I like recycling when I can. I like growing little Hoyas in leca (lightweight expanded clay aggregate, used for hydroponic or semi-hydroponic growing). But if you use leca in a clear glass container, it quickly grows green with algae. I don't think the algae is necessarily bad for the plant roots (?), but it looks ugly. I buy green olives in these little glass jars and have dozens of them I've saved. So... over the winter, I decorated the jars and then started little Hoyas in leca to sell at the Farmer's Market this year. And here I am, no Farmer's Market and I have all these little starts that I guess I'll try to sell when we have a sale, and then I'll give a bunch away in fall. But it's still fun to decorate them, though the time it takes is not commensurate with what I can get for them! Here are a few and my experiments in how to decorate. When I started, I decided decoupage was a good fit, and it's messy, but what fun! I buy paper napkins with pretty and interesting designs and separate the design from the plain white backing then apply it to the glass jar with decoupage glue/coating. After a few topcoats, I wait a couple weeks then seal it with a clearcoat. Check these out:
And that led me to order some little rubber stamps, which I haven't really tried yet. I'll try that out this winter... Another experiment is using dried flowers/greenery, like this one... So I should stay busy this winter with making these for next year. Once the plants in the jars become fuller (lusher), I may try selling them on the local Hoya FB page. I think if more people tried leca, it's popularity would explode. It's an almost foolproof way of growing, as long as you keep the plants fed...
It was blazing hot today, so I did a little watering outside early. And I took photos of a few of my Hoyas that I whacked down to a stump and put outside to see if they would make a comeback. Several did not, but a few did. One that is most impressive is H. mcgregorii. It was looking old and tired and a little wrinkled... it's very potbound, and it can be hard to keep them watered enough. I whacked it and was confident it would come back and it certainly did! Here's the nice lush foliage...
It was right out there, getting some full sun but protected from the late afternoon sun. I left the gnarly spot on - I believe this is caused by flat mites, a critter you can not see but apparently it does damage to the joints of plants... It's as if the plant tries and tries to grow from that node, but it fails and each "try" leaves a knobby scar. I had a few plants that did this for a while some years back and I had no idea what was causing it until I read an article about flat mites. Like so many plant-related issues, there's not much you can do about it except toss the plant, but I've rarely done that. Anyway, it survived the mites and it's fine now, no signs of ongoing damage. And then I had one of those weird... I suppose you would call it a "crested" leaf becaure it seems to be essentially two leaves that melded into one... I love it when a plant does this! It's not exactly rare, but it is uncommon. I've probably seen it a dozen or so times over the years and I'm always fascinated by it! I actually found some information about this:
Conjoined or fused leaves
If the plant is older and the “double leaf” refers to two leaf blades growing together from a single petiole or sharing a broad base, this is called a conjoined leaf (also called fused, twin, or syndactylous leaves). This is a developmental anomaly, not a disease. It happens when the tightly regulated process of leaf primordia formation fails—often due to:
Mechanical stress (e.g., crowding, brushing, or shipping damage)
Temperature extremes (below ~12°C or above ~32°C during bud initiation)
Light shock (sudden change from low to high light intensity)
Water stress (drought followed by overwatering)
Genetic predisposition (stable mutations in certain cultivars)
Interesting, right?! I suspect that this one could have been due to the change to very high light intensity (compared to being indoors...)
Just a few more photos of Hoyas I whacked and put outside this spring. Two that I can't identify because of lost or faded tags...
This (above) looks like a form of verticillata. Below could be one of the pottsii varieties.
And here is the australis ssp. tenuipes I gave to Jessica at work last year. They wanted me to try to "fix" it this spring, so I brought it home and did just a bit of whacking and put it out on the porch. It has put on lots of new growth... And this is H. sp. aff. vittellina. It had gotten old and tired looking and I took cuttings and set the leafless stump out on the deck. Honestly, I thought it wouldn't do anything, but after a few weeks, here came some little new leaves. I don't think these are going to get any bigger, and I have no idea if it will now put on normal size leaves, or if it's simply stunted because it is so excessively potbound. But I don't care to give it a larger pot... I'd rather start with a smaller plant and I guess I'll just see what this does by summer's end...
And before I sign off this time, I wanted to both fuss and celebrate about body issues. The whole issue with my eye is still frustrating me. It seemed a little better, not as blurry in the mornings. But this morning was pretty bad again (2-1/2 weeks after the laser procedure) and it has not gotten particularly clear today and has been... uncomfortable all day. I have my fingers crossed that this is going to improve because if not, they have compromised my vision pretty significantly...
Second, I had three really decent days with my back/hip... three days I had off. It usually seems worse on days I'm home, probably because I'm so focused on the pain with little to distract me. Then came Monday and it was bad again. And of course after my soft wave therapy, it was bad yesterday. But today it's better, so I'm feeling optimistic that maybe, MAYBE the SF therapy is helping. However, now my right knee is hurting. I couldn't use my pedal machine at all last night, which I find very discouraging! I've been using that for at least 1.5 hours every evening for probably a year. I get this shooting pain right in the top of the knee when I try to use it! I hope it's better tonight after some adjustment by Dr. Corey today...
And that's all I have for now. Time to start on the cactus club newsletter!
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