March buds-n-blooms

I know this is a day early but I was out in gh admiring my hoyas and was pleasnatly surprised at the number of peduncles that I have forming on my plants.

I dont knowif it's due to my using the beer formula fertilizer or if my plants have just reached maturity. Some of the ones with peduncles on them are not even a year old yet and started out as sm/med cuttings .

So far this is what I have either already in bloom or with buds. Sorry they arent in any particular order here!!!

australis--fungii--meliflua ssp. fraterna--myrmecopa--multiflora--serpens--cinnamomifolia--onychoides--cv. mathilde(loaded)--kerrii (green & variegated)--pimentaliana--inconspicua--bella (green & variegated)--hindu rope(green & variegated)--lacunosa--obovata--cv. minibelle--cv. red buttons-- cv royal Hawaiian purple----sp. acuta--vitellina--incrassata--pink-silver


sorry the pic is a bit on the fuzzy side but I have the gh fans going and I was standing on a ladder,trying to keep the plant still,take the pic and maintain my balance all at the same time!!!



dmichael

Wow, lots of eye and nose candy... Congrats on all you blooms and buds. I love spring. Very nice photo for everything that you had to contend with.

Tami, the flower on the hindu rope definately IS NOT nose candy!! It's a pretty bloom and I love the plant for it's foliage even though it's a very common hoya and a lot of people dont like it but the bloom leaves a lot to be desired as far as fragrance goes.

It has kind of a chocolatey smell almost but not good chocolate!!! When I kept it in my house it hung in my bedroom close to the bed and when it would bloom i'd always move it to another room. Hoya cummingiana has a very appealing smell to me. It's kind of spicy!!

dmichael

Very cool, dmichael!

Pretty bloom, dmichael!!

Very nice! I had the exact opposite reaction with cummingiana.....kept trying to figure out what was stinking up the room. That was it! The carnosas are a bit strong though.

:) Kim

Now I don't know which coast to head for to see all the blooms east or west:) You sure have lots of them coming up. Be careful on that ladder:)
Be sure to add the photos when they all open.

blue-eyes..... That is interesting how we all have a different idea about what smells pretty and what doesn't. Now I can't wait to have mine bloom so I can see for myself.

Bea

Congrats on your compacta bloom dmichael - its so lovely. Mine's not too far behind, with four umbels approaching that day too.
Christine

Nice growing, David! My only question is: is the beer mix for you or your Hoyas???? Maybe you have the solution to slow growing plants. Down a beer or 2 and your plants will look healthier!
Mel

Christine, would you believe that my rope has had as many as 40 umbles of flowers open at one time. It's an amazing sight when they are all open and now that I have a camera to take pics with i'll post one of it when they all open. It is loaded with buds right now!!

Mel,i've been using the beer formula for probably 2 months now and the amount of new growth that i have gotten on my hoyas is unbelievable and peduncles everywhere!!! And if it didnt have the ammonia and epsom salts in it it might be okay to drink but I think i'll pass on anything containing household ammonia!!

When you say slow growing plants are you refering to the hindu rope??? If so I dont find it to be slow growing at all in fact mine grows actively all year long. It bloomed last year from about this same time until november I think.My plant is only 6 years old and weighs in right at about 9 and 3/4 feet in length.

I just repotted it into a heavy steel framed basket last week with heavy duty chain to support it. You should have seen me trying to repot that sucker. It probably weighs at least 30lbs dirt and all and it was not an easy task getting it down,repotted and hung back up but I refuse to cut it.

Mel,The last batch of cuttings that I got from you have really taken off since using this stuff on them.


dmichael

I've got h. limoniaca - very fragrant, but not overpowering - smells like a florist shop! (sorry it's fuzzy) She had three budding peduncles, but two blasted - this one made it. I also had h. carnosa Krinkle 8 budding up, but it blasted. I do still have h. lobbii, h. cv Noelle, h. multiflora, h. sp Phillipines IML 831, and h. lacunosa budding up. I've been using the MSU fertilizer - very happy with the results thus far!
Karen

Whoopeeee, that is so cool, Karen!

Hoya javanica.

Very cool, Mark (nice picture too).

Woohoo! I just found a bloom spur on my H. vitellina! Nice pics everyone.

:) Kim

first bloom on my DS70.....Deb

Deb that looks like Lacunosa, not DS-70.

Blessings,
Awanda

OHOH....I switched the names....thank you for correcting that!!!!! Deb

Nice bloom, Deb! How's the fragrance?

Kabob, unbelievable!!!!!!!!!and it's just nice to have a hoya blooming in my house again....dmichael, I understood that the formula was better for the plants if the beer was left out of it? too much sugars in the soil leading to some problem? I just made a batch yesterday to start my active growth fertilizing & I left the beer out even tho I had purchased Lager beer for it....did I misunderstand? please let me know....Deb

H. "Christina'

H. waymaniae

Beautiful blooms everyone, I just love spring and all the new growth and blooms.

H. "Christina" fully open. The scent is very close to that of H. pachyclada and H. subquintuplinervis. For those of you who grow orchids, it is very similar to the fragrance of a Miltonia, but stronger. For those who don't, the smell is complex. Freshly-ground nutmeg, camphor, and rose. It is a spicy, invigorating scent, only faintly sweet.

My little Christina has a big bud on it too. Seems strange because it is just a little 5 leafed plant.
Marcy

Marcy, 'Christina' is supposed to be a really easy bloomer. I guess it is- my plant is really small too (2 nodes) and actually has root rot. When I found the flowers open I also found that the leaves were dessicated. I pulled it out and sure enough all of the roots were rotten. I cut it and have it sitting in a bit of water with an antifungal root-hormone mixed in. The leaves have plumped back up a bit, but I am not sure this is going to work, as one of the parents of this hybrid is H. subquintulinervis or pachyclada (don't remember which), which is basically a succulent, so it might just rot again in water. We'll see. But isn't that impressive? The thing set buds and flowered with no roots and a fungal infection!

Hoya cv. Joy has just about opened completely!

Blessings,
Awanda

Nice pics and flowers, Mark and Awanda!!

Very pretty Mark. Do you think it is blooming in the last ditch effort to save itself? I did go back and look at the leafs, they do look pretty bad. What a beautiful bloom and photo.

Awanda Joy is pretty too, I wasn't aware that this hoya was yellow. I may have to get this one too.

H. thomsonii second bloom for the year

Awanda, how's that 'Joy' smell?
Tami, I don't know 'Christina's motivations in blooming, she ain't talkin'. Sounds like a reasonable guess, though. It has another umbel of tiny buds- I doubt I'll see them open.

H. kentiana

H. verticillata var. I am so pleased with this plant this year. Last year it blasted the one and only peduncle that made the effort to try and bloom. This year there are 8 buds getting ready and during the winter it grew 12 more peduncles. It is really going to be pretty. I had it overpotted and in really heavy soil last year, but changed the soil and put it back into a 4.5" hanging pot. It made all the difference in the world.

Great flowers everyone!! March is being kind to my little hoya garden. I have 5 umbels close to opening on h.compacta, one on each of carnosa, Krimson Queen, Lacunosa Tove, a shadow of a possibility on Lobbii, and in this truly weird looking picture, is H. archboldiana with the little "nubblies" of the beginnings of an umbel of its very first flowers. I got this plant as a cutting with four leaves. Within three months it had a 3' tendril on it, and out immediately popped a little peduncle. That was last September. It still has four leaves. This picture is yesterday. Now comes (how many?) months of waiting....
Christine

This afternoon I decided that I wanted to take a head count on the number of peduncles on my hindu rope. As some of you saw in earlier pics of this plant ,it is huge. It is almost 10 full feet in length and about 3 feet round in the wire basket that it is planted in.

So to get as close to an accurate count as I could, I started with the longets rope and tagged it with a piece of surveyor tape and began to count from the bottom up towards the top. Slowly making my way up and down and around the plant I counted a total of 129 peduncles. Some have flowers open and many more have buds about to pop any day now.

As soon as it has enough open to make a nice picture,i'll get one and post it here. I have read on here before of people having trouble getting this hoya to bloom but I dont do anything special to it at all and have never had any problems with it blooming.


dmichael

dmichael - I'd LOVE to see that picture when you take it!!! Karen

Oh my gosh !! :O 129 ? Oh I bet it is beautiful when it is in full bloom. Yes I would love to see a photo of that one too.

You're right about h.compacta dmichael - the only time I had trouble with mine was when I got cutting happy-the next year it didn't bloom at all. We learn...baby steps... It's happy again.
Christine

Christine, I just dont have the heart to cut on this one!!! It only took it about 6 years to get to this size. Not a long time at all compared to how slow some hoyas grow. I guess once it hits the floor of the gh i'll have to start cutting it some from the bottom just to keep it from sprawling all over the place and rooting into the ground.

I recall my grandmother having one of these for almost 10 years before she ever brougth it into bloom. Mine bloomed within 6 months of my purchasing it and since i've been growing it in the gh it keeps open flowers about 9 out of 12 months of the year.

dmichael

My new favorite Hoya, H. pachyclada.

Mark - nice flower and pic. I got a cutting of this on our last order to David Liddle - can't wait until it grows up and blooms like yours!! Karen