Here is my H. calycina in bloom for the first time .
January Hoyas
Thanks for the new thread Sunshine!
Wow, those blooms look so big. A beautiful hoya to begin the show!
Here is H australis.
Aaaah ... lovely, and I bet it smells wonderful too!
Here is a first time bloomer for me - H. memoria. No detectable scent as far as I can tell. It is a strange Hoya; last year at this time I was bragging about how fantastic the plant looked with beautiful large leaves that were bright red in the new growth stage. The older leaves had nice speckling and the entire plant looked great. Then I guess I made one watering mistake and completely rotted the roots off. I restarted the plant, here is the result - a bloom, but the plant itself looks no where near how great it looked last year.
Doug
Here is another first timer for me - H. leytensis. It is less than impressive with the entire bloom being the size of my thumbnail. It however has a very sweet and pleasing scent.
Doug
Here is the large leaf form of H. cumingiana that is getting ready to bloom. I received this cutting in the round robbin Hoya swap in the fall of 2007. I don't know if the bloom is identical to the small leaf form or not. I am looking forward to finding out. I think many of these blooms are taking place because of the lights in my plant room, but I found out yesterday it comes with a price. I have water damage and mold beginning to form in the room. I checked the humidity level in there yesterday and it was a whopping 80%. What is good for the plants is not necessarilly good for the house! In the spring, I'm going to have to tear the whole room apart and redo it.
Doug
Doug, that memoria bloom is amazing! That's got to be one of the prettiest Hoya flowers I've seen so far! That one is going on my wish list for spring buying!
I've never heard of H. leytensis ... so many are new to me! Those blooms are tiny but hey, if it smells good!
I'm still waiting for my H. cummingiana to bloom. It's doing real well and hopefully this year I will see some buds and blooms!
Wow, your plant room growing mold? That can be a serious problem. Do you have a ceiling fan or even a small oscillating fan you can have going for a few hours a day for air circulation? I don't know if a fan would make a difference with all the lights and moisture, but it should help some. You also might try that product called Damp Rid. I find it at the local grocery stores, Wal-Mart, Home Depot etc. My husband uses it for his boat which sits in the back driveway year round with a canvas tarp completely over his boat and trailer. We don't use the boat very often anymore at all ... and if he doesn't keep those containers of Damp Rid on board the mildew and mold will get really bad. It's so humid year round here in Florida and with the canvas covering the boat, the heat and moisture buildup underneath that canvas is really intense. I remember one year when he forgot to replace the Damp Rid stuff and mildew was all over the seats. Maybe you could try sitting some containers of that stuff around the room and see if it would help.
Lin,
The problem with my plant room is that the warm moist air ( I have trays of water and a humidifier in the room) is condensing on the cold window and outside walls. I am now reducing the trays of water and only running my homemade humidifier during the day, and trying to keep the humidity between 50 and 60 percent now. I am going to hit the mold spots with some bleach today. In the spring when I can move my plants back outside to their small greenhouse home, I am going to tackle the plant room. I am going to cover every square inch of the room with white plastic, taking care to tape every seam to stop the water vapor from reaching the wood and sheet rock walls behind them. I am contemplating taking the window out or replacing it with a very highly insulated one. It was my bad luck falling in love with plants that like conditions I have an awful hard time providing.
Both of H. memoria, and H. leytensis were bought as cuttings from David Liddle in the fall of 2007. It may be too early to think about yet, but I am hoping to get in on someone's DL order for spring of 2009. Last year's order was kind of problematic, but I guess I'm game to try it again if anyone is thinking about getting together a group order.
Doug
First of all--congratulations on blooming some fairly rare hoyas in Vermont in the middle of winter!!! Awesome!!
Second of all, I may have missed this in an earlier post, and if so I'm sorry, but what exactly is your "homemade humidifier"?
Thanks....
SR
Shelley,
My homemade humidifier is pretty primitive. It is a large tray found here: http://indoorgardensupplies.com/permanest-plant-tray-13x15x35-p-685.html It is filled with water and I drop any cheap humidifier filter into the tray which I blow a fan at. After all that is pretty much what an evaporative humidifier is any way. It is just hidden in a pretty cabinet. This cost me a total of less than $10 plus the cost of a fan.
Doug
Thanks Doug.....I may have to try that....the forced air heat in my house is killing me AND my hoyas, so I'm interested in any sort of humidifying device...so the filter just lies in the water horizontally? And the fan blows across the surface of the water?
SR
... not to rub it in ^_^ but our air conditioning is still on down here. In shorts, t-shirt and flip flops as it's 79 degrees out right now.
Lin, we hit 84 in the Dallas area on Saturday, but today it's 32ish with freezing rain. Yuck.
For those of you who don't live in Fla (or other tropical areas) and have hoyas blooming now, what growing conditions do you provide for your hoyas? Plant room, window, greenhouse?
I got a couple of hoya plants and some cuttings in October or so, and the cuttings have rooted but aren't showing signs of other growth and the plants have just started to show signs of new growth. I'm wondering what I have to do to get some flowers! :) I love seeing the pictures of all your flowers and I want some too!
Thanks. Sarah
Sorry...the tropics here... 79 degs. and an airconditioner!!! Wow...what a deal!
Here is H. patella about to open. The flowers are single and 3 times as big as the buds.
Here is H. vitiensis
Nice blooms, Carol! H. vitensis is sure a pretty hoya. Oh, patella is Wonderful! I've never heard of it and Love, Love, Love the looks of that one! Those buds are huge, can't wait to see a picture of them opened!
Are there many hoyas that have the single flowers instead of clusters?
Just a few..like retusa, pauciflora...sometimes there will be 2 on a rachis..but not often. I have a very blurry photo of the flower..but you can see the size in comparison to the bud.- I can't find it...will take one tomorrow. I used to be terrified of this hoya because it is so delicate and I heard that a good grower once kept killing it and it really intimidated me...but I find it is pretty tough!!!
Wow! Doug, good growing!!! I used to live in Northern Vt, across from NH border.
I didn't hab=ve hoyas back then.
Carol, H patella is a beauty!!!!
Sunshine,
You made the right decision to move from the frozen wasteland of VT to sunny FL. Life is twice as hard here for at least five months of the year.
Shelly, yes you have it right - I just let the wick sit upright in the tray of water and blow a fan over the surface. It will put out about 1 1/2 gal - 2 gals. of water per day. That is what I have going on in my plant room, but I also have a console humidifier puting around seven gallons of water per day into the air into the downstairs of my house. I don't have any idea where all that water goes - I'm probably destroying my home, but without the extra moisture all the Hoyas dry up and get the infamous "stick syndrome" where all the growing tips die back.
I find it relatively easy to grow Hoyas in the summer or in a greenhouse. What I want to know is how those incredible Swedes grow such beautiful Hoyas. If I'm not mistaken, it gets cold there too. The only thing I can come up with is that the Europeans have always been head and shoulders above the Americans when it comes to heating and cooling their homes. The sophistication of their systems put ours to shame. I would hazzard a guess that they are not having to contend with the Sahara like dryness that is present during the winter in Northern U.S. homes.
Doug
Doug--I'll tell you how the "incredible Swedes" do it---they're so far north that summer daylight is ENDLESS....they have a relatively short growing season, but actual day length during the summer months is like twice what ours is....(you'd have to check with an actual incredible Swede to get the true length :)....also, their summers are not super hot and dry, or super hot and muggy....they tend to be cool and sunny...sigh....I spent a year in England long ago, but still remember what they called "double summer", when it stayed light and sunny up until 10:00 at night---and the British Isles are not as far north as Sweden....it was wonderful....
SR
Thanks Shelley,
Your post really made me laugh, which is quite hard to do actually, and it probably explains much of the Swedes success. I guess all we can do is the best we can with what we have, and don't get too upset when the more delicate Hoyas suffer, or kick the bucket all together.
Doug
I don't know how the Swedes do it either - although, when I went to Norway, I found that they always had very hot houses - so I guess this helps to keep their plants warmer! Plus reflected light off the snow, perhaps.
We think it's a heatwave when it hits 85 degrees! Ha!
We have summer days where we have light from 4 am to 10 pm, but we also have winter days where we have light from only 8am to 4pm, and most of those days are so dull and overcast you would be forgiven to wonder where the light's gone to. I've lost four hoyas so far this winter, once again my house is not very good for keeping my hoyas happy when it's dark and cold.
David Liddle allowed as how someplants grown indoors thrive on the closed systems...all that carbon monoxide (or is it dioxide)...similar to what some nurseries use to get their product to bloom at a certain time...they gas them! I know a number of Swedes who live in 2 bedroom apartments and have over 250 hoyas. Now...talk about close quarters.
Hey, can't find that out of focus picture...but here is another...of patella.
That is one pretty hoya! We don't have any pictures in Plant Files of that one: http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/82603/
You have gorgeous pic's of H. patella at your website, Carol! I saw them when googling yesterday!
Carol, I hope it's carbon dioxide - carbon monoxide is the one that dodgy heaters give out and can kill you!
Hmm, I guess 30 plants in one room is pretty low then!
too right, Hills... easily confused here!
Here is H full plant calycina with more blooms. 3 umbels.
That is a nice plant! I wish I had some Hoya's in bloom right now, but the only thing I found with blooms is Rhipsalis elliptica that I just added the photo to PF.
Thanks Lin, that's a nice looking full rhipsalis. Calycina smells perfumy wonderful.
This message was edited Jan 9, 2009 1:41 PM
Aaah ... I love the fragrant ones!
Here is H. patella in bloom...a very easy hoya, by the way.
And here is a better closeup...about the size of a quarter.
Hoya cv. Monette (H. coronaria x H. lauterbachii)
Here is H. memoria (named because they found it growing in a graveyard).....
Oh my goodness ... I am in LOVE! That is one GORGEOUS Hoya, so different than any I've ever seen. And, it's now at the very top of my "wish" list!
My first comment was about H. patella but Wow! cv Monette is a beauty too!
.... I want to move to the Islands!
H patella flowers are pretty for sure!!!! WOW!!!!
I wonder if I am too old just to move to Hawaii! Is there anywhere closer with weather that nice?
What is age? How do you feel? No one with cronical medical problems tho' cause medical care is the pits if it exists!!!
Thanks, Monette is an Eriostemma and unless you are really warm all the time, she is hard to get to bloom in the house...Some folks do...but it is hard. Patella is easy to grow..as long as she can be warm...
(winkwink...I'm there, pushing 70...I don't say it gets easier ....)
This message was edited Jan 11, 2009 5:27 PM