Took cuttings of my Hoya imperialis yesterday - well, I actually "chopped it down" and made cuttings of essentially all of it! It was loosing leaves at an alarming rate, so apparently something is wrong with it. I hope they cuttings aren't too far along to save... I took one cutting a couple of weeks ago and it rooted FAST. I took a "wait and see" attitude with the rest of it, thinking by moving it, maybe I could save it. (It had been sitting on the floor of the GH next to the trellis and I thought perhaps the cold floor had damaged the roots...) I'll put the pot with the stump out on the back porch this spring and I think there is a fair chance it might come back. Guess we'll see.

I took a cutting of my archboliana two or three weeks ago, too, and that one rooted very fast, too. The upper leaves on it were getting smaller and a little weird, so figured I'd cut it back and see how it does this spring. I've had some leaf drop on an old stem of macgillivrayii, but all the upper leaves feel fine and look good, so I'm hoping that's just an anomaly. It may require a move to a bigger pot this year as it's gotten pretty large. That will be a challenge since it's growing up the trellis!

My camera's macro setting quit working. Grrr. Other than an occasional long-shot, I use it almost exclusively with the macro on, which means I have to get a new one before blooms start popping!

A first time bloomer that's setting buds is Dischidia ramosii. It's one I got from Tanya Livschultz's collection - my first attempt at rooting it was a failure, but I got a second cutting and it rooted after a long time. Once rooted, it grew like a weed - in fact, I probably will need to move it to a larger pot this spring. But I'm excited about it blooming because the flowers are supposed to be dark red, though the buds look light at this point. I better get moving on that camera!

Almost everything is really starting to grow. I'm keeping a sort of "log" of when each Hoya & Dischidia species start to grow and set buds. I'm hoping that it will help me in years to come to know when to anticipate both. I get a little impatient with some of them... Like macgillivrayii. The first year after I got it, I was ticked because spring came and went and no new growth. Round about July, it finally started growing. So I paid particularly close attention last year and sure enough, around the end of June or so, it started to grow. It grows for a short time, like maybe 3 or 4 months, which kind of sucks. But it grows fast, so I guess maybe it's not such a bad thing or it would take over the GH!

More to come when I get that new camera!