Glad to hear that you and the hoyas have weathered the storm...maybe they knew.

:) Kelly

Hi Quinn,

Sorry to hear that you may lose some of your hoyas. If you want, I could send you some nummularoides cuttings in the spring. Mine on the other head is blooming it's heart out. It has been since I bought it at the beginning of last month. Congrats on the subcalva buds! I'll keep my fingers crossed too that they don't blast. A few of my plants are sprouting new leaves. I just found a new one on my fungii today. Red Buttons has been my biggest leaf producer though.

Brad AKA Moonwolf

Glad to hear most of the plants are hanging in there! Please post picture of the subcalva buds when you can! What is the drip system you set up? Would love to hear more about it!

Kelly

Quinn it's good to hear that all that work you put into your drip system was worth while. I know I rely on my system whenever I have to be away from my plants or when my time is in short supply.
Congrats on the subcalva buds! My Hoya subcalva turned out to be a fussy plant but it's started to grow again after its pouty spell.

Mike

Mike, my subcalva seemed to be a fussy plant last year, when it was a young cutting. This year, it has done quite well. Partially because it is more established, but also because I always keep it moist and moved it right up against the window, I think. It is happy with lots of light and water.

Kelly, I set up a gravity fed drip irrigation system right before Thanksgiving, because I was going to be away for 5 days. It consists of a reservoir up top, with a 1/2 diameter thickness tubing feeding a number of smaller 1/4 inch tubes that each terminate in a dripper. I posted a pic sometime around then, maybe I'll dig it up again tomorrow and repost. So, when I open the valve on the reservoir, gravity sends water down the tubing and finally through the drippers and onto the soil of each plant that I set up with a dripper.

It needs tweaking; right now it has greatest use for me as a way to water a bunch of plants at once, as long as I manage to cart up gallon jugs of water for me to refill the reservoir with, but it doesn't function as a vacation waterer because the drip rate is too high and all the water goes through too quickly. I have drip adjusters on hand but have had no time to attach them. It also needs monitoring because I have a few drippers over plants with smaller saucer capacity, and since dripping is really quiet, I have forgotten to turn it off before. Mainly, not a problem because I haven't been filling the reservoir with that much water, but once I did go off to work, and had to leave work, take a cab home, turn it off, and cab back to work again. No water damage ensued, but that was an expensive mistake.

I will see what I can do about taking pics of the subcalva buds. It is in an awkward spot at the moment, but we'll give it a go!

Well, it's a snow day, due to my buses not being in service. So I took a couple pics of subcalva buds.

And the shelf with all the tubing crisscrossing through it:

Older pics:

Not feeling ambitious enough at the moment to put in the flow adjuster valves. It would've been a nice day for it, but just not feeling it. Royal Flush looks better. Odorata has a chance. Nummularioides still looks pretty bad. All the rest of the wrinkled/droopy have perked up and are looking much better. Thank you, hoyas and orchids, for being so forgiving. Gotta work on the African violets next. Sigh.

Thanks for posting the photos! You have some beautiful plants!

Thanks! At this moment, they deserve all the credit. I still can't believe how good some of them look. Then I look at the ones that aren't doing as well :(

Hey, one benefit of serious underwatering... kerrii was actually pliable enough to train it onto the trellis better. It did bleed a little sap, but at least it wasn't in any danger of snapping off.

Still keeping an eye on those subcalva buds...

I feel like I am talking to myself, ha. But just wanted to say, odorata, nummularioides, and Royal Flush all look like they will recover. I'm super surprised, and I did have to remove dead bits, but they all look almost normal again. If smaller.

Amazing what a little water can do. (I still feel bad for getting them to that state in the first place.)

I'm listening...or reading!

Was able to click on your pictures above to get to the rest of your photos....I'm going to be looking for mylar emergency blankets this evening!

Most of my plants are in windows although I do have a few lights set up. My lights are T12's though and I believe I read in older posts that both you and Mike use T5's. Is there a difference in size (in other words can my T12 fixtures accomodate T5's) or is the difference in light output?

Where might you be moving?

So, so ready for spring!

Kelly

Hi Kelly! I use mylar sheets. It came as a roll. It is thin, like wrapping paper. Kind of annoying to work with, but the result is fun. I think it does help. I don't really grow my hoyas under lights, for the most part, except for the one shelf, that has supplemental lighting via a CFL, and the few that I have in my orchid case, which are also under CFLs. (I'm not counting my LED Christmas lights in my plant shelf; I'm not sure they're doing much.) I'm using a couple T5s exclusively for my African violets. I believe the number refers to the diameter in some way, but I don't quite know how. So I believe only T5s fit in T5 fixtures, and T12s in T12 fixtures, etc.

I'm considering a move to Austin, TX! I keep hearing about how nice it is there, and real estate is cheaper, so I can have more house and space for the money. I started looking here a bit, and I just don't think I can afford anything I'd want, at least, not easily. Then I thought, why stay here? I don't really have a reason. It will take a lot of doing, though. I'm realizing how far away it actually is. Yikes. I like the idea of gaining a zone though. 7 is nice, but I will like 8.

I'm ready for spring too. The snow is annoying. Very annoying!

So, who fared better? The Hoyas or the Gesneriads? For me it always seems to be the Hoyas in cases of neglect. On the other hand, in situations of non-neglect, the Hoyas are more likely to just mysteriously take a turn for the worse.

Wow a prospective move! More space equals more plants! I found my move very interesting in terms of rethinking how I had my plants organized, so I hope if you DO move, you'll keep us updated on the logic of your new arrangements.

I couldn't agree more about snow being annoying. very annoying! I got burnt out on this winter super fast and I think it's because here the snow melts pretty quickly and then it snows immediately again and then it melts almost immediately and then it snows again! It's like Omaha is just screwing with me. At least in Minneapolis, when it snows it stays snowed... until like May.

The hoyas have fared better, definitely. At least, they recovered faster. The African violets still resemble wilted greens. The center bunch of leaves are perky looking, but the outer ones look sad. I think they will mainly recover, but I think they take their sweet time doing it. Actually, what I need to do is refill the reservoirs, and leave em to it. It will be all up to them, then.

Snow is annoying here because this city doesn't really seem to have a handle on dealing with it. And it does actually snow here, every year, so I don't really get why it is such an issue. I ended up missing a lot of work due to both being sick, then the weather. None of my buses were running, for days. I actually walked to work one day, because if I don't work, I don't get paid. It took me over an hour. Fun. It does the same here, generally. It snows, then it melts. Half the time I don't even bother shoveling because it will be gone the next day anyway. This snow has stuck around for a bit, but is largely gone now. But what fun awaits? Ice storms! We'll see how my commute is tomorrow, and whether or not the buses are running. I'm not sure I'm willing to walk in icy weather all that way. Argh.

lol 'wilted greens' is the perfect description. After I moved, my violets took about 5 months to start blooming consistently again. I'm sure yours will recover much faster since you have them on reservoirs, which is exactly what I should do -__-;

I agree the icy weather is the worst for walking to work. Yesterday the wind seemed to be spiraling in all directions, utilizing the downtown tunnel effect to build up speed before knocking my hood off and give me a good snow exfoliant treatment. I turned everyone's offers for a ride home down out of sheer stubbornness and then discovered my route home was one gigantic drift. I guess we've just given up on sidewalks here. Which was probably a smart move, considering they have a thicker glaze than a Krispy Kreme doughnut. One of these days they're just going to find me upside-down in a snowbank, murmuring something about the Hoyas, like Monk in that episode where he tried to get out of jury duty by saying he had two plants dependent on him.

Reservoirs do help, a lot. Still haven't filled them yet, there is not enough time in my day, it seems. I lucked out, the icy weather did not last overnight and I did not have to deal with it. I think my AVs will recover fairly quickly, they seem to love being under lights and I finally set up a second shelf with a T5, after moving the other one up. I've got some standards on the first shelf, and minis on the second one. It is not a very bright T5, only 13 W, I believe, but it is only a mere 2-3 inches away from the tops of the minis. The standards are a wee bit further away. They have bloomed pretty well under this light, so I'm hoping for good things. My desk AVs got moved to a bench under the AV shelves, and I put a clip lamp with a 23W CFL there. I retired one of my orchid cases for now, and put the orchids that were in there into my larger orchid/hoya cutting case. I decided I needed to consolidate. The more I spread out, the less well I do, watering wise. It looks a little lonely, but I'm just going to leave it. Plenty of time to figure something new out, after I move. Although I am going to have to figure out where I want to grow some Aerangis mystacidii seedlings. I am getting a flask, very soon it seems. Whoops.

AVs really do seem to flourish under artificial light. I forgot you had them set up that way. When I moved, I never did get my artificial lighting set up again, and I noticed a dramatic difference in all my gesneriads. I need to figure out how to get them up again because the gesneriads just aren't the same now. Much weaker. On the upside, I think I finally figured out how not to kill baby begonias. I was beginning to think I was the black reaper of begoniatown.

I also have trouble with the whole spreading out business. I finally decided my plants have to be in large defined quadrants, because if I have any group under 10 plants, tragedies ensue.

Incidentally, columnea orientandina is coming along well if you want me to send you a cutting after your move. I recall you wanted to try this one again.

Ooh! Have you seen the odd little Easter egg-like berries yet? I will be interested, whenever it is that I move and get set up somewhat. Still looking like wilted greens here. Maybe they are mad at me? I will try and refill their reservoirs on Superbowl Sunday, ha. I don't follow football, at all. Baseball, I will watch; football, almost never.

No Easter egg berries yet, but I'm looking forward to them! They are so disproportionally large that the little plant looks like a decorated tree. Now, due to your description, orientandina will always remind me of the way my mom used to decorate a ficus with blown out Easter eggs.

Even with your post, I still forgot it was Superbowl Sunday until my neighbors started roaring through the walls. Kind of scary if you're not expecting it. Sports are pretty much the only time I hear any noise from anyone in this building.