My goodness, you do have some beauties in bloom!
March Flowers
Yep, April ALREADY! I don't know where the time goes anymore ... my mom always told me the older you get, the quicker time seems to pass and boy was she right! It seems like yesterday it was just January ... no complaints though, spring has arrived down this way and the weather is warm (80's) and sunny!
I will watch for the April thread.
LOL, dinner can wait!
I'm still around, reading the posts, but very distressed. I lost most of my hoya this past winter. It was so cold at night, for more that three weeks, that the majority of my hoya didn't make it thru. I had them covered with quilted mattress covers but it didn't help. I have to make a list of what I have left. It's just so sad to see all the pots with brown leaves and mushy stems. I also lost over 60 orchids. I brought some larger hoya and orchids into garage, but they are distressed and I'm nursing them along.
We had such unusual temps ( down to 20s at night) that the plants just gave up. I wish I had room to bring them all into house, but I don't have the room. Also the the ants that live in the pots would have nested in my home. LOL.
I wanted to downsize my collections, but not this way.
I hope Mark changes his mind, and stays involved with Stemma. I printed out all issues and look longlingly thru them quite often, making lists of what I yearn for.
Come back to us, Mark.
Eileen: We did have an awful winter here didn't we? The coldest I've seen it since I moved here in 1967 and reports say it went down in the history books as the coldest, longest winter in Florida record books.
I too lost many Hoya's as well as lots of other plants. I've been talking about downsizing for five years now so figured this is the time to really do it. I'm sad that I lost my very large Hoya Iris Marie and very large H. imperialis before ever getting to see blooms on them! I had four very large hanging baskets of DS-70 and brevialata that were totally dead too. I only have a couple dozen orchids and brought most inside. The six or seven that I forgot in the Florida room bit the dust. Like you, my house is quite small so I'm limited to bringing in too many plants. My Florida room is pretty large and it was cram packed with plants which I do every winter. My husband hung heavy tarps on the covered deck and we moved the trees and large plants to that area and I covered them all with blankets. But, I covered the plants inside the fla room with blankets too and still lost many. I had some large Croton's that I'd had for many years ... I've cut them all back but it doesn't look like there's any life in them. Usually the huge Schefflera tree in the backyard will re-sprout from the roots/trunk after a freeze but we had so many freezes this winter it hit that one hard as well.
I'm sure temptation is going to get the better of me and I will be buying plants again now that the weather has warmed up but I am going to stop myself from adding a lot because I don't want to have the mess to clean up if we ever have another harsh winter like the one that just passed!
ceedub - you lucky girl you! Absolutely gorgeous!
I feel terribly about your hoyas and orchids, Lin...but the Schefflera? They are weeds here and I spend most of my walking around the property pulling them out of other plants! Part of the 'Strangler Fig' pests...
Your weather was nasty this year....too bad...
Christine...nice pottsii.... I really like mine!!!!
This message was edited Apr 6, 2010 11:16 AM
Carol: For many folks, they are not desirable trees here. I had purchased the Scheff as a house plant in a little pot many years ago and decided one year to plant it in the yard. I knew they got huge in the southern part of the state but thought it wouldn't survive even a mild winter here if we had frost. Geesh, we've had many frosts over the years and it would knock the huge tree back but it always re-sprouted in spring. This tree got so large around and the roots are massive, lifting up the cement edgers around a flower bed in the area. I made the HUGE mistake of planting it next to the pool deck and we had huge cracks form in the pool deck. The pool area is old anyway and we had the pool and deck all resurfaced a couple of years ago but I was hoping my husband would take that tree down because I was worried that it would cause cracks over time on the in the pool area again. Looks like I don't have to worry about that problem now. It was a great tree for hanging my orchids because it's the only tree the squirrels didn't seem to bother my plants! My husband got his chain saw out a few weeks ago and cut the Scheff back to about 3' and was hoping it would sprout anew. So far there's no sign of new growth, which makes me happy! He asked me what I was going to do with all my orchids with that tree gone and I told him I want him to build me a large arbor the length of the shed, @24'. I bet I will still be waiting for that next year, LOL.
wish i had someone who could build me a 24' arbor Lin, even if it took them 3 years..:)) ( and cut a tree down with a chainsaw, come to think of it ! )
My husband is handy with the chain saw, trimming trees if his ladder will reach. He's mostly handy with mechanical tools, working and fixing engines, but he has built a couple of wood decks over the years, erected a huge greenhouse for me on one of the decks back in the 70's, but I ended up working long hours at one point and didn't have time for plants so I had him dismantle it years ago ... I haven't worked in 18 years and now I'd love a greenhouse!
My husband teaches and has a lot of time off during the year, he only teaches one term during the summer so is off a few months then, and three weeks at Christmas, plus a few holidays here and there. He bought a motorcycle last summer and he has a boat too. He really wants to take the boat over to the Bahamas for a couple of weeks to do some diving and he wants to take a motorcycle trip with a buddy, so I have a feeling the Arbor won't get done this summer, LOL.
Here's a new bloom for me - H. hellwigiana
I really love this plant; the leaves get a beautiful deep red with veins in the morning sun window I have it in.
Now that I think about it, it's actually a cutting I ordered from dear DL that came early last summer ! I guess it's
happy.....
I can't resist - here's a macro....
And here is H. lacunosa - first bloom since our move from Hawaii...
Congratulations, Paula....glad they made the trip and are thriving!!!!
Where did you move to Paula?
Oh my goodness what beautiful shots of both of those hoya. Paula when did you move from Hawaii to Idaho? Now that is a change in climate!
Yes, that is about as big a change in climate as is possible. Paula great shot of hellwigiana. My only problem with the plant is that the blossoms are extremely short lived, but the foliage more than makes up for it!
Doug
Try H. "Kapit Borneo", flowers open in morning, close late afternoon, and fallen off by next morning. :O(
Well we moved back to Idaho last June, to where I grew up.
All of my hoya adjusted well to the move - they're upstairs,
climate-controlled temp's between 68-75 all the time. I'm getting
blooms here that I never saw in Hawaii !
Actually, H. hellwigiana's flowers lasted 6 days. Not bad, I thought.
My H. pentaphlebia blooms didn't even open all the way, and in 1-2 days
were falling off ! So I didn't think the bloom's were that short...but yes,
the foliage is gorgeous !
TB...'Kapit Borneo' makes up for it in the foliage, right!!!!!?
Yes, the H. "Kapit Borneo" foliage looks good. The funny thing is all the leaves on it are the ones that came from DL. All the plant's done in the past 6 - 8 months is produce dozens of short lived flowers without a single new leaf or any new stem growing.