Brenda,
I'm very excited about all your Hoya growth and blooms. It takes a lot of creativity to induce blooms and growth when you live in one of the coldest climate zones in the country. It gives me a lot of hope for my own Hoyas future potential.
Doug
Some other H Australis from Seed
Brenda.................I just found this thread................i am totally fascinated.................jan is sending me hoya seeds..............this is going to be fun.....................thanks for your pictorial journey
I know I am going to sound like the wicked witch from the North (or was it East?)....when I caution that when you give/exchange/share/sell seedings - no matter if they are self pollinated or a cross, PLEASE make this fact known....that it IS a seedling and urge the recipient to do the same.
We have a muddle out there with hoya names and much of it, I feel, may come from those who don't understand or aren't aware of the critical issue to keep the 'lineage' clear.
Carol...
Brenda, I saw a few australis seedlings in the robin package- from you perhaps? :)
Goodness Carol, get your witches straight. Their was no "Wicked Witch of the North" - that was Belinda, the GOOD Witch of the North. The Wicked Witch of the East was the sister of the Wicked Witch of the West, the one who had Dorothys house dropped on top of her after the tornado when Dorothy first got to Oz... the Wicked Witch of the West was the one who made it thru the whole movie, you know : "I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too!" and "I'm melting, I'm melting!"
Nope, not from me! The box is leaving Texas today to head to me!
After Carol's first post about the names and all I had already decided I would be very, very picky if and when I give any of my seedlings away. I have no wish to muddy any waters after having been given this gift.
The way I have them potted now they can all live here for quite some time...The peak of my ceiling in the front room with the big windows is 23 feet...how long do you think it will take them to climb to the top??? :)))
~Brenda
What time is it now, Brenda? LOL
Just planted in a pot they will look for something to climb - a wire, a string, a cat.... And once they find it they go gangbusters.....
I'll start with getting something for them to climb on into the first 5 foot window come spring ..... and then I'll work on the next windows up. That way they'll grow on my husband at the same rate they grow in the windows....at least I hope so! LOL
I do have to say that the seedlings that are in the RR box are in the right hands .... as that is the perfect group of folks to keep the integrity of the name labeled correctly!
~Brenda
This conversation is waaaaaaaaay over my head..............i am just playing around for fun.........no one has to worry that my seedlings will go anywhere........................
It's true, Brenda, australis is VERY fast once it gets established. My ssp. australis is growing like crazy right now- several tendrils have twined around each other at the top of the plant and are shooting for the sky. They are at least an inch longer each day, maybe more.
Ooops, I didn't check the Robin list order before I asked.
This is a picture of the four Hoya australis seedlings that I mentioned earlier on a trellis. I measured the height from top of pot to top of tendril, and it is 14 inches high. Not bad growth for a seed that was planted on June 5th. Yes, it was I who included 2 seedlings in the Round Robin. I made sure to clearly label that they were Austalis seedlings of unknown parentage.
Doug
those are great looking!!!!!!!!!! good going.........the names of hoyas seem to change weekly anyway it seems to me..........but I know nothing about hoyas and am just getting started............even the people in the business get very confused.............
Thanks for the picture Doug, they do look great! I'm so glad you posted about the more room fact so that I could get mine into better growing conditions!
Here they are this morning, the trellis's in the big pots are 11 inches tall from the dirt to the top so we'll see how long it takes them to catch up with yours now.
~Brenda
gg - the names just seem to change...actually...most of them are fairly constant. The problems arrise when people in the business don't care and slap any old name on them!!! But, you are right...they do change from time to time because they are corrected....a never ending trail of labels.
carol
I have to learn to just hang loose about it.............even when I go to the same nurseries over and over.............they have a different tag on them each time..................it just happened today...............so i just tell people to identify the rooted 4" pots themselves............I thought I got 3 of 4" pots of crinkle 8...............3 4" pots of Australis and 3 4" pots of what I thought was variegated Hindu rope...........she gave it a different name this time................
She is rooting about 6 new baskets i found at Lowes............gave them to her and told her if she would just root enough for her to get some stock plants............she could give me back my baskets.................in the spring............
Brenda ... I just found this thread - through a link from another! What a great job you have done with those seeds, to seedlings, to maturing Hoya! Isn't it fun to start something from seed and watch and wait for those roots and then something that resembles the mother plant? They all look fantastic and how wonderful that you've kept a pictorial journal to watch the progress and to share that progress with all of us!
That little oddball plant does look like a fern ... http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/143416/
Maybe there was a little fern spore somewhere in the potting mix or something? Is it still growing along with the hoya's?
Great Job!
Lin
Thank You Lin! Since you brought it up I decided to do an update as it has been a full month now....I don't have anything great to report in the seedlings taking over the little green house or anything :0) but I did find something interesting about the little fern looking plant.
I have ordered hoyas from Carol in HI a couple of times and my original cuttings came from her also. Well on both occasions I have found little hitchhikers in with the hoya plants. Little fern looking plants!
I'm still kicking myself for reaching in and snatching the last one out before taking a picture of the full little "fern" growing with the hoya........but I am convinced that they are the same plant that I now have growing separately and that came up with the seeds I planted from the seed pod!! My guess is that a little seed from these plants that come with my hoyas was on the seed pod or on the floor from where I gathered the seeds.....
Here is a close up of the leaf of the "fern" that is left in with my latest hoya order......
~Brenda
Here is a picture of the "fern" plant that I now have growing along with a seedling that is still growing separately.....This "fern" looking plants is the same plant as above with my hoya from HI, I promise!
~Brenda
This message was edited Nov 8, 2007 9:37 AM
This message was edited Nov 8, 2007 10:05 AM
Another thing that I am finding extremely interesting is that the little "runt" plants that came up with my seedlings are still alive and green as can be but they do NOT grow!!
Runts from today along with the "fern" again.....
Looks just like some ferns I've seen growing on Palm trees before! I'm thinking it is a maidenhair fern of some sort. hmmmm .... Free Fern Plants with Hoyas! Love it!
The ferns I have growing on one of my Palms is the Boston/Sword fern ... very invasive down here!
I had really thought that the seedlings that I planted in the pots withe the trellis's would take off more than they have! I wanted them to be twining and climbing like Doug's are (in the picture above) but so far they are a bit taller with a bit bigger leaves but no real growth spurt....
When I potted them up a month ago I took them from under the grow light they had been raised under and put them in a mini green house in a west facing window. They get good indirect light all day with really bright late afternoon sun....but it is natural light and our days have shortened considerably so I am assuming that slowed them down a bit compared to the grow light on a steady 12 hours or so a day. I can still see progress so I'm happy.
~Brenda
This message was edited Nov 8, 2007 10:06 AM
Wow! Those are little runts, aren't they? I wonder why they haven't kept pace with the others? Those were from the end of August just like the larger ones? Wow! What a difference! They sure are very stunted compared to their siblings! Dwarf Hoya's! I will be curious to see what they do in the next few months! Just like kids ... some grow faster than others I guess. Maybe those little guys will have a growth spurt before long!
Here is another shot of the "fern" in with my latest hoya. The only reason I doubt I'm growing a true fern is because I thought they were extremely hard to propagate so to get one to grow from accidentally having it hitchhike in on a hoya from HI and drop onto my floor makes me wonder at it's ID??? :0)
~Brenda
I think it probably is just the time of year and that's why growth has slowed on the trellised plants! I bet come spring everything in your house will just "take off" and go crazy with new growth! I think even with grow lights, most plants just know when it's time to "rest".
And a close up of the plant that I'm growing....
I think your right Lin, it's nearly winter here with short days and time for things to slow down...
Here is my last shot of all the runts that are growing in the green house along with the seedlings that grew the slowest and got potted up last. I have them potted in a variety of ways and they do get some sun but I also have a grow light on this green house shelf. Everything is growing (except the runts) but much slower than at first....
So next up date come spring 2008 unless some thing surprises me! LOL
~Brenda
hmmmm .... maybe that plant isn't a fern at all. How about posting that photo over on the Plant ID Forum to see if you get any hits?? I am real curious as to what it is. I have a bunch of plants out on my deck that some "other" renegade has been growing in the pots for the past couple of years! I have no clue as to what it is .... but it's kinda neat looking. I've been meaning to take a couple of pic's for posting to see if anyone recognizes it, but just keep forgetting! It's real strange, growing up out of the soil in a couple of pots and out through the bottom drainage holes on another pot!
I hope you will do a monthly update on all of those Hoya babies of yours!
These shorter days are killing me ... no more day light saving time and it starts to get dark at 6 O'clock! I get spoiled in summer with DST and having light until 7:30 - 8:00 at night! Guess I can't complain too much about the light though ... at least we don't have cold, snow and dark, dreary days!
You think your spoiled!! Here with Mountain Standard time it stays light until 10:00 at night during the summer!!! And now it's dark at 6:00, I hate this time of year.................. until the 21st of December when I can tell myself mentally that the days are getting longer, the days are getting longer!!! LOL
But this year with grow lights positioned around my house in several places and lots of green plants and blooming streptocarpus it's going to be a better winter for me!!
~Brenda
I know if I lived up north I would have to have an indoor plant room .... I'd probably hibernate in that one room all winter. I have heard over the years about people getting depressed in the winter and now they've finally put a name to it: SAD - Seasonal Affective Disorder! I remember years ago my Sister in Law who lives in Upstate N.Y. telling me that in winter they sometimes go a couple of months without seeing sunshine! My Goodness .... that really stunned me!! I know how it affects me if we have a week of bad weather with cloudy, rainy days. I just cannot imagine going months without sunshine! Guess it's a good thing my family migrated to Florida 40 years ago .... I wouldn't survive in the North! I'm afraid my husband would have to plant me under a grow light, or at least have me in a chair with one of those old timey sun lamps above my head! LOL.
I agree .... green, growing plants make a huge difference in mood! Even better if they are blooming plants!
Brenda,
My Hoya seedlings in the pot above no longer look as good. The lower leaves are kind of limp - they are green but the leaves have flopped down, and if you raise the leaf up, and let go, they flop again. If I had to guess what the problem is I would have to say that about 2 weeks ago I over watered the plant and damaged many of the fine root hairs. Now it is unable to take up the moisture it needs, leading to the limp leaves. This could be a wrong diagnosis, but it is all that I can come up with. I think it proves the point again about rushing a plant along by over potting it, is one of the worst things you can do because of the damage from over watering. I just wanted to relate this to you so you can be vigilant about not over watering or over potting. I think these australis can take it pretty darned dry. I still have many plants left, but I would guess that my biggest ones will not recover from this.
Doug
Interesting Doug as my lowest leaves all turned yellow and fell of recently. They still have that sponge pellet around them although the roots have definitely grown out from that stuff in every direction into the hoya potting medium. But the sponge stuff does make it hard to be sure they aren't staying too moist right up close to the plant.
They did grow well in the sponge pellets to start with but I can see that it is a drawback now. I would start them the way you did if I ever get another chance at hoya seeds. The end result would be easier to deal with.
~Brenda
I decided to add one more picture. Here are the ones that are growing in the clay pellets. Actually the tallest seedling I have is the one growing by itself in the pellets....
I hope it will like being a hanging plant as I see no way to give it support and still be able to lift it freely in and out of the water to check on it and add more water when needed.....
Those are good healthy looking seedlings Brenda!
I haven't tried hudroponics in years! I remember back in the 70's having pellets that looked identical to that and a couple of the cage pots that sat down inside another plastic container! Interesting to see how great your plants look growing hydroponically! On the ones with that sponge stuff ... is it possible to cut the sponge away? I thought it sounded really interesting at first but if it takes forever to break down I'm not sure I would want to use it. Although it doesn't seem to retard the roots getting through! They all look great Brenda, even the runts!
Brenda, I am impressed with your seedlings and plants! Jannich sent me some hoya crassicaulis seeds but I haven't had time to start them .
You better hurry...hoya seeds don't last long.
I just read Brenda's thread again from the beginning. How organized you are! I barely can keep up with watering. This is a neat thread on progress.
I didn't realize that the viability of hoya seeds is so short lived. Think I goofed by not planting.
Hey Gail .... wouldn't hurt to go ahead and plant them anyway, you never know! Nothing lost by trying!
Ok.........will do......