Thursday

As of today, there are 249 cases of coronavirus in Nebraska. 140 of them are in Omaha, there are now two cases in Cass County where Mom and Merry live.

I snapped a few more pictures yesterday, so I'll start with them. Cv.  'Joy' hangs in the sunroom, and it has a new vine growing on it. It always looks fantastic!

Bicknellii is an aggressive growing species that I particularly love. It's another one I got from Dee in 2011 as a cutting, and it's gotten quite large. To the point that I really can't take it down from the shelf like  bhutanica and rubra, so this photo is just taken where it sits.

Glabra is one I've tried a few times. This one seems to be doing better than those in the past. Not a fast grower particularly, but it put on some new growth last year and it looks really really good right now. First photo is the full plant, the second photo is one of the original huge, very textured leaves... it's still so beautiful...

My original old obovata is it a large pot. I whacked it back two or three years ago to get it to restart as it had gotten messy looking and the older leaves looked ravaged and old.  It seems to be staying nice and compact so far.

Memoria a small leaf species that grows so beautifully bushy, and young leaves have such a nice silver speckling... In fact, the new leaves are usually bronze first until they grow full size, then they turn to green with silver. I took a photo of a section of the plant that has some new growth coming on it, including new peduncles. 

I took a photo of my vanilla Orchid towards the top of the greenhouse where the stem is as thick as a pencil! It's growing like a weed. As soon as I get flowers, I'll start whacking on it and make rooted cuttings to sell. They bring a pretty penny like Hoyas!

 (That's the bicknellii that you can see in the background...)

Thai sp. #3 is one that I've had for a long long time... In fact, I got it from Awanda in 2009! it finally started doing well last year, meaning it's taken it 10 years to settle in and be happy!

This next one is called el-nidicus and it's another one I got from Dee in 2011. It's done very well for me, has the prettiest large rubbery silver speckled leaves. Hangs in the east window in my sunroom and seems to love it. But it hasn't bloomed for me yet...

Minibelle also hangs in the sunroom. I think of the long-leaf species, it's probably my favorite. I got mine as a cutting from Yale back in 2006. He was one of my go-to guys for Hoyas and Dischidias back then. Minibelle has carnosa-like flowers, the flowers themselves being the same size as carnosa but the pedicels much shorter making it a small tight ball instead of a big open ball.

An old photo of the flowers:

H.coriacea IML 0716 is a species I got from David Liddle in 2010. It reminds me a lot of multiflora as it's very thin-leaved, more like a tropical plant than a typical Hoya. I've been kind of annoyed by its growth habit in the past, and in fact took a bunch of cuttings of it last year to trim it back, which I'll be selling this spring as soon as they start growing. It looks much better now, and I've been growing it in the north window in my bedroom. Seems to have three new growth points, a couple nice new leaves. I may have to cut one of the vines back just because it seems it doesn't have any leaves or even leaf nubbins at some of the nodes, and I don't want it to look leggy. But I'll wait a month or so and see how it goes. Now I just wish it would bloom for me!

Hoya pubicalyx 'Red Buttons' used to be a massively huge plant. But a couple years ago, I decided that it was too large and I restarted it. Sold off a lot of rooted cuttings. And this is the small plant that remains... First photo shows the whole plant, second photo is a close-up.

I'm kind of annoyed by that space with no leaves and I may cut it off and root it... still deciding about that!

And this is a start off of my macgillivrayii, and it's doing very well though it's not starting to grow yet.

These shelves are in my bedroom, and it sits below the three Hoyas I just showed.  This is where I keep the majority of my Sansevierias...

Continuing in my bedroom in the west windows, first one is amoena IML 1038, which I got from David Liddle in 2009. It's growing beautifully, medium-sized leaves that are slightly textured and with pretty silver markings.

Ranauensis, for some reason, was not on my list, so I have no idea where it came from! I suspect it came from Colorado Kathy. All I remember is that it's one that gave me a bit of trouble in the beginning and that it has grown in the last year. I put it in the bedroom last fall and it seems to like it. In fact, I went to cut off a long leafless vine and just before I snipped, I saw that there was a budding peduncle at the end of it! So I snapped a pic of the plant, one with the vine looped around and the bud sticking out to stabilize it for a photo. And in the process I found there's another peduncle budding up!

(I've found, BTW, that I have to take photos like these last two with my old digital camera as I can't get a good pic of small flowers or buds with my phone...)

And three from the sunroom... First is the saddle shoe that I bought at Bedwells Nursery in Des Moines with the cute little plants in it. The Echeveria has flowers opening on it...

I snapped a picture of my Dischidia ruscifolia...

And then there's my ripple leaf finlaysonii...

This is the one that's in a special pot, a pumpkin shaped pot that I got from Mark's mom many many years ago. It's kind of sentimental, and the only way I'm going to get it out of the pot is to break it. I've put it off long enough so I'm going to have to move it up to a larger pot this year. I'm hoping I can perhaps break it in a way that I can put it back together.

The pot I bought at Bidwell's to move it to...