My new Imperialis is having some issues :(

Can someone please help me help my new Imperialis? I have not had this plant for very long. 3 weeks maybe. It looked perfect up until 2 days ago, I noticed 2 leaves had come off. They were still green and healthy looking. Now this morning, I walk in and see yellow splotchiness on 2 leaves, and some of the others don't look like they're far behind. I've wanted this plant for so long, I really don't want anything to happen to it. It's being kept in my front room with all my other plants and getting the same amount of light. I pulled it out of it's pot yesterday and the roots look healthy. I haven't noticed any pests on it. I'm at a total loss. I got this one off of Ebay from someone that I have bought tons of hoyas from, so I trust the source. Did I just get a bad one? Ugh, I haven't lost a hoya in a loooong time, and I don't want to start now :( Any suggestions?
TIA
Jen

Hi willow if you dont have bugs I would put it some place warm with good light i keep mine a little on the dry side. when my plant first came it did the same thing for a couple of months. my guess to much water or not enough.as long as the stems ok . ihope this help vicki

I'll bet it is too much water. Both of mine will get yellow leaves & drop them if I water too soon while it is still damp. They also like very good light. Move it closer to the window & try letting it get quite dry on top before adding more water. Is your mix nice and loose?
Marcy

Thanks Vicki and Marcy. I noticed this afternoon that just about every leaf is getting the yellow splotchiness. I will not water it again for awhile. I watered it the other day when the top felt dry. Maybe I should treat it more like my Polyneura? That one seems to like it on the dry side too. I hope it's not too late. Vicki, the stems still seem fine, so maybe even if it drops all of it's leaves, it will bounce back. You guys have given me hope with your pictures of brown sticks showing new growth after a long time. I really hate this, it was so beautiful when I first got it. Each leaf was so perfect! Oh well, live and learn. Thanks a bunch!

Jen

I also have have gotten hoyas this year that have yellow and lost leaves from being shipped alittle two warm .

H. imperialis LIKES to be very warm...WARM. H. polyneura likes to be cool. H. imperialis is a heavy feeder and drinker....polyneura likes to go dry.

Of course...this all depends on your medium. If you are growing it in a dense medium that stays soggy then that could be the problem. H. imperialis like very loose chunky soil with LOTS of air in it.

Any and most hoyas are going to show signs of stress after travelling. The best is to reduce stress by indroducing bright light slowly after receiving a shipment, and not repotting for a while.

This message was edited Aug 4, 2007 8:04 PM

Well, heat shouldn't be a problem here...it's been in the 90's and humid. The medium it's potted in is fast draining. I've just been watering it when it feels light and dry, which is how I've been doing the others. Maybe I should keep it more moist. I'll keep an eye on it and see how it does. Thanks for the replies.

Jen

It is also a heavy feeder...

Ok I'll feed it more too :) Thanks!
Jen

Willow...if it is cramped in a little pot, you might pot it up. Imperialis is one of the few hoyas that actually likes a little bit of 'wiggle' room....H. albiflora and calycina are others....

Yeah, I did check the roots. They aren't tight at all. Another leaf is yellowing. I watered and fed it yesterday, which I was hesitant to do since I've heard not to fertilize an ailing plant. But I don't know what else to do for it. If worse comes to worse, I'll just have to get a new one some day :( I guess all my plants can't be fuss-free. All hope isn't lost, I know these plants are tough, so it might just have to go through a rough spell until it gets used to my way of doing things lol.
Thanks for all the tips.

Jen

Hi Jen,

I keep my imperialis in the bathroom window, where it gets bright diffuse light (the glass is painted over) and lots of humidity. It's growing a like a weed. I also let it dry out between waterings, like the rest of my hoyas. Best of luck.

Julia

Thanks Julia. I really am curious how every one else treats theirs. I was also just treating mine like the rest of my hoyas. The yellowing seems to have ceased *crossing fingers* so maybe the feeding is what it really needed. It probably would appreciate it more in my bathroom...IF I could squeeze anything else in there lol. My DS-70 and Brevialata kinda hog it up in there. Thanks for your input!

Jen

I noticed that my H. imperialis seemed to do nothing when I first got it.
So I potted it up a size and it began (I swear!) to grow immediately.

I'm in a position right now, though, where I just can't continue to pot up to larger sizes....no room, so Miss Imperialis must stay where she is for the time being, pot-wise.

After reading your advice, Carol, on imperialis enjoying warmth, I decided to move it from outdoors to my front porch, which stays downright HOT during the day and quite warm even into the evenings during the summer....it is already, just in these past 10 days, sent out new growth!

Ok, well an update on my plant, I found another yellowing leaf, at the very bottom of the stem, right above the soil. I yanked the poor thing out of it's pot only to find just about every root rotted. (thanks to Carol for her post of what rotted roots look like). There were only 2 stems in the pot, so I cut one completely to make a fresh cutting. I dipped it in Rootone and put it in a new pot with new soil with perlite. The other one, I shook off as much soil as I could and got rid of as many bad roots as I could. There were just a few sparse half-healthy looking roots left, but I put that in the pot with the cutting hoping that maybe some new roots will emerge. I have not had a problem rooting a hoya yet *knock on wood* but what do you guys think? I put a gallon sized zip lock baggie around it to form a little greenhouse. I've had good luck doing that in the past. Crossing my fingers here that I'll be able to save the little guy!

Good luck Willow - glad you caught the root rot before it was too late. I've never doen the baggie method - I root all my hoyas in water/Eleanor's thanks to Sara's advice. I put them in a tall vase with just the tips in water, then cover the top of the vase loosely with saran wrap....I guess it's basically the same concept as what you're doing....

Julia

Thanks Julia. I've had so-so luck rooting in water, but 100% mortality rate in soil. Although I haven't tried it with Eleanor's, that's an idea.
I've never rooted Imperialis. There didn't seem to be any little "nubs" on the stem like I usually see on my hoyas, so I just made sure to get the point of the stem where the leaves are under the soil. Hopefully it takes.

Jen

Really? All your cuttings rooted in soil die? That's interesting. I've only lost 2 cuttings in water out of the last 25 or so I've done, so I think that's good odds. A tiny bit of Eleanors seems to speed the process, but then again, everything seems arbitrary when it comes to hoyas.

Julia

I've tried a lot of rooting methods- the best one so far seems to be straight perlite, which really has been sort of a miracle worker. Even bella has rooted in that for me, where I lost every bella I tried rooting in other materials.
Good luck!
p.s. there was an article in Fraterna on H. imperialis last year with pictures of it growing in mangrove trees at the oceans edge, in pretty much full sun. So I guess they do like high humidity and a lot of light!

My problem with perlite is - when do you know if it's damp enough? Sounds silly, but unlike a potting mix, you can't just see if it's dark and therefore wet....wow, I've never had luck rooting bella either, maybe I'll try your method, Mark.

You know Julia, I had the same problem at first. I finally figured that perlite (the chunky kind) holds enough air that you can't really over-water, and that has seemed to be the case. I usually heavily mist cuttings in straight perlite every day, and direct some spray down into the pot. Seems to work!

Ah, so you have to water once a day to make sure it's damp -- and not let it accumulate in the saucer, I imagine. How do you know once the cutting is sufficiently rooted? Do you tug on it?That's another thing I like about water - you can watch the roots develop!

Actually, I forget to spray them occasionally and they seem to be fine for up to a couple of days. It's the magic nature of perlite, I guess, that it maintains a good mix of water and air both until it dries out.
The daily routine is necessary for dehydrated cuttings, of course.

I"m going to try it with my bella tonite! Gosh that plant is such a dog to me...it's always grumpy and dumping leaves. The 6" pot I bought has been reduced to a 3"pot. I have yet to learn its secrets.

Julia, I use water and pearlite, but really, I do prefer water. I know that there is a theory that water roots are not the same as soil roots, but I personally don't buy it. I think that roots, are roots, are roots.........

I water root almost exclusively, unless there is not enough stem to keep the cutting in the water (i.e. maybe 1inch or less below the leaves, if I don't have enough leaves to tear them off), or if the stem seems too green. I recently rooted a cutting of el-nidicus in water, it was very green, no root bumps, but I figured I would try it before going with pearlite. It rooted right out of the cut stem at the very bottom. Another reason why I also don't buy into the theory that there needs to be a node under the soil line for roots. Probably 90 % of the hoyas that I have are stem rooted only - no nodes for root production, as I like to keep as many nodes above soil as possibly for new growth points.

Here is a picture of the el-nidicus.

Good luck Julia, I too like to see how my hoyas are coming along.
S

Wow, that leaf looks like a big zucchini, Sara! Thanks for sharing your experiences about nodes. I was wonderin about that. What's your luck rooting bella in water? I'm very curious.

Julia

Sorry Julia, typing error on my part, I meant "immortality" I guess. What I mean is I have never ever gone wrong rooting in soil. Just for the heck of it though, I split the two pieces up yesterday. I left one in the soil and i put the other in straight perlite. So we'll see what happens.
Thank you Mark for the information of rooting in perlite. I did that yesterday before reading all these posts. I think I had good results rooting a Peperomia in straight perlite a few years ago. I'll mist this one often and hopefully I won't lose it.

Julia, that is a zucchini, I guess I was looking for a dark enough background to show where the roots are coming out of the bottom of the stem.....there were only 3 leaves on the el-nidicus, and all were at the top of a very long vine.

Honestly, my only experience with bellla, was to purchase a huge pot of it for about $20.00, and I gave so much of it away, to friends, but was never truly thrilled with it. I never tried rooting it, but Helen has a huge plant of it, all water rooted from pieces of mine, never has had any problems.

I don't have it any more, and most likely won't replace it with another......not my fav.

S

Ah, so it was a zucchini, lol. Sara, the perfume on the bella is my favorite - did yours bloom? Amazing. I wish I could bottle it. And the center part (corolla?) is crystaline, see-through pink like the gemstone tourmaline. Unfortunately, mine blooms when I buy it, then slowly fades away. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Sigh.

Jen - let us know the results of your experiment! I'm very curious to see how it turns out.

Julia

Everyone thinks bella smells great. I have 3 big ones that bloom profusely and I never smell a thing from any of them. Ha. Maybe it is the smog here or just my nose. However, I do smell all the other ones that people describe the scents from.
Speaking of smelling them, I have a blooming cummingiana out where I have to go past it every morning, and since I always try to stop and smell the roses....er hoyas, I couldn't help but notice how LONG those blooms last. This last one has been open and smelling good for two weeks now. Anyone ever make a study of how long some of these flowers last?
Marcy