These are just some random gh pics that I took today.
This rack is holding somewhere around 50 varieties of hoyas.
random gh pics
hoya retusa in a 6" basket around 4ft long!
just a table full of hoyas!!!
this is a shot from front to back. notice there are 3 rows of hanging hoyas,well the other side and all through the middle looks just like this!
just another rafter shot
hoya caudata. my first attempt at growing this one was not a good one to say the least!!! This plant has been happily growing now for over a year,I think I figured out how to grow it!!!
another shot of the same plant.
this is one of the hoyas that I recently received from Thailand. It rooted in very quickly but hasn't begun to make any new growth yet.
H. australis ssp. oramicola
another shot of my H. retusa. I can't wait for this one to bloom,of course the foliage is so alien looking I wouldn't know what a bud looked like if I were looking right at one!!
this is an aloe that I bought about 4 years ago in a 4"pot. It is now in one of those prefab whiskey barrel inserts and requires 2 grown men to move it around when it needs to be moved,which isn't often thank goodness!!!!!
Lovely plants. I have a couple of questions I hope you will answer.
(1) How do you water the ones hanging from the rafters? I couldn't gauge how high up they were.
I have mine hanging from conduit running across a 12' x 24' room with a 10' ceiling. The only way I can manage to water them is to climb up a step ladder and water each one individually. It's a real chore!
(2) What growing conditions have you found to work for you in growing H. caudata successfully?
Thanks for any information.
Thanks for the great pictures! Love all the white hanging pots. Auction block? Where might that be? E-bay?
Dee
OHMYGAWD, Dlambii...
I am seething in a jealous rage!!! That is one spankin' hot greenhouse!
So well organized too.
Off to sulk and stare at my little windows of Hoya...
:-)
Ann
Thanks for the tour, it was great! I love all the perfectly neat little white hanging baskets of hoyas all lined up in the first picture! What size are the baskets?
~Brenda
Brenda those baskets are 4 1/2 inches and are ideal for hoyas.
Shirley would you believe that I actually take down all of those baskets and water each one by hand!!! Some are just above my head while others are almost 8ft up but I can still just reach the bottoms of the pots to take them down by standing on my tip toes!!
That caudata plant hangs on the NW side of the gh and gets very bright indirect light from morning till about noon and I allow it to dry out a bit between waterings.
dmichael
http://www.kobacorp.com/hangingbasket.html
Anyone wishing to purchase those little white hanging baskets this is the link to the website. They come packed 196 per case and I have already gone through an entire case in just under 6 months!!!
Nice plants! Just out of curiosity, how long does it take you to water them? That seems to be a mighty chore.
WOW! Now that's what I call a Hoya House! What a collection you have!
..... Hoya envy here! BIG TIME HOYA ENVY!
Don't you have to have a business license to order from that company? I think you used to.
I got a box once too, but I used a friend that had a plant store to get them for me. That is a LOT of pots. Ha.
Yes, Gemila and Awanda both sell them. That is the best way if you only need a few. Of course..in this obsessive hoya world..30 or so is a FEW. Ha. I got that box thinking I would sell most of them & just use less than half...and before ya know it...it was mostly all used up on MY OWN PLANTS. ha.
Marcy
I just keep coming back and looking at these photo's of your wonderful greenhouse and plants! Love those small pots too. I could use bunches of them for a lot of different plants!
David,
Thanks for the information. I water each plant individually, too, but cannot reach them by tiptoeing. Ah, what we will do for the plants we love!
H. caudata is a beauty I've had difficulty growing. The tip on watering is very helpful. That's where I probably erred, giving it too much water.
I checked the Koba site for pots. I wonder if they would participate in a co-op? I have a feeling they could sell lots of those 4.5" pots to growers on this forum. :)
I have a question that I hope someone can answer. I only have a few generic hoya's, none of the "specialty" ones that some of y'all grow. I have always watered mine with the garden hose. Is that ok? I saw all those pots hanging high in the photo's above and read where dmichael takes them down and waters by hand. Is there a reason for hand watering? Or is it okay for me to continue to use the hose? I've had a couple of my hoya's since the mid 1970's and they haven't seemed to mind the spraying with the hose? They are all on a covered deck in the shade and I also have three or four that are hanging from my front porch on the east side of the house. Also have a question and a photo ... hope you can make out this wasp type insect. They are swarming around the flowers on a H. Compacta and DS-70 that are hanging on my front porch. They don't land on the flowers of the DS-70, but seem to prefer the Hindu Rope Blossoms. I thought they were trying to maybe nest in the plant but it looks like they are just buzzing around and landing on the flowers. This is a fuzzy pic cause I was afraid of getting stung but you can see one on a leaf and one on the flower. Does anyone know if these are okay or if I should spray the plant and kill these critters? I hate to kill a beneficial insect but don't want something causing harm to my plants either. Any suggestions?
plantladylin,
Speaking as a novice, I think watering with a hose would be fine as long as the roots are receiving plenty of water. In the summer my small collection of hoyas hangs outside and receives rainfall when it comes. I sprayed them almost daily with a hose this summer, and they loved it. Now that temps have dropped, they are all inside and I can't use a hose. I have no other option than to water each pot individually. Being smaller plants in smaller pots and hanging 10', they dry out faster than plants in larger pots.
Regarding the insects, I would not kill them by spraying. They are probably doing your plants a great service by hovering around and transferring pollen. I can't tell what it is, (looks like a bee), but it's very unique with the green on its head.
Shirley
Thanks Cicada! I posted the photo on the insect/bug forum and Claypa ID'd this as a metallic green bee. I searched and found this one that looks exactly like the one on my plant! I guess they are gathering nectar and pollen. Since they aren't damaging the plants, I will leave them alone and let them do their job.
http://www.cirrusimage.com/Bees_Agapostemon_virescens.htm
I have an overhead misting system in this gh that I use during the spring and summer months. I don't use it this time of year because I don't like my foliage staying too wet for too long when the temps cool down and the sun rides behind the tree line instead of above it.
I also prefer not to have drip irrigation right in my pots because all of the plants don't dry out at the same time therefor they don't all need water at the same time. By taking each plant down I can see which ones need water and which ones don't . The misting system puts out such a fine mist that it doesn't really soak the pots or the soil so I don't worry about over watering them when it's in use.
It takes a bit more time watering them like this but by doing so I have hands on and I can also keep an eye on any bugs,fungus,etc. that might pop up. I rotate all of the baskets once a week anyway so I may as well water them while I have them down.
A lot of work with so many plants .... but I know it's worth it! Do you have any idea how many Hoya's you have in that greenhouse? Is it just for hoya's or do you grow other plants too? I bet it is a Beautiful site when bunches of them are blooming at the same time! .... And, oh how wonderful it would be to have a lot of fragrant ones blooming at once!
I began with 1 gh which housed all of my plants. When I say all of my plants that included at the time hoyas,plumerias,cactus,brugmansia and just a mixed bag of things. Over time the collection grew to the point that I needed more space so I purchased 2 more gh's. I only needed one but ended up with 2.That's a long story. Too long to go into detail here!!
One became a cactus house one became a tropicals house and the third was a hoya house. I have since gotten rid of all of my tropical stuff with the exception of just about a half dozen plants. I have eliminated the need for one of the gh's and use the smallest one for storage now and have gone from having to heat 3gh's to now only having to heat one.
The old hoya house now houses my cacti collection which is close to 275 plants and the largest gh 18W x 12H x 30L is now the hoyas house and it is home to somewhere around 260 varieties of hoyas and the wish/want list just keeps growing!!!
Oh My Goodness .... 260 Hoya's???!!!! and .... 275 Cacti??? Sounds like you have your very own Botanical Gardens! You could charge admission!
I bet it is a lot of work! I had a cacti collection many years ago (hee hee, I called it a collection but I had maybe 50 plants total!) I got so tired of being jabbed with thorns I gave them all away in the early 90's! Back in 1973 I bought a packet of cactus seed and sowed them. They began sprouting and I thought I had gotten the wrong seeds because they didn't look at all like cacti. they were so cute and after awhile finally took on the characteristics of cactus and grew to be about 3" tall. We left for a long weekend over the holidays and while we were away the area had an unusual hard freeze and my little babies were soggy mush when we got home. I also had a really huge Golden Barrell Cactus that I had grown from a small plant. It was in an expensive decorative pot sitting out in the front of my house. That plant was so heavy even my strong hubby couldn't lift it ... had to use a hand truck/dolly to move it around. One day we found it missing! Stolen from the front of the house! I was mad that they took my expensive pot. We know it must have been a couple of guys cause that plant was really heavy! I do not like plants with thorns and don't have too many nowadays that are prickly. I hate getting stuck with thorns! I love the Orchid Cactus/Epiphyllum's though.
I don't even want to talk about horns!!! I have a 10" hanging basket of mammillaria elongata that i was trying to rotate about a month ago and the hanger had become brittle and I didn't know it. When I reached up to try and move it it snapped and the basket,cactus and all just rolled down both of my arms. Can you say PA I N F U L !!!!!! It hurt so bad I almost cried but that is a large specimen show plant and before I allowed it to hit the ground I tried to catch it!!!
Needless to say I spent the next few weeks plucking thorns out of both arms and the palms of my hands!
Oh my ... I bet that was very painful! Even being a large show quality plant, I know I wouldn't have tried catching it, I would have been trying to get out of it's way! Years ago my husband was working on taking down part of an old wood deck rail out back and I had some large Cactus sitting on the deck. He was hammering and his hand swung back and came in contact with a large barrell cactus ... his hand swelled up ten times the normal size ... couldn't bend his fingers ..... it was really grotesque looking! He went to the ER and they cleaned it, gave him a tetanus shot and antibiotics. Cactus can be very dangerous!
My word, David...all those hoyas. Aren't Round Robins and trading cuttings wonderful!!!!! You certainly know how to grow them...seething with awe and jealousy myself!!!!
Carol
David...I have a question. In the first picture of all the little 4.5 pots so neatly arranged on the plant rack....are those all newly rooted cuttings that you then planted directly into the 4.5 pots? Or...are they planted into 3 or 4 in. pots & then set inside the white ones? Also...if they are planted in those...do you first put a base of perilite in the pots when you plant?
The reason I ask is that in the beginning, I would pot up newly rooted cuttings into those and lose a lot as it was just too big a jump I think. Of course, back then I had a much denser loil mix and never put anything in the bottom so I would then be overwatering them. Now I pretty much go for a smaller size pot at first & just set them inside the 4.5 pots until they fill that up..then I pot into the white one. An extra step...but I have better luck now. Plus...my mix is much looser now and I use a buffer of perilite at the bottom.
Marcy
Marcy those all started out as cuttings directly in those pots. I mix my own soil and add a lot of extra perlite to it when I mix it so there is no perlite base.. Some of them have been started for about 3 months now and some have only been in for a little over 2 weeks. I start all of my cuttings in at least 4" pots and have never had a problem. The only time i've even considered going lower than a 4" to root in was when I got my second set of Thai hoyas week before last and they all arrived as one node cuttings most of which were mush and didn't need a pot anyway!!!!!
David - your greenhouse is stunning - looks like such a wonderful place to spend time. As for the hoyas, you sure can grown them!
Karen
Karen my gh house is like another world for me. Especially this time of year when nothing else is growing or blooming and you cant spend time outside doing anything. I like to go in and close the door and escape the reality of the real world outside!!!!
I have a place with a chair designated as my sitting area and I have a mini CD player with a nature disk playing so I hear thunder,rain,birds singing and all sorts of other nature sounds and it's quite relaxing after a stressful day at work and believe me my job is stressful. I also have a fountain in there so I hear running water constantly as well and for me the sound of that water and that chair is all I need to quickly put me to sleep,and I have fallen asleep sitting right there in the gh before!!!
This is H. linearis. it has finally acclimated to being in it's new home and is no longer shedding leaves. It dropped quite a few from the top when I first got it but it's now growing pretty fast and has actually put on quite a bit of new growth.
Plantlady, this is the mammillaria elongata that recently attacked me!!!!! I bought this cactus about 5 years ago in a 4" pot and,because of it have learned my lesson about potting cactus into hanging baskets!!!!!
