Month: March 2016

The image shows the hoya plant after working on it the past week. I rescued it from a wholesale nursery that did not know how to take care of hoya plants. Many of the leaves were damaged by too much sun (red/cracked/blotches) and the it was choking itself in the container. Pubicalyx red button hoya plant grows fast and has rich purple flowers.

This hoya plant had many flowers on it but due to the sun the nursery person said the just fall off before opening (he did not know it require shade/indirect light to grow well). The plant was growing with 4 other Hoya plants in 10 gallon containers along a fence in the back of the nursery where most customers do not see it.  I travel other nurseries in South Florida to see what they are offering and grab rare plants other wholesale plant growers are offering. Not all nursery growers know how to maintain all varieties of plants. It seems when it comes to cactus and succulents not specialized nursery growers either over water them or give them the wrong amount of light or fertilizer.

When the plant was first obtained it was twice the size as in the image. When Pubicalyx red button hoya plant is very nature it sometimes sends out purple starter leaves.  One the leafs grow they turn green and have tan/white speckling on them. We have another large Pubicalyx red button hoya that is used for propagation and this one will be added to it. We expect to have a few ready next month and then in 3 months many more.

 

The wholesale dealer said he have a few more hoyas which I plan to rescue this weekend if they are of the rare type like this one. If I remember I will take images first so you see how distress the hoya plants are before I work on  them (Cutting away bad parts).  The dealer does not know the names of the Hoya plants or where he obtained which is way they were in the back someplace not being offered to his clients.  When you visit nurseries do not be shy walk the whole area (the workers will tell you if you are in off limits area or not).  Sometimes you will find something way in the back that you know what it is but the nursery has neglected that you can obtain for pennies on the dollar.

Some Floridians complain about never having a true winter or getting fall colors. Then we get discourage more when summer heats begins in late March (remember we are tropical South Florida) but one thing we do not complain about is growing things. The hoya plants are doing great and we expect to release another bunch of rare very hard to find Hoyas beyond the ones already listed on the AdeniumRose website in two months.

The hoyas plants were received in early January as plugs/rooted cuttings (very small plants with very few roots with 2 or 3 leaves). Just about all the hoya plants received have grown to several leaves and tripled in size.  Not all hoyas grow at the same rate and usually the rare ones are rare due to how hard they are to propagate and/or grow in various environments. All our hoyas are grown in 6″ round hanging pots using a propagation soil mixture.

In south Florida, just about all types of Hoyas can be grown from cuttings and plugs without any special growing setups. Yes, we had some failures but less than 5%  and usually that’s because the plugs/rooted cuttings were received in poor condition from the original supplier.  Some of the hoyas will not take off until the humidity kicks in around late April time frame.

Quick note about the adeniums: the last shipment of adenium desert rose plants  were received in January and they are leafing out. We expect to add them to the Adeniumrose website at the end of this month or in early April. Yes, we received in over fifty 3-in-1 adenium desert rose plants, about 30 jumbos and hundreds of standard size adenium plants. The last order of 3-in-1 plants (last year) were gone in less than 2 weeks once released so please check for updates on a regular basis.