OK, it's winter, the hoyas are indoors, nice and toasty and all that good stuff.....both of my meliflua's are turning to crap! For lack of a better description, the plant has started to rot from the tips of the vines back to the roots.....the leaves (and they are big), started yellowing and falling off....I haven't over watered but am now thinking they like to grow extra dry in the winter? they've never been in saturated water! I'm finding myself at a loss...any thoughts out there? thanks!
H. meliflua and H. meliflua ssp. fraterna problems! 9-1-1!
Hmmmm I can't think what would cause them to rot from the outward tips.... You might try spraying them with a fungicide....I use Dipel.
Have you checked the roots? Tip the plants out and check them...won't hurt the plant if it is healthy and can't hurt it if it is dying and you may be able to save it....
Interesting that it's happening to both plants. Suggests there could be something environmental that has triggered this reaction. Could perhaps be related to light intensity/quality, temperature and/or ambient humidity.
I'm no expert, but my experience with those plants are they like fairly high ambient humidity. I thought I was going to lose my meliflua fraterna last year when I kept it out in the house on a windowsill. There was very low humidity; the leaves kept yellowing and falling off. I took large cuttings put them into a pot and covered it with a plastic bag - they root very easily, and I saved it. This year I keep the plant in my indoor plant room where the average humidity is over 60%, and the plant looks fantastic, and is growing continually. I also have to say that the temperatures that it seems to thrive in are 82 during the day and 68 degrees at night. I could never give it those conditions without the plant room. When it outgrows the room, I will probably have to get rid of it.
Doug
This message was edited Jan 28, 2010 8:09 AM
Hmmm......I'm beginning to wonder if the humidity is the issue..especially with all of my philippine native species.....they were doing fabulous outside, but now with winter they are all just so-so, except for the meliflua which is turning ultra-crappy....OK, I'll try cranking up the humidity first and see what happens...Thanks for the advice! I'll keep you posted!
Well Doug, if/when the time comes for your baby to go, you can just let him become a snow bird and come to Florida for the winter, well maybe you should too, brr all that cold and snow is just way to much for me,
Dee
Dee, I'm sure many of my plants would be much happier down in your neck of the woods. It is becoming more and more difficult to find a place for some of my plants as they grow larger. At some point, sooner rather than later, I am going to have to thin out my collection - only keeping the strongest growers and least finicky plants. I spend an average of 1-2 hours a day on this hobby, and sometimes it seems like too much. Just keeping my plant vines from strangling each other is chore enough. They grow so close to one another that I am forever disentangling them. If I don't do that every two weeks, I have to cut them apart!
Doug
I've lost a few of mine over this winter for the same reason. I think that they just like to be drier in the winter because the further away from the equator they are, they adjust to a winter slow down in growth from the shorter daylight hours and don't require as much water. But I'm going to get the fungacide anyway, that could explain a smell I've found on a couple, but not on any that have died.
Thanks, Christine
Well now maybe I should start up a winter "boarding" home for the wayward hoya's for a small fee of course umm like maybe cuttings from the waywards before they go back home for the summer, LOL.
Dee