Hi Julie,

Welcome to the forum. I'm happy you've fallen for Hoyas. I'm preaching to the choir here, but I think they have a collection of attributes that makes them very rewarding to grow long term.

Regarding your new growth dying off, definitely don't worry too much. One of the first questions people will ask when someone brings a problem in here is whether new or old established leaves are dropping. New growth is delicate (strikingly so with some Hoyas) and any number of things can cause it to die off. Your first two hypotheses are both worthy explanations for what might have happened. If your plant lives with you for a month, puts out some new growth, and THAT dies off too, then you'll probably want to look at your watering schedule next.

A lot of the time, new growth will die off because the plant is undergoes some kind of stress or deficiency (e.g. drought) before the growth is well established. Some have compared it to a bather sticking a toe in the water, finding it too cold, too stinky, or simply too wet, and abandoning plans. My guess is everyone here has had new growth die on them in the last couple of months. The solution is simply to baby your plant when it has tender growth on it.

In the case of compacta, specifically, you'll want to keep it well watered. Watering until it runs out the bottom is correct, and once a week is about as often as I water mine. Most carnosas like to dry out a bit between waterings, but compacta less so. Don't keep it damp, but water it whenever a finger test comes up dry. This is one you definitely don't want to allow to get weak because pests are attracted to weakness and compacta is a playground of hiding spots.

I have 2 compactas that are beautiful! since they are so compact that tend to stay moist for the most part if you give it a good drink, in warmer months I water once a week but now that its winter I have cut down to about every 10 or 11 days. give your plant a good while to get used to its new home. Sometimes the best trick with hoyas is to ignore them and not baby them. best of luck!

Thank you both very much for your input. I do believe that it is most likely the basic change of environment, and the cold it suffered for as much as 3-4 days on it's way here, that caused (is causing) the loss of leaves.

I think I just need to relax about the watering. It's funny how conflicted I get about whether the soil is *really* dry enough to water again! :) I go round and round with myself. But if you both tend to water yours about every 7-11 days, then I'm probably doing fine.

It currently has two little baby leaves newly separating from the stems a couple days ago that have not died yet, and a number more still basically just bumps on the stems. I'll keep watching and see if it turns the corner in the next few weeks.

I neglected to mention before, but with the lack of sun here in the winter, I also have a grow light over them. And a humidifier keeping things around 50% since the heat tends to drive it down to about 25-30%.

I got my kerrii and obovata today, and they are Amazing! :) I can definitely see the obvious difference in the potting medium from EA vs a hoya "specialty" nursery.

I can't believe how quickly and completely I have fallen for these plants. I use to have cacti, and took a break from them for a number of years. I enjoyed them, but this different. They were like buddies. These hoyas are like my babies! *lol*

Thanks again! :)
Julie

I would like to mention that a lot of people complain about the soil that EA uses.It stays wet for a long time.I got a EA plant over 3 weeks ago and its still wet.I always take the bottom saucer off to help it dry.

Cindy

Yep Cindy :)
I have read a lot of that and it is the reason mine have no saucers and are on an open wire shelf. I may actually wind up putting more holes in the plastic pots. Especially for my carnosa "rubra", since they appear to be even more sensitive to the extra moisture than the compactas. I know a lot of people just repot them, but I don't want to jump to that too quickly with my lack of experience.... Not to mention the fact that the plants are so dense in the pots that I can barely get to the soil to test it, much less to do an "easy" repotting. Also, I'm very fortunate that my local Lowes seems to be extremely unique in that they don't over water their plants terribly, so my rubra was rather dry when I bought it. (the compacta came straight from EA via snail mail)

Thanks,
Julie