Blooms!

Hoya lasiantha 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...

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...

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!

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

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

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

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

Hoya Australis

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...

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

Oh Dear...

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!

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

Some Buds!

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

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

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...

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!

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...

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

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

.... 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!

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...