Hills' Hoyas

Blooms!

2011-11-02T21:46:00.000Z

Hoya lauterbachii finally bloomed for me earlier this year... I had to spray it every day during its last few weeks and I never thought I would see blooms... I was lucky!

I came home one day to a gorgeous smell. I knew one of the Hoyas had flowered, but which one? I discovered that it was Hoya carnosa!

And finally Hoya retusa. I sadly lost the previous plant I had so it gave me great joy to discover my second retusa had started budding. And now I have flowers! Love the uniqueness of this Hoya.

More buds...

2011-06-21T21:06:00.000+01:00

The Hoya lasiantha buds seem to get larger every day... we'll see if they get any bigger or fall off as usual!

This is Hoya telosmoides... a new one for me. Quite excited to see if this one makes it to flowering as well!

Now this is Hoya australis ssp australis. This one almost always flowers around autumn, so it's very bizarre to see it bud at this time of the year. I reckon it's due to the funny weather we've had this year - it was really hot and sunny for ages in April, and now it's got darker, so the australis may be reacting to this. This one is usually quite reliable so I hope to see blooms in a few weeks time.

Try and Try Again...

2011-06-11T18:27:00.000+01:00

Well, I'll probably kaibosh it again, but here is the Hoya lasiantha trying to flower once again... the previous peduncles having fallen off once more! Ah well... we will see how far these ones will get!

Must be spring!

2011-04-03T12:47:00.000+01:00

So, I was going through the sad process of throwing the Hoyas that hadn't made it through the winter (there are always some, no matter how hard I try not to kill them!). And what should I find to cheer me up?

Oh yes, sweet buds on the Hoya lasiantha! I had a look at it as I was moving some of my Hoyas around and noticed the peduncle had gone dark. I wasn't very surprised about this as it came to me last year with buds which sadly blasted not long before they should have opened. This has happened to me several times with lasiantha so again doesn't surprise me. But, instead of a dying peduncle, I have buds! Will they make it this time? We will have to see. Give it a month!
And here is my second suprise:

I've only had this Hoya padangensis for six months, bought at the very end of last year's posting season. I'm really excited about seeing how the flowers develop - I've seen how unusual they are, which is why I bought it to begin with.
So although it is with sadness I said goodbye to some of my Hoyas, I really hope these ones will come through this time and flower for me! :)

The Naughty Corner

2011-02-27T10:25:00.000Z

Argh how much do I hate mealy bugs? They are a bane in my hoya-growing life. Last year I had a really bad outbreak of root mealy bugs and had to pour some noxious stuff all over my poor plants to try and get rid of the things.

Now I find that they're back on the Hoya carnosa and the Hoya publicalyx "Pink Silver". The tell tale fluffy cotton wool and little grey bugs - Argh! So I was straight away with the methylated spirits trying to get rid of the ones I could see and, as they were outside last year, they had spiders webs all over them so they had to have a good wash too. After that I sprayed them with insecticide (I'm sorry, I know I should be more eco-friendly, but it's the only thing I know that works) and now I'm crossing my fingers that I've got rid of the horrible things for the time being.

And finally, I have to apologise for not updating this blog for a while - I'm now working a lot harder than I used to and when I get home the last thing I want to do is do yet more work on the computer!

Hoya Shepherdii

2009-06-25T21:29:00.002+01:00

I have to thank Frank from Epric for this one, as he got it into bud before it started to bloom. Smells gorgeous :)

Hoya bella back at its beautiful best

2009-06-22T20:49:00.006+01:00

This plant has become one of my most faithful bloomers. But I have lots of buds coming! Hopefully more flowers soon!

Hoya Australis

2009-06-11T20:16:00.003+01:00

This came out the other day. It's slightly unusual because the red inside is barely visible. I think this is because it's an australis ssp australis. It flowered for over a week (quite long for this plant!) and smelled rather lovely.

Gaaaah...

2009-05-02T10:53:00.001+01:00

My Hoya lasiantha/praetorii buds are going yellow again... Will I EVER see it flower?

Oh Dear...

2009-01-18T11:16:00.003Z

Yes, it's that time of the year again. Time for my poor hoyas to die :(
A combination of bad light and cold temperatures really doesn't seem to work for these poor plants. This is my Hoya kerrii variegated, which has sadly succumbed to the bad conditions.
This hoya holliana has never been happy. I don't think it rooted well, and so has gone downhill.

And finally my hoya aff. obscura. I feel bad about this plant, I really don't think it settled in very well, I got it in August and I don't think it made the transition from greenhouse to cold house!
But there is good news... my Hoya praetorii is budding up again! I'm hoping that this time it'll get to the end... We will see!

Hoya retusa in bloom again!

2008-10-14T21:16:00.002+01:00

Gotta love this plant. Reliable, not fussy at all, and blooms like a charm every year. Smells faintly of freesia.

Some Buds!

2008-09-17T20:48:00.005+01:00

I was going to call this post "No Peduncles" but, in fact, that's only true for the retusa.
I'm not going to name this one because I'm so superstitious it's not going to flower if I do!
Hoya retusa
Hoya serpens

Bella opening sequence

2008-09-10T13:11:00.002+01:00

Ever since my Hoya carnosa flowered in May, I haven't seen one peep of a flower from any of my plants (and I've been looking!). So I was so happy to see buds forming and staying on my Bella. I felt even happier when the plant decided to open bud by bud (and I'd figured out how to use the Macro on my camera). It does smell, very faintly.

British Cacti and Succulent Society National Show

2008-08-23T01:07:00.003+01:00

Well, last weekend I went to the British Cacti and Succulent National Show. I nearly didn't make it because the weekend before I'd been in hospital with acute tonsilitis (the tonsils come out in December, so hopefully will not be a problem for long!). Anyway, the only reason I went was to meet Paul Shirley and to see his collection of Hoyas.

Paul was lovely. The show was fairly interesting too. Unfortunately I'm not really a cacti person and, although I find stapelias/huernias fairly interesting, they'll only hold my interest for so long.

I found Paul fairly fast. It wasn't hard, given that he was fairly close to the entrance and the only one selling hoyas. Here he is doing his stuff.

Here is a photo of some of the plants he was selling:

There were all sorts, even a couple of dischidas hiding in amongst the hoyas, waiting to be sold. He sold all his big plants, which included imperialis, variegated kerrii and a couple of baskets of linearis and shepherdii.

I bought dykiae, GPS 81079 (similar to obscura) and meliflua. Here they are after I'd potted them up:

Some Favourites...

2008-06-29T14:55:00.004+01:00

For some reason, some of my favourite hoyas begin with "L"

Here you can see Hoya lasiantha (well, it's praetorii, but we'll gloss over that), Hoya linearis and Hoya lauterbachii in all their glory. I got the lasiantha late last year and I didn't know whether it would make it through the winter. Well, it did fine, and I've got several new leaves over the last couple of months! It reminds me a bit of a large multiflora and I hope to see it flower this year, if I'm lucky. The linearis I got only a month ago, and all ready I've got several new furry leaves AND a peduncle! I can't believe my luck! I hope to post the flowers, if I see any, sometime in July.
The lauterbachii I just love for the cute furry leaves. The new baby leaves are even cuter and furrier! I took a cutting from it earlier this year because it wasn't looking happy, but I think that was mostly because it was cold. Now it's looking great again. I don't know if I'll ever see a flower, but that really would be something.
Oh, and I've added a new rooting section to my website here. Suggestions, comments, please.

Surprise!

2008-05-10T22:16:00.002+01:00

I wasn't expecting this yet, but I got home to find this a couple of evenings ago...
I know it's only carnosa, but it's still lovely to see after the winter.

What the eye does not see...

2008-04-16T20:30:00.003+01:00

I have been playing with my new camera and took this shot of my carnosa in bud:and when I magnified it up it looked like this:
How pretty is that? Fascinating, the little hairs!

Not A Good Winter for The Hoyas

2008-02-10T20:05:00.000Z

This winter has been very bad for my poor plants. At least one third of my plants have gone yellow and died. It's very sad, but there doesn't seem to be very much I can do for the poor things. This is my Imperialis in its last throes...

However, I do have a couple of plants that are showing signs of flowering - so you never know, there may be some good news around the corner.

It's Back, and Better Than Ever

2007-10-30T21:00:00.000Z

.... and it DOES smell, very faintly. If you have lots of flowers and you put your nose right in them, you can get a faint whiff of wisteria... lovely!

Aaaargh!

2007-10-20T15:48:00.001+01:00

My polyneura just lost the will to live and just dehydrated on me... the ends are not good but I live in hope I can resuscitate it... I doubt it though :(

One mealie? Surely there must be more somewhere... this one disintegrated after I dabbed it with acetone...

Newly Moved... and A Great Talk

2007-09-05T12:36:00.000+01:00

Well, I've moved again... now I live in Leytonstone, east London. More on my new place to come, and how I've coped with no windowsills (agh!).

I discovered that my local BCSS (that's british cactus and succulent society) is somewhere in the middle of nowhere that I can't get to by public transport. However, the adjacent BCSS meets up in Ilford, which isn't too far up the road. And, much to my delight, they were giving a talk on Asclepiadaceae family, which of course contains my much beloved Hoyas. Since my engleriana was in flower, I thought I would take it along to put on the table contest. When I arrived, however, I discovered that, similar to the Bristol cactus and succulent society, their table competition no longer existed (probably due to low numbers/people unwilling to cart their plants around) however, i was able to display mine along with a couple the speaker had brought along with him, including this rather beautiful Hoya cinnamomifolia:

The talk was given by Vernon Read, who's obviously been growing stapelias and related bizarre plants (sorry, I'm sure they have a certain charm but to me not only are they ugly, but their flowers stink of rotten meat. Yeugh!) along with hoyas for some time. I'm afraid I probably interrupted most but I wanted to ask questions! Vernon was a really interesting guy who gave us loads of information about the stapelias and where they all came from etc. In the break we had a cup of tea and I chatted to Vernon about my collection and Hoyas (apparently there is a national collection somewhere - must go visit it at some point!). There was a raffle competition, in which a Hoya cinamomifolia was a prize, and guess who won to pick first. Hmmm. Was it me? I wonder if that was fixed at all?!?
The second part of the talk got to Hoyas at the end and I got to see loads of photos, including some native shots of Hoyas in Singapore, which was really interesting. All in all it was a fab night for me seeing and talking about my favourite plants. Now I want to go back to Kew Gardens again!

What's That Smell?

2007-08-14T21:13:00.000+01:00

I'm now in my new house, which seems to be filled with those scented glass jobs which I hate. However, the other day I came home and I could smell something else. It was a clean, fresh scent, and my lacunosa had been budding up for days. I didn't think that it would have opened yet, but, lo and behold:They're amazing, beautifully small and fluffy.

July Blooms

2007-07-12T18:57:00.001+01:00

Well, despite the horrible gloominess of July - seems that it's a miracle when the sun comes out, and we're lucky not to be flooded - my hoyas are still going for it and my multiflora, which sadly lost its buds earlier this year, has finally, after what felt like WEEKS of waiting for them to get to the final blooming stage, shown its colours. It does smell, but only very faintly.
The publicalyx, now on its third round of flowers on the same peduncle this year - crazy - is very scented and is really gorgeous at night. I can't get over the furry petals and the endless show of purple.
The carnosa's out again, as well, very pale this time due to not being sunburnt (!) and the australis is going mad with at least five plus peduncles budding up. Also to come include the bella producing its first set of flowers for me, the engleriana also budding up and my first peduncle on the lacunosa, which is very interesting!

New Additions

2007-07-06T18:49:00.000+01:00

This is Hoya Parasitica var. citrina. I haven't seen much about this one on the internet, but apparently it flowers so much it almost wears itself out. I thought the leaves on the Kerri and Lauterbachii were big but these leaves are as big as a woman's hand! This plant rooted well but was a bit unsteady so in the end I had to fasten it down with a length of garden wire made into a hoop so that it would hold straight in the soil and hopefully root down and stabilize itself. I also recently added the plant pole so that it will grow straight upwards and hopefully grow some new gigantic leaves.

This is Hoya Curtisii, almost exactly opposite to the Hoya Parasitica var Citrina due to its itsy bitsy leaves - and lots of them! I read somewhere that it likes to grow along soil so I took some more garden wire and threaded each piece round. It's growing quite happily now and I've even got some new leaves.

Temporary Diversion

2007-06-19T23:17:00.001+01:00

I thought I would share with you my mother's beautiful epiphyllums. This one is likely to be a cutting off the same plant as this, which would mean this is an Epiphyllum cooperi.
Just for Epiforums, I thought I'd put another photo of the entire plant. It's amazing that one small cactus can produce a flower quite so large, and for such a small amount of time. Seems like such a waste of energy, but a pretty one at that.
I know some of you really wonder whether the beer fertilizer works. Well, take a look at this. This orchid usually flowers for me in the dead of winter with one spike bearing maybe three flowers. Well, after feeding with very very weak beer fertilizer, I have TWO spikes, with at least five flowers on each. I'm enchanted.

Flowers In The Attic

2007-06-14T16:57:00.000+01:00

My current bedroom is now at the top of my folk's house, in the attic. The attic's insulation is so bad that I can hear the pigeons scuffling outside on the roof. This means it's baking hot in the summer and freezing in the winter. However, my plants are loving the warmth, and the ones that have been sulking for a while (heuschkeliana, pentaphlebia to name the worst) are showing growth for the first time in a while. My publicalyx, right. is being extraordinarily generous, just as one umbel of flowers falls off its one peduncle, another one replaces it and lasts for another two weeks. The carnosa, middle, has roared through its 8 plus umbels which have lasted me over a month or two and, as the last ones fade gently, is promising more. The australis, right, supposedly not a summer bloomer, is also joining in the show. It smells lovely.

Hills Says Goodbye To Big Windowsills

2007-05-28T16:45:00.000+01:00

I'm leaving my house soon, in a long and complicated story. I will lose my lovely windowsills and end up with one window which I believe doesn't get any direct sunlight. Me and my hoyas have loved it here, and we hope we can set up somewhere new with as much light (but maybe a bit more warmth!) very very soon.

Crazy Carnosa

2007-05-12T18:42:00.000+01:00

My carnosa has started flowering from one of its many many peduncles (I got to eight and gave up counting!!) so, now because I have the carnosa in my lounge and the publicalyx in my bedroom, the house smells very sweet at night. It's quite pleasant. I thought it would be fun to compare the two flowers, so here we go...

The publicalyx is just bigger and curvier, plus the fur on the petals gives a really nice edge to the flowers.

A Little Story For You

2007-05-09T13:00:00.000+01:00

(you'll have to excuse me, my mind sometimes works in strange ways, and this is what it came up with)

The hoya was ready. It was healthy, had plenty of food and lived in a humid environment. It produced big and beautiful buds, which were now ready to open.
It started opening its buds, peeking into the new world, in the morning, getting ready for the evening. As the day wore on the buds opened up fully and the hoya started to make nectar to entice its visitors.

By the end of the day it was ready. The hoya produced the sweetest smell and nectar to entice the moths to come its way and to take its pollen off to another hoya so that it could produce seeds.

But no moths came, because the plant was inside.

Ciao, Bella!

2007-04-21T17:53:00.000+01:00

A couple of days ago I recieved the Hoya Bella, albomarginate form. This is not on my final list of hoyas I want to collect (trying to cut down, very unsucessfully, on my endless hoya buying), however it was on my wanted list for a very long time and it was fairly cheap, so I bought it anyway. I reckon I can put it in with the regular bella (shown by it) and then it'll be "one" plant.

Type: Leaves approx. 4cm long and lanceolate (arrow shaped). Flowers white with a pink corona. Smell very faintly of hyacinth.
A hanging plant, that I rooted easily in a Jiffy 7 with bottom heat, that is apparently a slow grower but a good bloomer. Fairly thirsty and happy in dappled light.

Just One Flower...

2007-04-16T13:07:00.000+01:00

This is my Publicalyx cv Silver Pink, finally flowering! Unfortunately I lost most of the flowers - they blasted, possibly due to overwatering, I don't know. But I was very pleased even just to get one flower - it surprised me when I got back very late last night. It had a huge droplet of nectar on it and smelled very much like the carnosa.

So it takes two weeks from flat buds to form open flowers.

Hello... European Visitors

2007-04-09T17:58:00.000+01:00

Ok, so I know I get a few visitors from Europe.

I'm trying to organise a European Round Robin, where I start by sending out a box of cuttings to some lucky person, who then replaces each cutting they take out with a different cutting, and preferably not a common hoya, and a good couple of nodes worth too. They then send it on to the next lucky person, who will do the same thing until it gets back to me.

Let me know if you're interested - email me at hilary.roberts@hotmail.com

No, I Really Don't Need It....

2007-04-02T19:59:00.000+01:00

Hoya Curtisii

I'm trying very hard at the moment to not buy any more hoyas. I have decided on the three last hoyas I want, and I'm going to stick to it. Yes I am. I have no more space.

Any Day Now...

2007-04-01T17:51:00.000+01:00

Oooh look - the Hoya Publicalyx cv. Pink Silver is going to open soon!

Repotting

2007-03-26T21:53:00.000+01:00

When I bought a whole load of cuttings from Paul Shirley, I waited for them to root and then potted them up. However, because of a complete lack of pots at the time, I potted them into huge great big pots that kind of swamped the poor things. I bought some much smaller 3inch and 2inch pots from my not-so-local garden centre a few months ago. However, it only recently occured to me that I could either a) downsize or b) pot together my hoyas, mostly due to the fact I was thinking about moving and the amount of huge pots of plants I have padding around. In the end, I decided to just repot each plant into its own littler pot. This poor lacunosa had such a small rootball that it got downsized from the huge black pot on the left to a diddy 2 inch pot. I'm hoping now it'll flower, or at very least not die (!). A few others got downsized at the same time, including the now growing polyneura, which got lovely gravel as well as soil with a large amount of perlite in it to improve drainage. The only one I didn't dare repot was the heuschkeliana, which is still attempting to flower...

Reasons To Be Cheerful

2007-03-19T13:27:00.000Z

Well, I don't know whether it's the beer fertilizer, the prolonged daylight, the warmer weather or more sunshine, but most of my hoyas are very happy at the moment (woohoo!). Here, on the left, is the publicalyx I've been watching with bated breath as it produces loads of buds... let's see, any bets on having to wait another month before I actually see flowers?!?
The heuschkeliana, right, is trying its hardest to flower again. I know it's almost inevitable that I have once again hexed this plant but I still hope that I'll see flowers - third time lucky and all that. I had to prostrate myself on the floor to get a good shot of the buds!
I'm not sure whether the lauterbachii growing every time I look at it is a reason to be cheerful or just generally scared of having to deal with what promises to be a humungous plant... I will be reporting back on this one I guess!

I've heard that the javanica/multiflora, right, is a reliable bloomer and I was extremely pleased to see what definitely looks like a new peduncle forming on this plant.. only three nodes long and allready trying to flower! Now all I have to do is not forget to water it!

And in other news, I have an interview in what looks like a brilliant job in London, so I hope you'll all wish me luck on Wednesday.... eek!

Beer Fertilizer

2007-03-03T12:34:00.000Z

So, there's been a lot of talk about this beer fertilizer. I, for one, had no idea where to find the ingredients and then, once I did, I had a lot of fun making it. So I thought I'd bring you Hills' Guide To Making Beer Fertilizer. (This has been edited as of April 19 2007 to reflect my experience of using it)

I will note here that I had an American cup measurer in my cupboard, so I used it most of the time as opposed to attempting to use my not-very-small measuring jug.

Get a 2 pint bowl (this is about 4 litres, which is about one US gallon).

The first ingredient is 12 oz beer. This is 1.5 cups, 35ml, or just more than one small bottle of beer. I used some flat beer I talked about in an earlier post that someone kindly left to expand and dribble beer all over my freezer.

1/4 cup Epsom salts. This is about 250g by my reckoning. I found Epsom Salts in Boots, a UK-based pharmacy, in the "digestive aids" medicine shelf, as you can probably see by the picture.

1/2 cup ammonia. According to the conversion, this is about 10ml, so I used the cup measurer for this... I found ammonia in a hardware/miscellaneous cooking/gardening/cleaning items shop called Robert Dyas, masquerading as a household cleaner. When you add this, you may want to open some windows. Ammonia stinks! You can just see the mixture behind the ammonia.
2 cups water. This is approximately 50ml, which I did measure out using my jug.
1/2 cup molasses. I found Organic Blackstrap Molasses in a health food store (GNC). I measured it using the cup again, because it's much easier.

Ok, by this stage you should have what looks like a bit of a mess. I can say that because that's what I got. The useful information like, use warm water, would have helped me a lot. I guess you could always warm the mixture up over some boiling water (please take care, I'm not responsible for burns!!) as the epsom salts don't readily go into solution. In the end I poured the lot into a 2 litre bottle (it makes just over 1) and shook it until the salts went into solution.

You use 1 teaspoon of beer fertilizer per gallon of warm water.

One US gallon is approximately 4 litres.

To this four litres, I also added:
Quarter teaspoon of Superthrive (yes, you can buy it here, on Ebay)
Some Bloom Booster - I have some African Violet Fertilizer, which is 12:36:14. It says one measure to 2 pints. 4 litres of water is 7 pints, so this is about 3 and a half measures. It seems a bit strong, so now I just add one measure to the mix.

I water this on the plants once a week. If they need watering in the interim I use plain rain water.

Bella and Kerrii: Beauty and the Beast

2007-02-24T16:46:00.000Z

Hoya Bella

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...

There are flowers, either open or forming, all over this plant. I'm guessing it's been sat in a nice warm greenhouse, and not in someone's cold front room! The flowers smell like delicate hyacinth which is really rather attractive. It was sat next to me last night while I faffed on the computer and I suddenly caught a whiff of it - very subtle I think.

Hoya Kerrii

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!

Oh Yeah.

2007-02-22T22:29:00.000Z

That's what I'm talking about.

Of course, now I've posted this, I've completely hexed it.

Hoya Cold Tolerance

2007-02-12T17:57:00.000Z

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!

Hoya DS-70

2007-01-21T18:34:00.000Z

I feel like a copycat posting this after Sandy's beautiful photo, but it's probably just coincidence this is the next hoya in my list...

Hoya DS-70
Type: Leaves 4-7 cm, glabrous.

Flowers: small and dark purple when mature, although I haven't seen any on mine yet!

I bought this plant from Paul Shirley after hearing that it is easy to grow and flowers fairly easily. It didn't root very easily but now it has rooted it seems to be quite happy. It responds well to warmth - my front room was quite cold for a spell because my radiator wasn't working - and seems to be a fairly fuss-free plant. It is also known as Tsangii.

In other news, I've updated my website so that it looks much nicer and I'm now considering adding a page of FAQ's - time and time again I see fairly similar questions on the forums I go to, so I thought putting a page that gave useful information might be helpful. The imperialis lost a leaf but I'd been expecting it to do that for months, and was surprised that it hadn't happened sooner given I burnt the poor thing under the intense glass of my bathroom - oops! This wouldn't be such a problem if it wasn't for the fact the poor plant's only got two leaves... but it is growing, slowly given the cold weather, so hopefully it'll take off in the spring. The polyneura has stopped losing leaves for the time being, so I guess it likes being in the colder kitchen and being watered less frequently. The pentaphlebia is still waving at me and not growing at all, but doesn't seem to be losing leaves either, so I guess it's OK, probably just waiting for a bit more sun and warmth - not lovely hailstones like I got caught in today!

A Bit Of Precious Sun For The Hoyas...

2007-01-14T15:47:00.000Z

Bristol is doing one of its delightful windy and rainy phases at the moment. On my way to London the other day I noticed all the low-lying fields are covered with excess rain, making the poor sheep confine themselves to a small patch of probably waterlogged land.
Anyway, they promised sun for today, and shock horror, they were almost right. We did get some sun! Although I notice there's now a rainbow outside... On one of the forums it was suggested that my polyneura would benefit from going outside but I'm not putting it out there with the wind and the rain! So I have placed it in the kitchen, the place with the least amount of direct sunlight and also the coldest, as there's no radiator in there. The rest of the hoyas all got what is probably much-needed sunshine, I have noticed that although some are still slogging it out and growing (weebella seems to have grown a completely new branch since Christmas...), others are looking decidedly unhappy - even the happy compacta dropped a leaf this week... I also read something that said that misting plants are more for the gardener's happiness than the plants and are a 5-minute solution to a 24 hour problem, so this weekend I went round all my hoyas (apart from the carnosa, I don't think it cares!) and placed gravel under them, so that I can put a little bit of water under them. This solves a couple of problems, one being I don't always have time to spray them, and when I go away they will still get humidity, the other that I'm fairly sure that pebble trays aid movement of air, some hoyas particularly like this. Also, although I don't have the heating on all the time, at this time of the year it can make everything a bit dryer.

Hoya "Weebella"

2007-01-05T20:42:00.000Z

OK, well my three readers, you will have to forgive me, but since I am actually not getting on with writing my website, I thought I'd put the ones I haven't done yet in my blog, and then copy them over to the website, so that maybe sometime this year it'll get done (this is one of my New Year's resolutions...)

Hoya Weebella

Type: Leaves 1 to 1½ cm, flowers like bella (although probably smaller, will have to wait for that one...)
This plant has come on in leaps and bounds since I first got it, when it looked like this. It even seems to grow in the depths of winter when all the other hoyas are sulking... Apparently it is a small version of Bella, although the leaves are much more rounded. You can read what this plant is really called here, and tell me if you think I should rename it.

I'm Back!

2006-12-30T22:05:00.000Z

I left the plants for five days... was it five days? I don't know! Anyway, the javanica/multiflora, australis ssp tenuipes and retusa obviously were not amused and all produced a yellow leaf for me, but I think they all pulled through fine. Even the lacunosa tove cuttings which I decided to pot up when I'd had one cider too many seem to have pulled through. Bristol is still miserable, the weather for the new year has been forecast for drenching rain and gales and I do worry that the plants will have to live through another two months of cold and low light before, if they and I are lucky enough, we see some sun. The bulbs outside don't seem to mind too much though and are all ready pushing their way through into the outside light...

Christmas Comes To The Hoyas....

2006-12-14T00:27:00.000Z

I hope you'll forgive me but I'm feeling particularly festive (if not tipsy... after 12 hours of drinking cider, oops) and I hope you all have a good holiday... I'll be here next week, but I may be away over the "festive season"!!!! ha ha a break for a change!

P.S. I'd like you to note I rent this place and therefore have no say over the curtains or the nasty wallpaper (and this is the room I spend the most time in, with the radiator that has so much sludge in it it doesn't work.. grumph)...

It Seems Everything But the Hoyas Are Flowering...

2006-12-10T11:28:00.000Z

Yes, this is my African Violet. It is a really happy bunny at the moment. These plants seem to go through periods of misery, not growing, not really doing anything, then they get used to their surroundings and decide to flower. This one has flowered twice in fairly rapid succession so I'm really pleased. It's at work and not in any direct sunlight, and fairly cool (we all freeze at our desks!). It sits on a pebble tray and gets watered very infrequently. I hope it'll be ok over the Christmas period when they shut all heating off in the department. I think it's a real tough plant.

PS you may guess from this picture and the one of the Schlum I'm not the tidiest person ever!!

Hooray - The Lacunosa "Tove" Starts to Grow!

2006-12-05T23:00:00.000Z

I got this plant six months ago in a trade with a Swedish girl. I decided to bring it into work, with rooting hormone on it, but it just sat there, not rooting. After a while the leaves started to look a bit shrivelled so I got concerned. I cut off some nodes to try and get at least some of it to root, but still nada. In the end I placed all the cuttings in water. A couple of weeks later, bingo, roots start growing. I think, hooray, maybe now they'll be happy. I thought too soon. I place the now-rooted plants back in their pot and the plants continue to look sad and unhappy (don't ask me how I know this, they just did. The leaves just kept looking withered). Another couple of weeks go by, and the plants just aren't doing well and haven't fixed themselves in the soil. Around this time I get a little plant incubator for the cuttings I got from Paul Shirley. I decide to take the Lacunosa home and place it in the incubator. I pot all my new aquisitions that aren't doing very well, including the Lacunosa, into Jiffy 7's. Two thirds of the cuttings from P.S. root, the rest die probably because I did something wrong (too cold/too humid/not enough sun etc etc) and the lacunosa is still sat in the incubator not really rooting and not really dying. Finally this cutting fixes itself into the soil and starts looking happier again (the leaves filled out...) so I take it out of the incubator and place it on the cuttings shelf - my lounge window, a place where all cuttings that have finally fixed themselves in the soil are left until I have too many and have to figure out whether they'd cope being upstairs instead. Finally, one month later it's sprouted its first new leaf. Yay, and possibly phew! Now all I have to wait to grow is the pentaphlebia...

Fuzziness

2006-11-29T09:02:00.000Z

Awww... look. It's my first new leaves on the lauterbachii and they're all cute and fuzzy!

And Now For Something Completely Different....

2006-11-26T11:18:00.000Z

Ok, it's not a hoya. But it's pretty, and it's very happy this year. I have been particularly mean to it though - it's in the hardest soil ever, the pot is packed with bits that have fallen off and been repotted and it's in the darkest and coldest window of the house. I did feed, water and mist it like the hoyas and maybe it liked that. I thought you guys might enjoy it.

Hoya Retusa : The Bad Hair Day Hoya

2006-11-19T13:35:00.000Z

So, the retusa has been potted, and to be honest it doesn't look any tidier that it did when I received it... The anonymous poster who posted below, beware for the plant is potted in very heavy soil - I'm not sure if it likes this (although it was flowering when I recieved it), so I've put in some perlite and vermiculite to aerate the soil a bit. According to some people, it likes to be kept dry so I've had to leave it on the incubator during the day in a vague attempt to dry out the soil a bit. I'm not winning at the moment, but I can but try.
So, some information about this plant, which I've nicknamed "The Bad Hair Day Hoya" because it always looks like it needs a good combing out. It is related to pauciflora (so if my cutting is really dead, it doesn't matter), the major difference being the leaves which are really strange - flat, narrow, long, and with this bizarre, almost heart-shaped, indentation at the end of the leaves.

One of the websites I found, after having to translate it into English, kept saying the word "barbed wire". I was really confused about this until I noticed that the pattern of stem and leaves did resemble barbed wire a bit. It also said that the flowers have no smell, and me with my very strong sense of smell found no smell either. The flowers are relatively large in comparison to the narrowness of the leaves and there are about 2 or so to a node, and it seems to flower profusely, from what I've read, once it's an established plant. Most of my flowers have faded due to the bad light/knocking around/repotting recieved, but I hope it'll spring back soon enough.
Aaargh - just found mealies on this plant. I've been mealy-free for 3 months!

The Heuschkeliana Gives It Another Go

2006-11-18T00:23:00.000Z

A couple of months ago this hoya tried to flower and I moved it just at the wrong moment. Then it went through a dark phase where it didn't grow and a leaf went yellow and died off. I was a bit worried. Now it's starting to grow again, and I can see these peduncles. You can't but fault this little plant for trying. I hope that it'll finish what it's started this time.
But, as I looked at this plant, I wondered:-
a) why it's so bloody hard to photograph things using a conventional digital camera when it's dark
b) why people argue so much over something that has such beauty. I know we all have differing opinions, that's what makes us all individual, but there's no need to bitch. Really. I now take a policy where I lurk, listen and learn, but people being rude makes me sad.
c) what on earth I'm going to do with these plants if this little thing can get to this size... eeek!

Letting My Babies Go

2006-11-12T11:50:00.000Z

I guess it'll always be hard for me - you take cuttings, you root them... and then one day you have to decide that it is time for them to go out into the wide world. I hope that it will be happy out there, grow lots and produce flowers for its new owner.
So, bye bye Australis, may you have a safe trip and a good life somewhere. Oh, and make me some money while you're at it :)

New growth

2006-11-05T14:42:00.000Z

After a few weeks of rain and a week of bitter cold (brrr!) I'm surprised my plants are actually quite happy at the moment, and some so much they're actively growing.
First of all, my Hoya multiflora/javanica/insert name here. This one was the first to sprout new leaves as soon as it had rooted. I have a nasty feeling I'm going to have a very large plant in a very short time..... I don't mind as I've been told it's quick to flower.
Next, my two favorites. I know, I'm probably not supposed to have favourites in case the other plants get jealous but there were always a couple that I really wanted and here they are, and they're growing - YAY!

The imperialis was one of the cutting trades that I did that didn't work so well - this one and my original multiflora/etc/etc were put in the bathroom where I hadn't really noticed that the candles in there were being melted by the intensity of the sun - so the poor plants got burnt...
I know, I'm a bad person. The multiflora, unsurprisingly given it hates too much direct sunlight, didn't make it. The imperialis suprised me by a) taking root 3 months after I got the cutting and b) now actually growing. Although it's a bit slow now it's so cold... The lacunosa tove, that I got in the same batch, is finally thinking about growing after some intensive time in the heated propagator...

And finally, the lauterbachii. I was so, so happy to get this cutting from a Swedish girl who kindly agreed to trade with me after I'd made a bit of a mess of trying to pay for the plant. I was then worried it would die instantly but it rooted like a charm in one of those Jiffy 8 plugs in the propagator. So I potted it up into this tiny little pot, which it would not stand up in, and left it in the propagator. It must like me because it is actually growing now! I was led to believe this is one tricky and fussy plant but seems to be relatively easier than some of the others!!! The leaves on this plant are HUGE - much bigger than the other hoyas I have - and round, and really fuzzy. Very cute. Now all I have to do is get it to flower...

This Picture Made Me Happy

2006-11-03T18:30:00.000Z

Lots of Hoyas

Oh, if only to have a little corner like that. One day, I will have a conservatory. I'm wondering whether I'll still have all the plants.

Hoya Retusa

2006-11-01T10:19:00.000Z

Well I caved in and bought the retusa on Ebay the other day. What I got this morning, however, was a mess of leaves, flowers and soil:

I am not impressed. I spent good money on this plant, and what I get is a mess. The soil went everywhere, including my porridge, which meant I only got 3 quarters of my breakfast!
So I complained, and I hope that I will get some money back. Meanwhile I can have a great time tonight making a big mess sorting out the plant and repotting it - yay!

Moving On...

2006-10-31T19:41:00.000Z

Ok I'm so annoyed with the setting for the geocities blog page - inability to read anything, bad pictures and the fact I have to go to my own page in order to read comments left I'm moving to Blogger. We like Blogger. It's my friend.

Ok rant over and a picture for you. This is what my front room currently looks like. The cuttings that made it from the ones I bought from Paul Shirley (the pauciflora is pretty much dead and the odorata I think is just being green to keep me being hopeful!) are now taking up some space here. I think, once I get rid of my useless tomato plant, the ones who don't mind not so much sun such as the multifloras, will have to go on the back window, although it is colder there.
Ok... can I get this right.. in order from left to right... australis ssp.australis, engleriana, growbox containing lauterbachii (with new leaves - yay!), several bits of lacunosa "tove" (maybe finally growing, stupid thing), australis ssp tenuipes (cutting from upstairs plant that has roots and will have to go soon), dead pauciflora and dying odorata. Then weebella, the two multifloras, multiflora and javanica, heushkeliana, pentaphlebia, IML-557, lacunosa, the orchid I've not taken any care of and has flourished for the first time this year, and of course carnosa. Guess where I cheated in that list! Oh dear - 13 plants on one shelf, I hope that's not unlucky!

Hoya Publicalyx cv. Pink Silver

2006-10-30T20:44:00.000Z

Well, I tell you, I don't believe it. I bought this publicalyx earlier this year as a five-leaf rooted plant and it's now 20 times bigger. I thought it would take YEARS to produce a bud, just like my carnosa. However when I went to look at the plant yesterday, I found this:

If you look really hard, right in the centre of the picture is a peduncle! Wow. I hope it will flower for me next year.

Fixing Bugs and Making Wire Hoops

2006-10-25T22:58:00.000+01:00

Right I'm going to try this and see if it works. Any of you who come here often may notice that i've managed to make the typeface a bit bigger so you can actually read it. Now I'm going to try adding a photo in that you can click on to see a bit more of....

This is my Hoya Variegata, also known as "Krimson Queen" I believe, although I always have to check because I forget which one is which. The wire hoop it's now weaving its way along is made by me from heavy duty garden wire. Well I couldn't find any in the shop so I had to make my own. it was very simple, just make a hoop and then twist round the wire on itself. I did this with one wire twisted round itself then cut it off at the end. I then got the wire again and twisted it round the loop part again in a circle to ensure it was strong enough to take the plant. The plant is now happily trailing its way round the loop - yay!