Viewing post #289523 by propmaker
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You are viewing a single post made by propmaker in the thread called Hoya Resurection.
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| I was wondering wether anyone had experienced this? A well grown Hoya plant, 5 or 6 years old, which you kinda take for granted and just enjoy, suddenly goes into decline..you notice the leaves dont look 'right', and when you touch them they feel wrong, then you bend them a little, and they 'wrinkle', and you think...'oh ****, what have I done wrong?'..over water?, underwater? , taken for granted?".....you take cuttings hoping it isnt too late to salvage the specimen...........and, 2 or 3 months later....it starts to recover......the deathly pallor of the leaves, which havent dropped, starts to improve, the leaves plump up, and.........lo and behold, the plant recovers, and starts to grow again.......and you have several well rooted cutings to spare? Its happened to me a few times now......its just happened to my H magnifica ( heartbreaking time that was ), it happened with my H Fraterna and is happening at the mo. to a 5 year old H aff. parasitica I love.....fingers crossed.... Obviously the roots go, but, with a bit of careful watering, they seem to re root somewhere.....I can think of no other explanation, and off they go again. I have a 22 year old cat that does the same..you think she's on her way out.....a frantic flight to the vet where they look at me with that ' she is over 20 you know', then, seeing the panic in my eyes, give her a vitamin shot ( not much else they can do, but they know from my face they have to do 'something' and I aint gonn leave till they do ) and then, 4 hours later, she's scoffed down 2 tins of Tuna and have wholloped the Dog 3 times.!!......Not exactly the same, but you get my drift. So, what happens? You read that Hoyas flower better when they are root bound. I read in ps the Hoyan this month Ms Burtons theory about Exotic Angel plants failing after a while because there were too many cuttings/plants in a pot and the roots became suffocated with lack of air.......but isnt that what pot/root bound plants acquire ? Dont get me wrong Christine, its a good theory, perfect climate in the greenhouse etc and they commit suicide when they get to us......and I have asked about this 'Witch Doctor Voodoo ' they have to keep the H bellas and H linearis so healthy looking to guile us out of our dosh before..........but it dosent make sense. If these plants are choking, so also are suposedly pot/root bound Hoyas people are encouraged to cultivate..or am I wrong? Was it Doug who said he grew H linearis basically as an annual each year....and he started it from cuttings each season and ended up with flowers at the end of the year, then started over again? well, maybe thats how some of these Hoyas are best to grow for some people ( I'm having great success........at the mo......growing all these difficult ones in just spaghnum..time will tell ) Carol...over to you........rootbound to flower and/or a way to kill a plant? Most plants throw out flowers when stressed before they die as we know..self preservation. In nature, plants adapt to their environment, so is pot binding a plant a death sentence if we want to keep the plant, and is it not better to give the plant room to grow and just be patient for the flowers? I, personally, have started 'over potting' my Hoyas and am prepared to wait. On a last note.... I have been growing most of my Hoyas in Clay pots and they have been drying out 2 or three times a week, as I had read you must let them dry out between waterings, and I think this has been too drastic, and Im changing how I do it. I think Ive been over cautious with the watering, and when Ive been checking the roots, altho they are still growing, there has been a lot of root death, and then re growth of the roots..I can only presume it has been too extreem, the dryness to the wetness, and it hasnt been healthy, so Im hoping that in the new baskets Im potting into, they will stay wetter a bit longer, but are still allowed to dry out a little inbetween waterings. The ones I did this to last year are growing much better, so Ive come to the theory that they like to dry out often, but they dont like it to happen as often as Ife been letting them dry out.................Oh, its confusing, isnt it......Petunias are so much easier...:)) |
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