building work, not mould . ...these hairy leaves arent as easy to hose down...:))
Dominic
I think you have a few days, Dom. Probably 4-5 days and the flowers last a good time!!!
Good........:))
Thanks Carol
Beautiful Pics everybody... Enjoying them all a lot.....
Wow! that austalis is amazing Dominic. Wish I could grow australis, but I've given up. It is supposed to be one of the easiest to grow, but I've tried many species, and they will not grow for me period.
Chistine, congratualations on your blooming linearis. It looks fantastic. I'm going to have to start mine over very soon as it just does not look very good. I think you can tell if one is in good health by giving it a shake - if a bunch of leaves keep falling off, it is not in good health. If I can get my cuttings to take, I'm going to take your advice and keep it really dry before watering.
Here is H. kenejiana, which seems to like it under the grow lights.
Doug
ThreeG: Wow, look at all that snow! I saw the news today and it looks like winter has definitely arrived in some areas! Unfortuneately here in Florida we are still having record breaking heat! It's been in the mid 90's the past couple of weeks, with humidity to match! We had a wee taste of cooler temps for a few days about three weeks ago and it was wonderful, the humidity was very low and the daytime highs were low to mid 80's. I have the news on right now and the weather person just said it's going to be cool on Friday, Saturday and Sunday ... mid to upper 70's! I'm so excited, it is going to be a great weekend! My husband is off on Friday and next Monday, and it's Biketoberfest week here in Daytona Beach so he will have great weather for motorcycle riding. I will probably be out in the garden!
Christine: Great blooms on linearis, they are so pretty! I bought a nice big linearis from the Exotic Angel website early summer and it died within a couple of weeks ... didn't like the heat I guess or more than likely I kept it too wet!
Dom: Wonderful australis! I have a couple that grow well for me, very easy ... but no blooms! I gave one to my sister when she came to visit in May and it has been blooming non stop for her in South Florida!
Doug: Nice kenejiana bloom. Is that one fragrant?
No blooms to report here yet. I'm waiting (not so patiently) for the first bloom on my pubicalyx RHP! It's one from a cutting I got in a DL order a year ago and it finally produced one peduncle that has buds which should open in a day or two from the looks of it. If the thing blasts maybe I will start a thread for hoyas that aren't blooming since I have quite a few with no signs of ever showing flowers! ^_^
Lin, I can't really get close enough to that kenejiana to give it a sniff. It is sort of jammed in the back of a bunch of plants. I think it is in here somewhere. Too many plants, and not enough room!
Doug
Oh my ... Doug, are those all Hoya's?? That is a lot of plants in one spot and they look great! I don't have a lot of Hoyas but I do have a lot of different kinds of plants. I'd like to have a greenhouse again, but thankfully my plants can stay outside almost year round. Sometimes if we have a hard freeze and it stays cold for quite a few days I will lose a plant or two to the cold, but it's rare.
I think I posted this picture in the past but this is where I play every day. Most people have furniture on their pool deck, but our pool deck is covered in plants! I have Hoyas and a few other plants hanging around the perimeter of the pool, a couple of shelves with plants, and our fireplace backs up to that deck and there are raised areas on either side of the back of the fireplace where I have plants sitting. The covered deck that attaches to the cement pool deck does have a seating area with some old furniture but that area is full of plants too, hanging, sitting on tables and shelves as well as sitting on the wood deck. I know if I had a job, I would never be able to take care of so many plants ... this is a full time job, non paying ... but fun! I don't miss "office politics" one bit! ^_^
... My playground:
Doug, I think H linearis is one of those that you have to find a medium that suits your environment.......Ive grown it many ways, and always end up with a bunch of cuttings off a half dead plant. However..Im not sure if Carol grows hers the same way....Ive found that growing it in pure sphagnum moss in a plastic pot, and never letting it go bone dry, seems to be working for me the best. Not to pack in the moss, but leave it loose and airy but damp....and to make sure it can be re wetted by watering, rather than soaking......Worth a try if you have a couple of spare rooted bits. Roots easy, just a devil to keep going after, but so far that way is working for me as opposed to other previous ways.......but like I said..........so far....:))
Dominic
I have had good luck with cuttings recently, rooting them in pure hydroton and keeping little water in the 'well' when it got dry. My EA plant I water from the bottom only when it is dry...I don't mist it and never water from the top! Go figger! If I grew it in my own media, I would use 80% hydroton in my mix and grow it semi hydroponically.
Here's a hoya I bought from Paul Shirley under the name of H. sp. ETS 86 GPS 10069 and it looks a lot like incurvula but the flowers are smaller.
This is my last photo for a while. My membership ends tomorrow and I'll be moving in 2 weeks and won't have much time to post anyway... Perhaps I'll be back some day!
/Christina
This message was edited Oct 13, 2009 11:39 AM
Great photos everyone.
Christina, good luck with your move. Come back soon.
Jan
Lin, I would kill for a place like you have to grow your plants - Just fantastic!
Dominic, thanks for that linearis advice. I have a lot of Sphagnum moss; I will have to give it a try. I also have a feeling that linearis might like a higer relative humidity than I have to offer. It did pretty well for me over the summer in the greenhouse, but doesn't care for it inside all that much.
Christina, good luck with the move. It seems like you have moved a few times over the years, and with all those plants it sure can't be an easy task. Come back soon!
Doug
It's funny how the same plant needs different care depending on where you live and your conditions.
For me to keep H. linearis alive I need to keep the plant just about bone dry during the winter. I do splash a bit of water on the plant occasionally, but rarely do I ever completely saturate the root ball during the winter. My house is cool during the winter and that may be why I need to keep the plant so dry in order for the plant to survive.
Mike
Mike, between you and Christine that is two votes for bone dry between waterings. I have a really, really hard time with bone dry - it is just not in my nature. I try to walk by and not water, but something just compels me to water.
Doug
Doug,
I hear you! It is totally against my nature to let plants go bone dry, but I've had to restart H. linearis too many times because I thought the plant was too dry and needed water. I have learned my lesson and now let the plant sit there as dry as it is with no remorse. And this care allows H. linearis to survive at my place.
Because H. linearis does grow pretty fast, I do restart the plant fairly often. I did just take cuttings and will put them in a hanging basket next spring when the weather starts to warm and the plant can go outside.
Mike
A couple of factors I've noticed with linearis is 1. if I perchance forget about watering it, the leaves will fall limp to remind me; and 2. it leaves gets misted every day with all the rest. So, it seems to like foliar humidity daily, while not caring too much if its roots totally dry out. I essentially treat it like a succulent - succulents do like water, but they like to dry out too.
Someone said that the best way to grow linearis for them is in semi-hydro. I think once that plant's roots hit the water reservoir they'll change their minds.
Dom, has your linearis survived very long in your sphagnum moss arrangement? I could see linearis being an amazing mounted plant with S/M as its base.
Christine
Christina: That is a lovely bloom! All the best on your move and getting settled into a new place. Hope you are able to come back to Dave's Garden in the near future.
Doug: Thanks! Our house is very small so it's nice to have the pool area and decks for all of my plants. In a few years when my husband retires we will be downsizing (probably a townhouse) and I won't have as much space for plants, but we hope to do a little traveling here and there, so there won't be much time to play with a lot of plants anyway! I won't miss the yard work 9 months of the year, that's for sure!
Treelover: I agree, what works for one person and their climate conditions (whether indoors or out) can be so different from someone else in another area of the world. I live in an area of high humidity most of the year and my plants stay outside all year round, with the exception of orchids and a couple of hoyas that I bring in for a few weeks if we are predicted to have extremely low temps. I used to have a problem with over watering all of my plants. For years I used the bagged potting soil, adding no amendments (it was extremely heavy and held a lot of water.) Since I changed to my own recipe which is chunky and lighter, I don't have the problem with root rot anymore. I just had to learn what conditions my plants preferred to keep them alive.
This will be a first bloom on my H. pubicalyx 'Royal Hawaiian Purple' from a cutting in a DL order Spring 2008.
That is sooooooooooooooooooo pretty.
Love the hoya blooms.
Charleen
I can't count the number of hoyas I have lost to overwatering!!! After years of seeing wonderful growth on plants I have missed in my drowning efforts, growing in hot dry climates in the wild and in collections, I am getting much better results growing on the dryer side. When the GH gets really hot, I spray water on them but little gets in the pots. The larger pots I drench in trays so that they will get really really soaked. I also water in the morning, especially in the winter as the nights here get cool and the fungi are always lurking!!!!
I have a few pots of it that have been growing in SM a year now and have just flowered.......we shall see
I went out with a torch last night , and my flowering H australis had 5 Ghekkos on the plant which is in a hanging basket....the light was too much for them and just froze them where they were, so I couldnt figure out if they would have been drinking the nectar, or if they would have been attracted to the perfume and waiting for insects to arrive....Anyone know which reason? Was very cute
Dominic
Dominic, that sure would have been a prize winning photograph! I wish I could have seen it.
Doug
Dominic---It depends on what kind of geckos they are....a lot of them, especially the day geckos (phelsuma), are big-time nectar eaters...I would bet they were there for the nectar, but without a positive ID it's hard to tell....I would LOVE to live where you can go outside and see lizards...sigh...
Shelley
That is so neat it would have been nice to have a pic.
If they were the nectar drinking Gekkos, does that mean
that they also help pollinate?? How wonderful. Isn't
nature Grand?
Charleen
I guess it could have been either of those things ... sipping the hoya nectar or waiting for insects to come along, or maybe both! It could have been eating insects and washing them down with the hoya nectar, LOL. I don't know anything about gheckos but we have little anole lizards here that are out during the day. I took a picture a month or so back of one of the little guys on my brevialata, really seeming to enjoy the nectar. The picture was a bit fuzzy because it was so humid outside that day, but I will go see if I can find the picture. I've seen the little anole lizards sipping hoya nectar for what seems like hours so they must love the sweetness.
This is not a great picture but you can see the little guy on the hoya. If I got real close he would move to another flower and continue sipping. Hoya's DS-70 and wayettiiI were in bloom and dripping nectar at the same time, but brevialata was the drink of choice for these lizards. It's the only Hoya I've ever seen them on so maybe brevialata nectar is sweeter than the others?
