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...

Newly Moved... and A Great Talk

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?

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

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

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.