Well, apparently it's been snowing here. I say that because I've been somewhere where it's supposed to snow for the week, and trying to accept that I'm skiing down a hill (that's what my instructor told me to do!).
So, I'm guessing that it has been cold here. According to the really useful site of the
weather records for Totterdown, Bristol (which would be where I live), it got down to -4 last week. My boyfriend, before I left, insisted that I should turn off all the heating. I am pretty glad that in fact I left the heating on for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. When I got home, it was pretty cold, and I had to put the heating on for a few hours to warm the house up, but I was pretty tired and I feel the cold anyway.
However, the plants were fine. The polyneura is still sulking (grumph) and is about to lose another leaf, I think I watered it again. When it warms up I'm going to take the top healthy bit off, root it and try and put that plant back into the pot to make it a bit more bushy. Everything else looks like it's growing, or about to grow. By spring I should be able to ebay one of the cuttings off Lacunosa "Tove" which are growing very pretty new purple leaves. The australis ssp tenuipes is growing and dropping the odd leaf, maybe I should stop watering that one too. The carnosa (left) and publicalyx (right) are growing yet more peduncles,
which hopefully means the carnosa's going to be absolutely spectacular this year and I may get flowers from my one year old publicalyx - although this may be because it's completely rootbound. The lauterbachii is off on its quest for heady heights with a whole new leaf (when your leaf count is increased by 150% this makes me excited) and the imperialis is following a little bit slower behind. This may be because the lauterbachii is on the heat mat.
Something tells me soon I'm going to have to find all the ingredients for the beer fertilizer - after some kind person left beer in my freezer that then froze and exploded, I have at least one of the ingredients all ready. Now all I have to figure out is where to find some Epson Salts... Off to the centre of town and Boots I think!
Actually a beautiful plant. I did not want to get it seeing as I allready have H. weebella/dickinsonia and have now actually run out of hoya space (or any other plant for that matter!). However, an old lady in Scotland needed a Bella and therefore it's now sat in my lounge. It might get a small haircut before it goes away...
Ok, so it's unfair to call any plant a beast, but I mean more in terms of the fact it has absolutely humungous leaves!!! For some reason I always thought this plant had much smaller leaves, and it literally has SAUCERS - it and the lauterbachii are now in contention for the bigger leaves, and it's winning!!! The leaves are 10 cm long and probably as much wide - crazy plant!
