I'm very excited; in the recent Hoya Co-op, I ordered an H. australis cutting, and the one that Carol sent had an attached seed pod. Not knowing any better, I ripped it open to see what the seed pod looked like. The seed looked very much like Milk Weed seed, which I guess Hoyas are related to. I read in a later post, in the co-op forum, that you should wait for the seed pod to ripen before planting the seed. Since I didn't see that post in time, I had already spread it on top of some moist potting mix in a 4"X8" tray, put a plastic bag on it, and put it under a flourescent light. I never in a million years thought the stuff would germinate. That was last Thursday afternoon (06/07/07). Today (6/12/07) I opened the bag expecting to see a bunch of mildewed seed that I was going to have to throw out, and to my astonishment what do I see but lots of - at least 15 baby Hoyas with their first seed leaves already out sticking out of the soil. If I had ever thought there was a chance they would have germinated, I would have planted the seed more carefully. As it is, they are sort of growing all over and on top of each other. I will update this thread and my experiences with the seedlings as they continue to grow.
Doug
I've Got Hoyas From Seed!
Doug..you planted them just like I do!!! And congratulations! Now you will have a gazillion seedlings and hate to destroy any of them!!!!
Carol
Ahhh, how wonderful for you. I'd love to find a seed pod one day. Which brings me to the following question.
If someone would be so kind as to educate me a little, what causes a Hoya to create seed pods? Is it the age of the plant, or pollination of the flowers, or other circumstance that causes this to happen? Can I force an older plant to go to seed and what sacrifices are then made? Will there be fewer flowers or less growth next season because of the energy spent on creating the seeds?
Thank you for your help.
Doug,
Make sure you post a picture or two, I've never seen a 'baby' Hoya.
I will be posting plenty of pictures when they just get a little bit bigger. My camera and photographic skills wouldn't allow me to take an identifiable photo at this point. Andrew, I'm guessing that maybe pollination might have more to do with getting seedpods then anything else. I'm thinking that most Hoyas grown indoors would not get pollinated. I don't even know if a plant has male and female flowers, or if there are male plants and female plants. If anyone wants to elaborate on the sexual reproduction of the Hoya, I would love to read how it works also.
OK...I cannot pollinate hoyas but I have seen it done. The pollen (male) from one flower is 'put onto/into/over/?' the receptor of another flower and babies are made. Seeds. It is not a 'done' deal...some different families are difficult or impossible to cross successfully. The whole operation takes a keen eye, a lot of knowledge and something very small like a needle or a cat whisker.
In the 'wild' this activity is taken care of by ants, bees, Hawk or Wolf Moths with their long 'beak'. I always have tons of seed pods (folicles) on my H. australis growing up the trees, and on 2 pots of H. lacunosa which always seem to produce seeds. I have had seed pod on my H. ciliata and am watch two pods on H. cv. Optimistic...I assume they will be 'self' crosses but...who knows.
After the seeds germinate, I save the strongest, say, 20 and grow them out. Out of those 20 there is usually a small attrition and I may grow out the strongest 10...just to see what they produce. It takes YEARS to see the products of the pollination.
Wow! It would really take the right kind of person with an incredible attention for detail and an infinite amount of patience to want to work on Hoya cultivars.
I got a few pods on a carnosa plant growing in the same pot as a pubicalyx outside 2 years ago, both plants were in bloom and always covered with bees. I didn't know you had to plant the seeds right away, though. By the time I did it was too late. Not that I think the world needs another carnosa cultivar, but it would have been cool to try growing hoyas from seed.
I was given some seeds from a H. obovata growing next to a H. carnosa and they were the only blooms happening. They were oldish by the time they got here but about 12 germinated...looking forward to seeing them bloom!!! Already I like the plant...but I don't think it will knock down any prizes. Who knows?
Ok, so it sounds like carnosa and pubicalyx are a potential cross? Because I'd like to give pollination a shot and they are the only two in bloom right now. I've already ripped one flower apart and think I see the pollen. Tomorrow I will come to work ready with tweezers to do the deed. I'm going to try pollinating a few flowers in one umbel, as that is how the orchid growers do it. Something about triggering a hormone or something so that it's more receptive - LOL, I was never good at bio....
If I can get this to work, I'll be ready to try some more interesting crosses if and when my others bloom....
And another question - has anyone heard if it matters whether the pollination happens at night or not?
It's evening now and suddenly my office is full of the musty sweet fragrance of the two hoyas, so I'm just wondering whether time might matter for pollination as well as attracting the right kind of flying things....
I don't think it matters at all. We don't have noctural pollinators here: the Wolf Moth is early morning and evening, bees and ants are daytime...no bats. I am sure the lacunosa is pollinated by bees/ants and perhaps that is why they are fragrant during the day as well. As well as the H. australis. H. cv. Optimistic doesn't have a fragrance that I am ever aware of, and yet it was pollinated...
There is a very interesting article on the Swedish Hoya website [HYPERLINK@www.swedishhoyasociety.com] on how a man crossed H. serpens and H. carnosa to come up with a interesting new cultivar called Mathilde.
I found the diagram in Ann's book (which is more correctly Doug and Ann's book) and I have tweezers in my bag....
It looks to me like you have to pick up an anther and slide it into the middle of another flower at an angle. Or maybe the direction is from the outside and sliding between two coronal lobes towards the middle of the flower. Hmmmm.
I ripped up a pubicalyx flower yesterday and found no pollen/anthers that I could see. Perhaps the flower was too newly-opened and anthers take a day or two to become ripe. Or perhaps the one I have just doesn't have pollen. Presumably a smelly flower is ready. LOL.
OK..I have watched Ed Gilding pollinating flowers...bad luck as the rains set in an none of them took!!!. He 'undid' one flower, took the pollen from it and then slid it between the coronal lobes of the 'pod' parent flower. He used a very fine needle. Man...I could barely see the needle much less the process!!!
excellent ! thanks !
My concern is not rain (unless the ceiling leaks) but dry air. They live under the A/C vents, and I think perhaps it will be too dry for them to take anyway. But we shall see..... I would love to get the hang of this.
hmm... will have to try this again with a very fine needle. I tried it with those extremely pointed tweezer which I think are suicidal, but they are still not thin enough for this job.....
Turn off the AC when you are doing this...the pollen will blow right off the needle!!! LOL
I wish I could! unfortunately I don't control the office hvac.....
I can report that it looks like pollen is riper (or just easier to spot) on some flowers than others. I think it may be related to how many days the flower has been open. Also, pointy tweezers are easier for getting the stamens out, but a fine fine needle would be better for pollinating. I'm just not sure how you transfer pollen from a tweezer point to a needle point. LOL.
Since I'm not away from my office for 10 days, I won't have a chance to look at anything until I get back. I somehow doubt that any of them will take, as I only had a chance to try a few and none felt like they should take....
I'm not sure that the carnosa blooms will last until I get back so I may be done with pollinating until something else shows up. Although I guess I could try selfing the pubicalyx as it has more flowers on the way. It would at least be good practice.....
Anyone know when pollen is ripe and when pistils are receptive?
I started seedings last summer. Does anyone know how old they have to be before they start to bloom? They seem to be slow growing as they are still quite small.
Patsy
Patsy, you probably have a ways to go as most full size hoya plants can take a very long time to bloom....what variety are they?
I really do not know what kind they are. I was not into really caring about the names when I got them. I have 10 or so that are different that I have gotten from different sources. None were named when I got them. I bought most from a small nursery that had flats of rooted cuttings in 2 1/2 in. containers. I just searched thru and got ones that had different leaves. I was really surprised when I saw the seed blowing away while watering last year. I had not even noticed the seed pods until then.
Patsy
I just used a sharp pair of tweezers to carefully separate all of my australis seedlings and gave them each their own small Jiffy cell insert to grow up in. I know it is crazy, but from that one seed pod, I have got 60 extremely small plants( all of them still only have their original "seed leaves"). I have no idea how many of these I can actually raise, but anyway it will be sort of fun to see what happens to all of them.
Doug, I have australis ssp tenuipes (sp??) but if yours are some other type, I would be happy to adopt one when they are old enough. Even if half survive, I doubt you need 30 of them - if you are the Ebay type, you would have something to sell, that's for sure - if not and any of them need a home, I'd be happy to volunteer and you could rest your head at night knowing they would have a very loving home, here with me. I would of course compensate you for the costs in raising them to a suitable age!
Bhavana34, I'm not the Ebay type at least as far as selling stuff. I've never made a penny off any plant that I have grown, and don't intend to start now. It's all for fun. The seed pod came off from australis ssp. australis. I obviously don't want or need that many seedlings, and intend on giving 95% away. If I am successful in raising several or even all 60 of the plants, I plan on offering them on this forum as free for postage. It is far too early to do anything like that now until I know for sure how many will survive. All it would take is forgetting to water, or over watering them one time and they could all be dead. If I can grow them to a manageable size, I will make the announcement, and make a list of all the people who would like one, and figure out the logistics and cost of shipping each one out.
I am not the ebay type either, something would have to bring me in an awful lot of money for me to go thru all that.
I have some epi seedlings growing right now too, you never know when they are "out of the woods", or, in my neighborhood, when a squirrel is going to come along and have them for lunch.
Hi,
To follow on your conversation, here is a link showing the pollinia on an Asclepias syriaca L.http://www.missouriplants.com/Others/Asclepias_syriaca_page.html they are all over the place here in Quebec, and they do smell wonderful.
Doris
Susan,
I will begin taking applications as soon as they are of a manageable size. They are so incredibly delicate right now. I've already come within hours of killing them. I have them at work under fluorescent lights and last weekend they almost dried out. I left them well watered (at least so I thought) on Friday night, and for the heck of it I came in on Sunday night and they were almost toast. I think that if I had waited until Monday morning, they would not have made it. They are just starting to get their first real leaves, and the entire plant is only about 1/4" X 1/4"X1/8." The good news is though that I think I still have almost 60 viable plants and still intend to offer them up for postage if I can grow them up.
Doug
I have to admit, I have been "lurking" and waiting to see pictures of these babies. So glad you went in on Sunday Doug :) Such a good daddy you are :) Should you have a chance, can you post a picture of these cuties? I have never seen a hoya seedling before :)
Kim
Kim,
I will try to take a couple of pictures and post them this week. They may grow a little faster than I first thought. This weekend they put on a little growth spurt, and some of them almost look like a minature Hoya (at least they do if you use a little imagination!). Some of them are growing far better than others, and I think that realistically I might be able to raise 35 to 40 tiny plants. I'm still however a little afraid to be too optomistic at this point and start taking names from people who want them. We will see how they are doing in a couple of weeks.
Doug
Can't wait to see those cuties :) What a great story, I have enjoyed following it very much. I always envy those that can grow from seed. Thanks to winter sowing, I am SLOWLY learning but this is after much loss *lol*
Kim
Here is the first picture of the seedlings. My estimate of the number of decent seedlings that will probably come from this batch keeps getting revised downward. I'm now thinking 25 to 30. Seeds are definitely not as easy as cuttings, and I'm usually good with seeds. I've still got my fingers crossed that I will have plants to give away.
One more photo. I think you can tell from the top photo that some plants are growing much faster and better than others. It is very hard to get the watering down right with so many little plants. It takes constant attention.
Cute little guys. I've never seen such small Hoyas. They're starting to actually look like something and not just a bunch of cotyledon. Looks like there may be a few 'true' leaves there also.
Keep up the good work.
Those are SOOOO Cute! How excited your must be Hoya24, congratulations! GREAT job!
Kim
Way to grow Hoya 24, and there so darn cute. Congrats ...
Out of the original 63 Hoya australis seedlings that I had I'm down to 46. Out of those 46, only 6 are perfect little Hoya specimens. For some reason that I am unable to fathom most of the plants are very chlorotic - they are producing leaves with little or no chlorophyll. Some have leaves that are good sized - maybe 1.25 inches by 1 inch and are totally yellow or some are almost white. I've tried everything that I can think of to stop it, but nothing seems to work. They are getting a balanced fertilizer in a 50/50 mix of perlite and promix. It works for everything else I grow. I've tried different temperatures and light sources. I've tried growing them wet and dry and everything in between. I've pinched off many of the yellow leaves, but new leaves come in yellow as well. I have never had this issue with any other plant that I have grown from seed or otherwise in 30 years of gardening. Anyone have any ideas as to what the problem might be? There is a reason why we all grow Hoyas from cuttings - It is way easier. I can't tell you how many hours I have fussed over these things trying to bring them around.
Now this is just an idea, but I water with Bat Guano "tea". I take raw bat guano, put it in a nylon stocking and let it sit in a gallon milk jug for a few days. I have had NO yellowing leaves since using it and I was having yellowing on my Curtisii all the time. I have extra guano if you can't find it anywhere. I bought a gallon on E-Bay *lol*.....true....should have seen hubby's face when it arrived. Went around telling EVERYONE I bought bat poop on E-Bay. Just an idea :)
Does your fert include trace minerals?
I've no idea if this works on hoyas too, but usually (at my place
) "lack of green" = needs some ironite or cal-mag. It works on the orchids and gesneriads....
Kim and Keyring, thanks for the suggestions. I am going to try a different fertilizer formulation to see if that helps. I used to be able to find chelated iron around here, but I don't know if it is still available. All the books point to Iron and or Magnesium deficiency, which can also be brought about by an incorrect ph. It is funny that the first true 2 or 3 leaves came in dark green and the problem only started from there. Kim I actually can find Bat guano right down the street at Gardener's Supply Company so maybe I will try that as well.
Doug