Sunday & Monday

As of this morning, there are 323 cases of coronavirus in Nebraska, up 27 over yesterday. So far there have been eight deaths. That makes the percentage of death toll up to 2.4%.. As of today, there are 320,924 cases Nationwide and 9120 deaths so far, which makes the statistic 2.8% nationally. The stats that I find particularly interesting though is that it says that 16,553 people have recovered from the virus. That means we have 295,000 people that are sick with it right now! Does that seem possible??

Hoya mindorensis is one I've grown for a long time. I thought I had lost it a couple of years ago. It was growing in the sunroom and for some reason it just went to crap. To the point that I took it off my list, don't I kept the stump. Well it started to regrow and it put on a little bit of new growth last year. I've got it in the dining room now in one of my cute Safari pots and I hope this will be a better year for it.

There were three more Hoya in the kitchen that I forgot to photograph - the ones that are right in my face as I wash dishes weirdly enough! Hueschkeliana is one I grew for many years in the sunroom until I lost it about 2 years ago. That same year, I got a couple of cuttings from Kathy in Colorado, one of each, meaning pink flowers and yellow flowers. Then last fall, one of the cuttings began to dehydrate, so I snipped it and put it in water. It's finally fattgened back up and has a nice set of little roots on it, so this morning I planted it in with the main plant, which is still pretty darn small. First the cutting, then the plant after the cutting is added...

Next to it, we have revoluta, which is very similar to micrantha.  I got it in 2010 from David Liddle. It's another one that didn't do well for me and I wasn't particularly fond of. Then a couple years ago I took a cutting off of it and got rid of the rest of it and put the rooted cutting in the kitchen. It hasn't done hardly anything since, but when I took it down to get this photo, I noticed a little tiny vine creeping out of the soil! Finally!

Hoya wayetti is one of my oldest Hoyas, and being a long-leaved Hoya one of my favorites. With bright light, it tends to get black edges which makes it particularly pretty. It seems to flower fairly easily as well. I have two of them, one that sits on the shelf in the kitchen growing in hydroton, and the bigger one, oldest one, hangs in the greenhouse.

Australis 'Lisa' didn't do well in the beginning, but the last year and a half or so it's done much better. As is typical of variegated plants, it's been a rather slow grower. But every leaf it puts on is worth waiting for! They start out all kinds of red tones and then fade into the prettiest buttery-cream and green. And the leaves seem to stay so nice and shiny for the longest time!

Monday...

There are 367 cases of Coronavirus in Nebraska today. That's 44 up over yesterday. It does seem like everyday it's going up exponentially. On a positive note, we're still sitting at only 8 deaths. I know the word "only" sounds trite and I certainly wouldn't be saying that if someone I knew was in that statistic. But when you look at the big picture, it could be worse.

Here is my speckled or splashy obovata. It's in my dining room window on a little table that sits in front of the window where I keep my kitty water. I have that window open and had it open overnight... It's so nice to have some fresh air in the house!

New leaves aren't nearly as splashy as old leaves. I'm hoping this year will produce some splashier leaves. 

Yesterday, I got up on a stepstool and turned my vitellenoides around so that the leaves face into the room. It's been growing in the corner of my sunroom on a large, beaded hanger with a shelf for several years and doesn't get turned very often because it's twined around the shelf and would be difficult to extricate. So I turned the whole Shelf and took a picture of it with the leaves facing the room. The leaves are outstanding on this species! I noticed that I do have a peduncle that is budding up!

As I go through my plants and photographs, it's left me jonesing for a new Hoya. Went on Etsy to see what I can find, and I ended up ordering cuttings of retusa, Discidia ruscifolia variegata and Peperomia prostates. This time of year I shouldn't have any problem rooting all of them.

I got Hoya carnosa 'Krinkle 8' from Karin in my Cactus Club in 2018 as a cutting. It isn't very big, but I think this is going to be a good year for it. I may just ask her for another or buy another cutting from someone to add to this one. I grew this one for many years, got a cutting from Yale way back in the early 2000s. It got massive and it was beautiful, then one year it just slowly died on me. I'm anxious to have another big beautiful one again!

This is a smaller Dischidia nr. Burma, growing in a small net pot inside of a coffee mug. I'm just always impressed with how awesome this one always looks!

Carnosa really isn't that big, but I moved it up to the biggest of the three pots that Mom gave me for my birthday in November. It's beautiful in there! And it's actually starting to grow, so that's a good thing. This is originally from my step-grandmother, Vera, a cutting off of the plant that she had for probably 30 years, and she's been gone for at least 15 years. So it has a lot of sentimental value.

Hoya diptera looks a lot like vanuatuensis, I mean almost exactly! And I believe that the flowers are very similar as well, although it has not bloomed for me yet. I got it from Gardino's a few years ago.

And this is Krimson Princess, cuttings I took that were variegated from the plant I got from Marco. The rest of the plant is in the greenhouse wanting to revert back to all green. In fact, I just went in and checked on it and it's in a really large pot, like 12 inch, and it's just got two green stems coming out of it. I watered it good I think what I'm going to do is cut those two green stems and restart them. Reverted variegates make the prettiest plain carnosas! Anyway, I found some mealies on this variegated one. Cleaned it up really good and watered it. It's looking awesome, even has new growth!

This is my original deykeae.  I'm amazed to see 3, maybe 4 new leaves! First of all, I can never remember it growing this early and secondly, certainly not three new leaves at one time! Of course, this has been an extraordinary year and things have started growing early. But this is a species that typically tends to start growing later in the summer. Maybe I'll actually get some flowers this year!

My surigaoensis is in the top five of my favorite Hoyas - it's big, shiny green leaves knock my socks off! Last year, I had a section that was dehydrating and I took it off and rooted it. Thankfully, it rooted and took off growing. So first photo is of my original plant, second photo is of the rooted cutting from last year.

I got my narrow-leaf macrophylla from Marco last year I believe... Could have been the year before. Time flies, doesn't it?! Anyway, it sure is pretty! I look forward to it growing this year...

Could this possibly be growth nubbins?

Cultivar Rebecca is the Hoya I refer to as my $200 Hoya. In 2012, after things got better financially for us, I ordered about $200 worth of cuttings from Epiphytica in Thailand. In fact Jessica, AKA GreedyGhost, and I went in on an order together. It got hung up somewhere on the East Coast for several days and by the time we got it, pretty much everything in my order was dead or close to dead except Rebecca. I was able to salvage it. It's a cutie for sure, but certainly not worth $200! Haha!

Obscura is a popular species and you can see why. Smallish leaves are nicely patterned, and if you're lucky enough to be able to give it strong light, the leaves turn a pretty rosy tone. I have two of them at this point, the first one is my biggest original one. One is considered a regular obscura, the other one 'Philip'... I can't remember which is which and I can't tell you what the difference is. I don't see a big enough difference to tell that they're two different cultivars.

Variegated wayetti is right up there with australis Lisa in "specialness"! It just gets prettier and prettier and I just keep hoping it stays so nice!

Sp. Hummingbirf RB9, SRQ 3162 is one I got in a trade from someone named Shirley in 2015. It wasn't much of a cutting, but I got it to root. Then it spent the next few years doing very little and dying back when it did grow a bit. I think it's finally settled in and ready to grow. And it's about time! It's a cutie...

Hoya macgregorii is another one I got from Joni.  It's taken it forever to become a decent growing plant! I've learned to keep it out of too much sun because the edges tend to crisp up if it's gets too much light.

And last one for today isn't a Hoya at all. It's a cactus looks nothing like a cactus called Pereskia aculeata, the oldest known cactus.  Under those innocent looking, striking leaves are some very wicked spines!