Hoyas blooming in July

I have never had so many hoya's in bloom at the same time before. It must be the maritime sun.....lol. My lacunosa is in constant bloom......walking by it at night is so nice since it fills the air with a lilac scent. My carnosa, that had no peduncles when i brought it here, now has at least six peduncles all bearing flowers at some time or another. This one hangs at my back door, and fills the air with a chocolately aroma.


My hoya meliflua (name I received it as) has finally bloomed. It's been a couple years since I received it, and since then it has grown quite nicely. It needs a bit more space than most of my hoya's.....and loves to tangle its four foot vines around almost anything.





A first time bloomer for me is my hoya parviflora.....i expected a bit more from this hoya, thinking the flowers were bigger than what they are. They are smaller than my lacunosa, making it very difficult to photograph. It has a nice floral scent.


My hoya heutchkeliana is also blooming. This is a cute little one with pink urn shaped flowers that smell just like buttered popcorn.

Random Happening's......it's been too long!

It's been way too long since I have made a post on my blog......I am just really finding it hard to write about plants that aren't doing too much, but recuperating from their move. They seem to be adjusting all right now, and some plants are getting a few flowers.



This is my Alsobia Dianthiflora .......the one I nearly killed last year. It is only throwing out a few buds, but a few is better than none. This pot of Alsobia is kept by a north window, whereas my other one is kept closer to a south window......the one with the lower light conditions is the one getting the flowers.


It isn't really visible in the picture, but there are tiny pink flecks in the throat of the flower. It is one of the prettiest flowers I have in my collection.



This is a pic of the seedlings I am growing of the fruit called "pitahaya" or dragon fruit. Officaially called Hylocereus Undatus. They are not the fastest growing plants, and it might take around three years to see a flower, but it's worth it, because these are really amazing plants.



I had to throw this pic in a post. Before I moved I had never seen anything like this in my life. There was a tree, and all over the tree was these golf ball sized spiky things. Turns out to be a Chestnut tree......I am not sure whether they are edible ye, but if they are, I am going to try and grab a few, and cook them up. Locally, these chestnuts make great children's war ammo.....lol.

CopyCat slideshow

Ya, Ya....I am a copycat. I have nothing blooming or really happening, but while blog reading today, I came across this post, and absolutely loved the sideshow, so I had to do my own. Mine is different in the sense that I did a puzzle sort of slide show, so it makes for a bit of a guessing game.

Look for an AV slide show in the days to come too, I just can't resist.

My House Happenings

I had so many random pics that didn't necessarily need a whole post, so I lumped them together and one whole post. So many little things are going on right now, and so other things just are and deserve a pic.


My lipstick plant has a few flowers coming these past few weeks. It looked liked it might go into full bloom, but it has blasted many buds. It might get to partial bloom, and still put on a mini show, but nothing like some of the shows I have seen these plants put on. Still it is the first time I have seen this plant get this far into bloom since I have had it.

My variegated rubber tree completely stopped growing this past winter, but has begun to start growing now that spring has really arrived. I have read that it is quite hard to get these to branch, they tend to just keep growing straight up until they are quite large and mature. Mine has branched. I am quite pleased because it won't grow so straight and lanky like they tend to do. I hope the other two trees in the pot would branch as well.


A few of the jade leaves I got a few months ago have sprouted new little plantlets from the base of the original leaf. This cultivar of jade, pictured here, has the neatest fingers like leaves. The tips of them are a dark red, giving them the coolest look.


My dragon fruit cutting, hylocereus undatus, has an odd growth coming in on it. It isn't growing from the side joints like I have seen other branches form on. I have never seen this on any of my epiphytic cacti before. Maybe it's a new branch, maybe not.....only time will tell.


Back in my little world of hoya's, I have a heutschkeliana that looks like it might be dying. A little odd since it is finally spring and most of my other plants are starting to take off. I thought maybe I had let it go too dry, but it still looks like overwatering to me, and that just seems unlikely in this case. All I can do is keep an eye on it and hope for the best.


My hoya compacta is budding, only from one peduncle, but still. This is one of my favorite hoya's. The flowers look alot like my KQ, and smell nearly the same too. They both are reminiscent of chocolate. I would have thought my carnosa would have smelt like chocolate more than these ones, but I was quite wrong, as carnosa seems to smell more floral-y than I expected.


My hoya carnosa flowers are starting to get the messy drippy look now. I think they still look amazing almost more so with the clear sap dripping from it. I even think the dead and gray one in the background looks stunning. This was the hoya that smelled alot more floral-y than I expected. It was a nice scent, but I am not into floral scents like I am say a fruity or sweet smell.

Hoya KQ Flowering & First Schlum Fruit!

I just love it when any hoya in the house flowers. They have such stunning flowers. They almost look fake, like they are made of wax. And the smell........some can smell unappealing, but so far from my limited experiences with hoya flowers, they smell amazing........it is so amazing that a flower can produce such a smell.


This is a Hoya "Krimson Princess". This is the cultivar that has some white variegation in the center of the leaves. The flowers are very light pink, they are quite similar to the flowers on my Hoya Compacta. The color in the pics do not do it justice, because both of these plants have very similar flowers, more so in person that in the pics. Both smell just like chocolate, especially at night. It fascinates me that these smell so strongly at night, and less so during the day.


Most hoya flowers should have 5 petals but the once in a while you get odd flower. The flower in the top left side of this pic, only has four petals. I am quite curious to see if this was obvious when it was still a bud, I have to sift through a bunch of pics to see if I have a pic of it......if I do I will post it here.


I have a few other hoya's trying to flower right now or at least growing peduncles. From experience, just because a new peduncle grows, doesn't mean it is going to flower. I have new peduncles forming on a serpens, a lacunosa, a bella, a nummulariodes and a couple noids that are not even trying to form buds. Others, like my 2 lacunosa's, my KQ, and a carnosa are growing peduncles as well as forming buds at the same time.


I am still learning what each individual hoya likes for sun & water, so some of them, although they are trying to flower, keep blasting the buds. I have found that my lacunosa likes quite a bit of water when it is flowering. I have been having the problem of blasting buds for a few months with this one, but since I have really upped the watering, I have found that the buds are getting bigger than they ever had. They are coming closer to flowering that I have ever seen them get, but there is a very fine line between enough water and too much. Twice I have over done it, and the buds yellowed and fell off, whereas before they were drying / shriveling up from too little water.


So enough about my prissy, but spoiled hoya's. I have managed to pollinate one of my Schlum's......a Thanksgiving Cactus. This is a kind of late bloomer in my house, only a couple Schlum's formed more flower buds after their main flowering a few months ago. I have been trying to pollinate one of these guys since early October-ish, when they started to flower, and this is the only one I have seen actually succeed and produce a fruit.

After trying for a while and not being successful, I came across a fellow blogger's post that mentioned that the stigma on these plants opened after a few days, making pollination more successful. I have noticed my Schlum's do this, so this time around I used a small paint brush whiten the stigma's were opened, and tried to get some of the pollen actually "in" the stigma, rather than just "on" it. It worked, only on one flower, so now I am going to have to wait until next year before trying again.

Easter Cactus blooming like crazy

Lately I have been so busy with so many things that my poor plants are getting neglected, and my blog has been getting neglected even more. Every day when I am checking out my plants, I think about my blog. When I check my email, I think of my blog. When I take a picture, I think about my blog. I have got to start writing more often on my blog, especially since it is the perfect plant journal. Normally I love to write in my blog, but life has gotten in the way.


For the past little while, I find I am liking epiphytic cacti, and epiphytes in generalh more and more. I don't see them for sale very much but I am always keeping an eye out. It must be due to Mother's day because I have been seeing a lot of Easter
cacti (Hatiora).


The flowers on these are quite different from their schlum cousins. I am already finding them to be a bit prissy. One is wilting and I am not sure why. I have also read that to get them to flower, they need a cold period, rather than short days like their cousins.


I am really hoping they do well, because I really like the flowers. Obviously if I can't keep them thriving, I wouldn't buy them again. You can read about the basic care of Easter cacti here.