Article: Hoya Growing Conditions in The Wild: another way to understand
After 13 years online, Cubits.org is scheduled to be shut down. Please make sure you have the contact information for all your friends, and that you download whatever content you want from this site.
Views: 41, Replies: 2 » Jump to the end |
|
|
|||
| What is meant by "understory" and other tropical growing conditions, it really helps if you KNOW about the High Forests and 'low lands'... If you are REALLY into this...you could go on line and visit those places, looking for rural, deep forest etc. rather than the cities. See the light, sense the air inperceptably moving with dense and deep forest areas....but the air is moving, if not just for the moisture rising from the floor , like mountains in Sabah or the wetter lowlands. NO way could you recreate the exact atmosphere - the plant doesn't know if it is real or fake - but as close as you can get. For instance, we have such ambient humidity I can't really grow the succulents well - H. pachyclada almost never grew an inch but did manage to bloom alot. I loved it for a while and then it stopped blooming, and the leaves started getting smaller and it was a thoroughly different plant. I sent it to a friend who lives with much less rain...perfect! One of my favorite hoyas is H. pottsii from Vietnam. It's as succulent as pachyclada, blooms madly and is wildly fragrant, but if I give it water more than once every couple of months, it starts to rot. It would love Las Vegas! Here's another thing: I once got really angry and threw a cutting that refused to make roots, H. latifolia. Thinking of the thickish leaves I thought it wanted to grow dry and it always resented it when I grew it moist. OK...I recently stumbled across and short vine of H. latifolia starting to vine towards a tree. GORgeous leaves. There must be something about being totally IN the environment and just having a piece of it .... Folks in Nevada or Arizona with no humidity and airconditioning...my hat is off to you! Just rambling on talking about growing in nature and growing inside. Leap. The net will appear. |
|
|||
| Nice ramble Carol! It's true, we really can't copy their preferred environment exactly...my plaster walls would melt if I tried to keep the house humid enough for some of them  We can get close though with a bit of luck...daily misting, keeping plants clumped together...make little micro-climates around the house. Maybe I need a sky light in my bathroom....  |
|
|||
| I agree ... great ramble Carol! I feel that way too ... not just with Hoya's, but a lot of other plants as well. Some plants seem to struggle when planted in containers but if bits and pieces should fall on the ground in certain area's, they just take off! I guess it's not what we want, or what we like, it's what the plant wants, they know what the best environment is for them to grow. We have extremely high humidity down here in Florida ... if we didn't have air conditioning in our house, I bet mold and mildew would be growing on the walls! My house is kinda old and dark, I'd love to have floor to ceiling windows and skylights, it would be nice to have more light and be able to have a bunch of plants inside all year round. I can't grow many succulents either because of the humidity. They might live for a short while if we are lucky enough to have low humidity for a few weeks, but once the summer rains begin and the humidity is even higher than normal, they all turn to mush ... even if I keep them out of the rain!! I once read where someone stated we should only grow plants conducive to where we live, endemic to our own area ... but oh, it's so much fun to try to keep something alive that comes from the other side of the world! |
| « Back to the top « Cubits.org homepage « Hooked on Hoya cubit homepage « Article: Hoya Growing Conditions in The Wild |
You must first create a username and login before you can reply to this thread.
