It's about time!

It's been a couple months since I last blogged.  Lots has happened, but I'm going to get this going mostly document what's happening with my plants on this early spring day (well, technically late winter day since we're still 11 days from official spring...)  And I'm going to just leave it open for a couple days while I water and document as I go.

H. obscura:  I don't get excited about new growth much because it's one that spits out new growth off-and-on all year long.  It does have quite a bit of new growth going on right now.  It needs some trimming to shape it up and I will do that next watering as it roots fast.  

H. callistrophylla:  Boy that's a stubborn S.O.B.!  It was in decline for the last few years, and I put it outside last year hoping for some new growth.  I seem to recall that it did put on a bit of new growth, but then we had the hail storm and it got beat up and that halted any new growth that was trying to happen.  It did stabilize, but it has yet to grow any more.  So I'm waiting.  If it has no signs of new growth by next watering, which is in about 10 days, I'm going to do some clipping to try to encourage new growth, and I may move it to the GH.  (It's in my bedroom north window right now.)

H. pubicalyx 'Red Buttons':  It's got two new vines, both toward the top!  I'm thrilled because it seemed stalled last year.  

H. pubicorolla 'Black Dragon':  It has one new vine that has been growing since probably the end of last year.  It's on the shelf in that same north window and seems quite content there - I hope it will bloom there like...

 

H. ranauensis:  ...sitting next to 'Black Dragon' which bloomed last month.  And now, YAY, it has a tiny new leaf next to the peduncle that bloomed, which is now re-budding.  That may slow the new growth - I hope not.  I'd rather have new growth than buds myself.  

H. macrophylla, narrow leaf:  Also on that same shelf and it now has TWO new growth points!  Last time I watered, it had burst forth with a new vine and had two beautiful new leaves.  Now it's got another new vine forming!  I hope this is an indicator that it will be a good year for ALL of my macs as those barely grew at all last year...

 

H. EPC-392:  I got one from Ric & one from Ebay in 2016.  It did put on some growth within a couple years but I don't think it grew at all last year.  No signs of growth on it so far.  I do like this one - it has stiff succulent leaves like Fin.

H. meredithii x crassicaulis:  One of my favorites for it's knock-your-socks-off leaves.  Big, thick, stiff and outstandingly veined.  It has a nice new vine shooting straight up!  The first leaf was a little weirdly shaped, so I'm going to show one of the typical leaves...

 

H. cv. 'Minibelle':  An old one I got a long time ago from Yale in Illinois.  It has two new vines, both up top near the soil line.  It's a "sister-seedling" with shepherdell, both being a cross of carnosa and shepherdii.  I think this may be a good year for it!

H. pubicalyx 'Royal Hawaiian Purple':  This clone I got last summer at a local nursery we were visiting with my cactus club.  My old one is... well, I'm not 100% sure it's RHP.  I've had it many years and I remember it growing more like this one when I first got it.  But I don't see the typical RHP growth anymore, so I'm wondering if it somehow got mislabeled and maybe it's one of the other pubs...  I'm going to pay real close attention this year and see what the new growth looks like.  It sits on a shelf with another very aggressive grower that hogs all my attention, so I'll have to make it a point to watch it closely this year.  Anyway, I count SIX (!!) new vines forming on the new clone!  Crazy - it could be a monster by summer's end!  Here's  the most interesting new leaf:

Going to my sunroom for a few observations...  I have two super-viny Hoyas growing on a shelf, one above the other.  The vines wind in and out of the shelves creating an impressive curtain of foliage.  The top one is H. dasyantha which makes me think of carnosa on steroids.  Big dark green leaves with veins that can be seen beautifully when the sun is shining through the leaves.  It's a true beauty.  It has always been one plant at the soil line with lots of branching.  Last summer, I sold a cutting to someone - single node, two leaves.  But when I cut it off, it was such a beautiful pair of leaves I couldn't part with it, so I took the next pair of leaves for the buyer and I rooted the first pair.  Round about mid summer, it was well rooted and I put it back in with the mother plant.  It looked amazing, but it didn't grow.  Well, it's growing now!  I'm very excited to see where the next vine goes and the beauty of the new leaves!

H. fungii:  ...is the one that sits under dasyantha.  I got it from Colorado Kathy in 2015 and it was growing like crazy within a year or 18 months.  It came to me as fungii Splash, and the leaves it had when I got it were extraordinarily silvery.  And it produced a few less splashy leaves at first, but the splash mostly stopped.  Bit it is a very different clone from the one I've grown for years.  Leaves are darker, more oblong (my old clone's leaves tend to be lighter, more roundish).  It's a beauty and earned a spot on that shelf.  It has TWO new vines coming from close the the soil line!  The window the shelf sits in front of may be completely obstructed soon!  Here are the new vines:

And here's the shelf they sit on:

Dasyantha is top left, fungii is bottom left and that's their foliage all over the back of the shelf.  Others on top: a finlaysonii, bhutanica and Dischidia acuminata fasciata, all 3 growing in leca.  Bottom: in the small pot is a start from Colorado Kathy of what she thinks is callistrophylla, but I'm thinking it's something else.  Next to that is one of my THREE diversifolias.  My plan is to get rid of two of them this summer.  It's a lovely species, but it doesn't want to bloom for me.  The last one of the far right is the old clone of obovata.  Of all of those, bhutanica is the only one growing, though the Dischidia does tend to grow pretty much year round in the leca...

H. australis 'Lisa':  She was waning last summer and I was worried I would lose her.  I put it in my bedroom (west) window and crossed my fingers.  Today, it's got a new leaf forming down near the soil.  I don't see any other spots that are hinting at growing, but it looks very happy, healthy, perky so I think it's on the right track. In the pic below, the middle leaf is the new one.  That little one at the bottom of the photo is an older one that never grew much.  I'm hoping it will grow from there as well...

 

H. lacunosa 'Tove':  I got this one as a cutting back in 2018 and despite being a lacunosa, it's doing very well for me.  I would say this one is more like krohniana - succulent little heart-shaped leaves.  But not as textured as krohniana.  Anyway, I see 3 new growth points, so I think it's on its way to a productive summer!

H. amoena: It's done very well over the last several years, but it always wants to put out new growth at the furthest point from the plant.  So I decided to cut all the single leaf stems off to hopefully inspire it to grow from one of those points.  It has one wayward vine that's growing straight up and that's it right now!

H. hueschkeliana:  I grow this one in my (north) kitchen window and every since the tree came down in my back yard last summer, it's been blooming off and on.  I am amazed how well everything in that window is doing without the shade of that giant cedar.

The whole flower cluster is about as big as a dime, so those are tiny flowers.  Took a macro lens to get a clear pic.  There are two more peduncle budding up!

Last summer, I discovered a Drimiopsis bulb growing in with one of my Rhipsalis an I decided just to leave it there.  Wow, is it thriving:

Aren't those leaves something?!!  Just gorgeous!  This Rhip may need to be moved up to a larger pot, so I'll have to decide if I want to leave it in there or pull it out.  It seems perfectly happy in there!

Ok, now I'm going to mention the new ones.  In early October, Colorado Kathy sent me a box FULL of cuttings.  She and I used to trade some years back, but these days, she doesn't want to add to her collection.  So when her "jungle" gets too dense, she starts whacking and sends me her trimmings, and won't even let me pay for postage!  So it's quite a blessing.  She's such a gem!  Well, I'll mention them here and probably talk more about them as I pot them up into their permanent pots.  

She sent me H. cinnamomifolia, which is a big-leaf species.  Marco says it tends to send out long leafless vines and I think he got rid of his because of this annoying habit.  I'll see how it does for me and if I don't care for it, I'll sell it.  But I am a big fan of the big leaf Hoyas.  It's rooted and waiting for a heavy pot as it sounds like it will need it.  She also sent elliptica, one I've tried several times.  So far, it seems to be doing well, but we'll see how it goes.

I lost my beloved H. sp. Nong Nooch a few years ago and have longed for it ever since.  Well, I had sent her some and she sent me a nice hefty cutting of that!  I put it in a pot of leca, and then I proceeded to let it get too dry!  I was so upset and so worried that I'd blown it...  I put plenty of water in the pot and ordered some water gauges for semi-hydro.  When they came in the mail and I went to put it in the pot, I found it had pushed out a new vine with two baby leaves! Oh was I relieved!  So it's happily growing in the dining room now.

Others that were replacements include kanyakumariana - I still had two little pieces in leca I'd gotten back from Marco after losing my big plant.  So now I have four little starts and they so seem to be showing signs of growth.  She sent thomsonii, but a very different clone than the one I grew before.  Just as hairy, but shorter, stouter leaves.  It's adorable!  H. iligiorum - I had gotten a start of this from Marco, but it died on me.  And it's growing nicely.  She also sent me a nice cutting of obscura, long-leaf form.  Under the lights, it's absolutely stunning! And I already mentioned the one she thought was callistrophylla that I think is something else.  

New to me is cv. Patricia - I really like that one and can't wait for it to grow into a nice large plant.  I grew chinghungensis years ago - it's one of those tiny-leaved ones and I've adopted a "wait and see" attitude about it.  Monetteae is a weird one.  Huge succulent leaves.  I'm not sure how I feel about it yet.  I guess when it starts to grow, I'll figure it out!  Two more... sp. 7727, a strange, almost yellow leaved one with small convex leaves.  It reminds me of the of the true bilobata - not the one that's really DS-70, and is now sp. aff. burtoniae.  EA used to sell DS-70 as bilobata, but I later learned what the true bilobata looks like which is:

 

Must be hard to come by because I had to sort through tons of DS-70s to find one or two of the real thing!  Anyway, it cups under more and is lighter.  I'll post a photo another time.

 

Last one is Dr. IBOK.  I guess it stands for "I be ok" - LOL. That one is very nice too, and growing nicely.  Photos to come.

 

Before I close this one, though, I wanted to get down what's going on with Mom. It's a lot to go into, so I'll sum up the last 3-1/2 years since she had gallbladder surgery as a real "shit-fest".  She's had continuous diarrhea since then that finally got under control with a cholesterol medicine whose side effect is constipation.  But then about 3 months ago, it got really bad, even with that medicine.  To the point that... and there's no delicate way to put this... her rectum was so afire from the constant acid from her stool that she couldn't sit for more than a few minutes at a time.  And even that was pure torture.  It was like sitting on broken glass.  Of course, Mom very anti-doctor, so it took it getting to the point that she was praying to die and we (Merry, my sis, and I) convinced her to go to the ER.  But she couldn't sit in the car and certainly not in the waiting room, so we called an ambulance.  They checked her in after they did a cat scan and found she had a blockage and a mass.  

 

So now we'll fast forward through the ugly details.  She has anal cancer.  She had a colostomy so she no longer has the constant irritant and things are improving.  But she was very weak from laying around for probably at least a month or so.  She has no intention of going through the chemo or radiation they suggest - she's 82 next month and just doesn't want misery at this point in her life.  I can't blame her... And if she changes her mind when she gets stronger, that's ok too... I'm just here to be her cheerleader in whatever she wants to do.  We all have an "expiration date" and hers is probably not that far off.  I don't blame her for not wanting the misery that comes with that stuff.  My sister, on the other hand, is trying to gently "push" for the treatments.  But Mom remembers how hard it was on Wes when he tried chemo and she does NOT want that.  It's really up to her...

 

We see the surgeon next week.  The question will be this: "What can we expect if we do nothing?"  I suppose the answer could change her mind.  We'll see...

 

And now I'm off to get some stuff done!  OVER AND OUT!