Did a walk around the road today...and in the greenhouse. Sharing some photos. Here is the Eriostemma H. sp. AppleGreen...the blooms are about 1+" across and lots in an umbel. Blooms all over the vine.. They go from applegreen to white to yellow when they are spent.
...and here is H. ciliata - on 1' of tree...lots of blooms.
H. coronaria....
oooooops...my favorite passiflora
A new hoya I got last year from David. Looks very much like H. carnosa doesn't it....but it isn't...blooms VERY young and the small plants are FULL of umbels. IML 1514 H. sp. Ban Ngong Ngoy.
Stunning! Drooling in Illinois...
Here is a wierd one...3 rachis on one peduncle...
Anybody want a seed pod? H. australis IN the greenhouse...more folicles forming.
H. cv. Black Star. Looks very much like H. sussuela but the flowers point UPwards.
This is H. sp. Sulawesi....an Eriostemma from Bada Valley. Lots of flowers in the umbel and they last a long long time.
Now...I find this interesting. On the left is H. retusa I got from David Liddle. On the right is H. retusa I got from Ricfl. look how different the leaves are!!!
H. rigida...the whole rigida tray is full of blooms and they are 'scenting' the whole greenhouse!!!
::raises hand for seed pod adoption::
Heavenly. You must wake up every morning and pinch yourself Carol, because I know I would.
Patti
Cool - seed pods ARE looking for Foster Parents.
Rose, when that lone male Cardinal starts his morning concert at 5:30a.m. and the Thrushes chime in, and the doves join the chorus...the light breaking thru the trees and - usually - rain dancing on the roof and bouncing off leaves are the house making a splatty sound I simply don't believe I am here. Every day, more than once or twice, we hold eachother (DH, or Louise) and comment how lucky and blessed we feel!!! I feel we have always been here....
How many seeds are typically in a Hoya's pod? And what is the treatment for those seeds? Are they simply planted in a germination mix and then turn into little baby hoyas? I've never seen one on any of my plants but I don't have many mature plants, as most were acquired in the last year or two.
Carol your are truly blessed. I wish someday I can visit Hawaii. All your hoyas are beautiful ,but the Apple green is gorgeous.
I would love to give your seed pods a home.
Patti
Hoya seeds are like dandilions...they float thru the air on little parachutes and there are HUNDREDS.
Yes...I just wipe them on some damp medium and keep them warm and damp. I have only a few that set pods all the time...and baby lacunosas coming up in all the pots in the gh.
Someone needs to come up with a better name for
IML 1514 H. sp. Ban Ngong Ngoy.
LOL
that is sooooo how I feel about alot of these hoya names. I will forever call a DS-70 a bilobata until the "authorities" come up with a better name.
speaking of my first bilobata, Bilbo......not a happy plant atm. s/he has not bloomed since being inside for the past year and has always had a puckered look to the leaves. I'm terrified of overwatering......anyone have any ideas? situation: 10" plastic hanging basket, now in a south window. I just started misting with elenors. any tips?
Carol could one of those retusas possibly be H. acicularis (aka) teretifolia.
I did some looking online and found this info. I'm qouting this from another site::
H acicularis---Also in trade as hoya teretifolia. But according to scientists the true hoya teretifolia has not been collected in India for many years and that the one in our colelctions is from Borneo and has been published as H. acicularis.
Pictures of the plant I saw on that site look exactly like the thinner leaved one in your picture. The plant that I am currently growing as H. retusa also came from Ric as well. I also have what is supposed to be H. teretifolia ordered and it should be coming to me very soon so i'll compare the 2 and see what if any differences there may be betweeen them.
dmichael
I would like to try some seed if you have some extra... I've recently become interested in hoyas and all of yours a re stunning. Black star is my favorite, with apple green coming a close second. Congrats!
Scott
H. bilobata and H. DS-70 are two entirely enTIREly different species. Calling a hoya by anything other than its' correct name is one of the reasons the nomenclature is in such a mess!!!
According to Ted Green...H. teretefolia is not in commerce and that the correct name is H. acicularis.
Did anyone else buy Madagia inflata from David Liddle? I have heard that he and Forster have redefined it as H. inflata.
Gaia, be real careful with overwatering with this one, I lost a "DS-70" last winter that was a formerly healthy beautiful plant that I had had for a least a year and I think I must have overwatered, even though I am very careful. It was winter, the plant was in a lower light situation, maybe I should have been watering even less. It never turned yellow, the leaves just became soft and floppy, and within a few weeks it was all over. Very sad, especially considering how gorgeous it was.
Carol, I LOVE it when you take out the camera. :~) God bless, -joanne
ALERT. Information about the Madagia inflata is wrong. Someone else claims it is but the jury is still out for David.
dm, I sent the photo of retusa out and it is definitely H. retusa.
Bhavana - it could have been the low light level as well. From your description of the leaves it sounds like root rot which can often happen to large well established plants as well as small ones. The moment you see those little leaves start to look wierd...tip the plant out and check the roots. Roots happen to be the root of most evil!!! (like that? I made it up!!!)
Don't you just love the MSU fertilizer!!!? I was not flushing between fertilizing and I was starting to worry about salt buildup. The plants' growth kinda slowed down....so I flushed all the pots twice with plain water and WOW...they are going to town. That fertilizer IS the only thing I will use now.
Beautiful flowers Carol. I purchased IML 1514 from David last year and sniff sniff no buds for me yet. All the eriostemma's are beautiful.
Here is Madangia inflata.
That is so cool Carol! another I've not heard of......
Carol, could the low light alone cause root rot of would it be a combination of things? Obviously a plant in low light needs less water, less nutrients, and piling them on can do more harm than good. I never overwater, but I may have continued to water the way I did when the plant was outdoors in much, much more light.
Well...when your plant was outdoors, could it have dried out too much...then you brought it in and watered it too much. Roots can die from being too fried by the dry medium and pot...especially if you use a clay pots. Then you water = disaster. You are too right about less light slows down growth (unless the hoya likes less light like carnosas etc.) so you need less water...
The FIRST sign of a dwindling plant I tip the plant out of the pot and check roots....usually the 'root of the problem'....
Carol
My dearly departed DS-70 was in plastic, and though I am a stingy waterer, I am always checking to see if they need it so not much time will go by where a plant sits drying out. A day at the most. This particular plant was an Exotic Angel plant, and it had been in the greenhouse at the local garden center for a few months before I bought it, where it was most definately overwatered. Like most of my EA plants, it may have already had "issues" when I bought it. But, it went from the greenhouse to my backyard, where growing conditions are pretty good. Grew like a weed for me. It came in the house in October, seemed ok, I cut back on the water because of the lower light, plus indoors it wasn't drying out as fast. By Christmas it started looking bad, and it was dead within a month.
WHat do you do when you discover upon tipping the plant out that it is root rot? Do you remove the bad roots and repot? For the most part, the few plants I have lost this way, the repotting didn't help, or only helped temporarily, just prolonging the agony. And it has always been with these dang EA plants. I have lost 3 of them. I don't know why I bother, other than they fulfill a shopping urge and it is nice to buy a full size plant now and then when most of your others are growing from cuttings. Instant gratification.
Ah...the old EA Root Trick!!! It was probably too much water...surprisingly. EA puts those drasted wetting crystals in the soil so that their sellers don't have to fool about watering and they won't dry out as fast. Possible that some Box Stores actually DO water which would hasten the rotting process.
Sandyc waters her EA plants from the bottom...from the saucer - 'WHEN" the plant is dry. I actually found a HUGE obscura at Walmart last year...HUGE... I guessed that it had wetting crystals in the medium....so I hung it under the eaves of the porch. I have watered it 2 times in nearly the year I have had it. It is humid here...so the plant is not going to suck all the water from the pot.....
What do I do when there are rotten roots? Well...I gently pull off all the roots that will fall off in my hands. Then I find the bottom of the stem...(from which the roots are growing out) and I start to clip UP..up...up until I find life!!! Once I find life in the stem, I dip the cutting in Rootone (it has a fungicide in it) and repot it...put it on the heat mat if the nights get cold. I make sure all of the old yucky medium is off the plant... - And if the roots are goners but the plant looks OK, I spend weeks making cuttings!!!!!
Another alternative - which I have done when sent an EA plant - is un pot it and wash all the old soil off and repot so I can include it in my usual waterings.
I hope this helps.
I can leave my house at any given time and within an hour and a half I can be at any one of 3 home depot and 4 lowes stores. I can go 2,3, or even 4 days in a row and do you know what the garden shop people are dooing??? Watering the very same plants that they were watering the day before!!
Seems like if the same person isnt going to be working the next day they would at least leave a note saying that they watered,and you'd think that if it were a different person from the day before that they'd have at least enough sense to stick a finger in the pots to see if the plants are dry but they dont.
I dont know if all of the EA plants here on the East coast come from the same distributor or not but I noticecd last year at some point that the soil they were using to pot their plants had been changed. It used to stay wet for days sometimes weeks before it would dry out and I mean even during the hottest part of our summers which gets well into the high 90's and some days close to the century mark with humidity between 80-90%.
I lost my full basket of H. curtisii like that but it was shortly afterwards that I noticed a different potting medium. Maybe peole compLained enough about loosing plants and EA decided to make a switch. I've bought 2 other EA hoyas ( polyneura,javanica)since loosing that curtisii and I havent had a single problem with either since I got them as far as staying too wet goes. With the new soil they seem to dry out in just a matter of 2-3 days especially in the gh.
The only problems I had with the 2 new EA plants was with polyneiura and it is a tricky one to grow anyway or at least I found it tobe in the begining. When I bought it it was starting to get some yellow spots on it but I bought it anyway and jsut kept it away from all of my other hoyas. After several attempts at relocation,more water,less water,more light,less light and so on I finally found a spot that it likes and I DON'T touch it!!! I water it twice a month with MSU fertilizer both times and I rotate the basket once a week and I dont have to take it down to do that as the basket has a swivel type hook made on to it.
I now know to do what Carol advised in a situation when you find yourself faced with root rot in a hoya. Remove all soil and dead roots and start cutting until you find free flowing sap. This has only happened to me twice. The first hoya was a total loss but I managed to save the first one and now have another thriving basket of it to enjoy.
I have noticed lately that EA is starting to put a few of their scarcer hoyas back out for sale,like janvanica,polneura and curtrisii.You usually can only find one of them at a store and you pretty much have to be there when they come out of the box to get them as they tend to get picked over quickly.
Im still waiting to run up on one of those H. linearis plants that they seem to be so carefull not to bring ot any of my local stores!!! I found polyneuar and curtisii last year and javanica this year so maybe linearis will show up soon!!
dmichael
Well, the one problem with root rot on the EA hoyas is that most varieties are made up from about 500 cuttings per pot! I would spend all day trimming roots and looking for the unrotted parts. Most of the EA plants are barely past being a basketful of rooted cuttings when you buy them. The first few I got, I tried to immediately repot and what a mess! They fall apart in your hands. I think the best thing to do is grab them before the garden center employees start abusing them, because I think the ones I bought, even my beautiful DS-70, were already in a state of decline by the time I came along. When you reach up to take it down from the pole in the store and the pot weighs 25 pounds and a saucer full of cold water runs down your arm, you know the plant is in trouble already. I keep trying though, because I have had success with some, more than I have lost...all the carnosa types, kentiana, and linearis have done fine. I have lost DS-70 and lacunosa. I just bought brevialata, and all their other varieties I already have from other sources.
It really is amazing, the bad care they get at both the box stores and garden centers, where you would think employees would be more knowledgable. Caring for houseplants is not rocket science, it is just common sense. If a plant is WET, then it DOES NOT NEED WATER...how hard is that??
This message was edited May 23, 2007 8:02 PM
