Well, it's been about 45 days since I received my first Hoyas so I thought I'd give an update. I'm very pleased with the overall health with all of them. None of them are dehydrated or none lost any leaves, so I'm pretty convinced that they'll grow nicely in my greenhouse here in Zone 7a/6b. At the time of my Hoya order in November, I got 3 hoyas and 2 Dischidias. The H. imperialis var. rauschii has grown the most. I'm really pleased with the new growth because it's already sending out 1 large shoot that has 3 new branchings and all 3 new branches have leaves! Hopefully you can see the new growth in the pic I took. (There's a new Brug behind it and the greens seem to 'match' -- sorry about that!)
The H. macgillivrayi and H. megalaster have not shown any growth yet, so I'm thinking that either my fertilizing is not correct or the reduced daylight is not inducing growth at this time of year. I do wonder if my fertilizer may not be strong enough but I have hesitated bombarding the plants since I do not use any artificial lights, only natural sunlight in my greenhouse. I have used 20-20-20 Peters and a 1/month feeding. Should I be fertilizing these more frequently or with diff. ratios of the NPK solution?
The Dischidia ioanthe and Dischidia ruscifolia that I bought at the same time have done fine and I still love the heck outta that Disc. ruscifolia because the leaves look like little strung hearts!I believe the humidity level is working for these 2 plants, judging by leaves, etc. But since I have learned they tend to like warmth, I have been pretty watchful of them. Over the past few days, 4-5 leaves from the Disc. ioanthe just started developing some very tiny brown 'dots' on the top surface and I felt it might be too cool for this plant in my greenhouse, so I have brought the plant indoors to get SW exposure. (We shall see!!)
I haven't been able to locate growth rate info on the 3 Hoyas that I own but it's interesting to see how one Hoya has outperformed the other 2. I did check the temp guide at Carol's website and found that H. imperialis var. rauschii preferred more of the upper end of an 'intermediate' GH.
Maybe some of you can shed some light on the particulars of the Hoyas that I have. The other Hoya that I believe is a H. carnosa is doing really well, too, and to find that one locally for $5, I am really loving it! LOL... For that price, I got a hanging basket with 3 of those Hoyas and many long vines, including some 5-foot vines. I'll have to admit that was my '2005 Buy Of The Year".
