A couple of years ago I was convinced, by the store owner, that his homemade concoction of a special seaweed, many many minors, chicken poop etc. was the best thing for plants since dirt! I used it...it was GREAT! I used it a lot...it was TERRIFIC. Every so often, I would add a splash of Fish Fertilizer, or MG just to UP the NPK which was kinda low. He had assured me that "this is all you need".
Enter some really wierd leaves coming out on some of my hoyas...but we are talking WIERD coloration, discoloration, twisted, deformed.... OMG! Major panic. I had my potting soil tested twice, I had leaves tested for 14 groups of viruses known here in Hawaii, I sprayed for fungus.... All this time, David Liddle and I are thinking "nutritional" ... off to another test and it comes back and we (including the Plant Pathologist now) are thinking nutritional. I stopped using the "magic potion" about 5 months ago when this whole thing started...just a niggling little voice in the back of my brain.
The other day, talking with this same store owner, he says...."OH, NO....you are supposed to use that as a supplement of macro and micro nutrients...it is not a complete fertilizer".
I could have shot myself.
The discolorations and twisted leaves turned out to be an OVERdose of the micronutrients...not lack of them. Some of the worse hit are H. archboldiana, H. lasiantha and H. lobbii.... So, enough time has gone by, the soil is leeched of the Seaweed stuff and I am back on a plain vanilla watering/fert schedule with Dyna Grow.
Moral of the story: I should have thoroughly researched this "new fertilizer" before taking someone's word for it!!! (AND it was expensive)... No more miracle potions...perhaps a bit of Eleanors once in a while...Messenger...
The other lesson I learned is that Hoyas are DARN tough...most of them have lost skipped a beat.
Edited to say "most of them have NOT skipped a beat". I found the bottle in the trash... "Completely balanced for all stages of growth"....gee, that says it all to me.
This message was edited Jul 28, 2005 12:03 PM
Learning from my mistakes
Nice to hear the experts make the same mistakes as the rest of us. Makes my steaming of hoyas, and boiling them seem all in a days work!!
Heather