During the cooler weather I just put my hoyas into hybernation with just a weekly watering and lots of neglect. Now that its Spring, I get all excited with the new blooms. I just build a shade tent with 50% shade cloth. I think the hoyas like it a lot.....lots of air circulation. I've been seeing lots of new growth. So here are some pictures of the shade tent and some hoya hide outs in the garden. I look forward exchanging ideas, pics and hoya cuttings.
Ric
pic2- hoya carnosa in the side yard
pic3- hoya macgillivrayii
pic 4- hoya carnosa hindu rope bloom
pic5 hoya kerri
pic6 hoya crassipes on the table
Hey Ric...I always remember your photo of H. caudata around your pond....you grow such beautiful plants!!!
Glad to see you back!!! Mine from you are doing VERY well!!!!
Aloha
Nice growing, ric. Mine are outside all year, except when the temp goes near 40. Then the bigger ones get blanketed, and the smaller ones are brought inside. This winter I lost six of the larger ones, calistophylla, deykea, diversifolia, fraterna, latifolia, and macrophylla. I'm debating whether to replace them.
My lobbii has one peduncle, three of my pubicalyx have peduncles and motoskei (rec'd it as fungii) is blooming it's head off. I keep checking for peduncles every few days. ^_^
Glad to hear from you Ric, beautiful plants!!!!
Lourdes:-)
Rick, good to see you again. Great looking plants, I think I need to get a taller trellis for my mac.
Ric, my Man! Good to see coming out of hibernation too!
Do macs really bloom? I've had mine for many years with nary a bloom.
Glad you are back with your great ideas and wonderful garden.
Mel
Hey Mel...I found the secret to Macs....
They come from N. Australia that has basically a single monsoon time...in the summer. So in the winter grow it really really really dry (works on Archies, rigida, pottsii ...all those from Australia...) and then lots of water and drenching rain in the summer when it will put on all its growth. I think Mark mentioned this in a thread and BINGO...it works!!!
Carol
Ric,
Been wondering where you've been! Glad to see you back!
Kelly
Great collection and they all look so healthy.
Was wondering how to get Mac to bloom too.
Thanks for all the warm welcomes. Its nice to see everyone doing well and growing gorgeous plants!
Lin, sorry to hear about your loses, I find that calistophylla and deykea
are extremely sensitive to cold. And I have killed numerous deykea's so I gave up on growing it.
I'll be checking later, Happy Spring to all.
Ric
ps. pic is of a noid. I got This from Deb 4 years ago and it just bloomed. It looks like a verticulata but the leaves are much more succulent and attractive then most verticulatas I've seen. Any Ideas?? I'll post the plant later.
H. acuta...? The leaves could just be a different clone....
Interesting theory on blooming macs, Carol. I got the winter drought down. Will have to move the plant close to the hose this summer.
Thanks!
Mel
HA HA...all of that said, the most blooming mac I have is planted outdoors in the rain.... But the 'theory' is good. LOL
Here is the leaf and plant for the noid above. Probably an acuta clone like Carol said.
here is a shot of the foliage on the other side of the fence.....its groing all over the place, like it want to leave its pot. i guess it gets more light. Love the color.
And I guess this side of the fence gets less light
Beautiful plants, Ric! Your garden must be like a paradise! How did your plants do outside this past winter? I thought I heard that y'all had some cold temp's a couple of nights over on that side of the state too ... although nothing like we had here. We had three or four nights where temp's got down into the high 20's /low 30º range. It was the coldest winter I remember in a long time for the Daytona Beach area! I had cold damage on some plants and lost a few - no hoya's though, I brought all of them inside when it got cold!
I love how your plants are growing on, around and through the fence! Lucky neighbors who get to enjoy that beauty too!
My Hoya acuta bloom began opening today and the fragrance is amazing! I moved it into the bedroom, then moved it to the study, but ended up taking it back outside. Our house is just so small and the scent, though beautiful, was overwhelming in the small rooms! I plan on moving the acuta to an area where it gets more sun, in hopes it will get that beautiful red color to the foliage! Love the looks of yours!
I was going to post a photo but I'm on my laptop and pic's are on the desktop machine which I've already shut down for the night. I will try to remember to post a photo tomorrow.
Welcome Ric, I have been MIA lately. Now that spring is here and hoyas are putting out lots of new growth, I spend most of my time in the greenhouse. My deykea that spent the night in 25 degree weather due to the heater going out, survived and is now growing like wild fire!!
Blessings,
Awanda
I have two H. deykei growing wild up trees and nothing seems to stop them!!!! and the leaves get HUGE!
Awanda, you are lucky that your deykea survived. The one I got from you didn't make it. It froze. It was under blankets when we had the cold spell, but the wind must be the culprit. I also lost five other hoya. Most of my hoya are outside and I coverd them all with blankets and quilted mattress covers, but the ones that were in the SE section of pool area are the ones that froze. I think the wind was comming from that direction. At least all the rest are OK. Our winter was one of the worst in the 14 years I've lived here in Central FL. I sure hope it's the last.
Eileen,
I've been in Central Florida for 42 years and I only remember one winter where it got really cold and stayed cold for many hours. I think that was back in the late 70's. We had viburnum hedges around the entire perimeter of our backyard and they were all killed from a hard freeze. Orange and Grapefruit trees were goners too. My husband and I were in the southern part of the state that weekend visiting family and it was extremely cold down there too. I'm glad those times are few and far between and I hope this past winter isn't a sign of winters to come. With global warming, the weather everywhere is changing with really weird patterns. I lost a bunch of plants this winter but no hoyas, as I had all of them in the house.
I keep saying I want to move farther south ... you are just 1 1/2 hours south of me and it's a lot warmer there. When my husband ever decides to retire (hopefully in the next 5-6 years) we may end up in Brevard County!
You will love it here. We moved down to Fl (Ft Lauderdale area-Tamarac) in 1988 from Brooklyn NY. It's a very busy area but it became too crowded. We wanted more laid back, country feel, so we moved up to Brevard Cnty 14 yeara ago. Well, it's not country anymore, but it still has that old home town feel. We are both in our 70s and have settled in here. My oldest daughter moved here four yrs ago, from NY to
take care of us old folks. She says she is very happy here too. My 'baby son' who is 39 still lives in Ft.Laud with his wife Lyn, and son Anthony.
Eileen, My sister and her husband are in Davie (West Lauderdale) ... they have been down there since the late 60's and plan on retiring in the next year or two to the Sebastian area, just south of you and I'm hoping that's the area we will live when my husband decides to stop teaching. My family came to Fl in 1967. I had an Aunt & Uncle in St. Pete and another in Orlando, that's how I met my husband, his family lived next door to my aunt and uncle! My husband and I settled here in Daytona Beach after he got out of the Navy because he graduated from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University and knew that someday he wanted to teach there ... he's been a professor there for 34 years now. I've seen the state of Florida change and grow a lot over the years ... so much traffic in cities that I used to think of as quaint little towns. Even Orlando ... I remember it before Disney. We would travel I-4 from Orlando to St. Pete on the weekends and only see a few other cars on the interstate! Now it's like a parking lot at all hours of the day and night!
I guess I'm getting old. I despise (what some call) progress - subdivisions and condo's going up everywhere, lots of natural areas becoming extinct. Guess it's just the way of the world nowadays.
We are fighting that here...it is one of the few outposts of a natural Hawaii and we aim to keep it that way!!
Carol
Carol,
I wish you all the very best on that endeavor! Too much
development everywhere and nothing is safe it seems.
One thing I can tell you, that I can't get across to some of the
most at risk Coastal communities of Alabama, is that neighborhood
covenants are higher than zoning laws.
In other words, the hardest to overcome by developers.
