BEAUTIFUL! Thank you soooooo much for sharing. Pictures are happily accepted ANYTIME!

Congrats on your happy hoyas!

Carolyn

Congrats on the new cuttings, you choose some very nice species. The cuttings from Thailand came through very well as I am sure you know sometimes they are deaths door when they arrive. Is that a lonely bloom on Hoya megalantha and a group of flowers on pimenteliana ?

Feel free to post updates to this thread as the cuttings get established. You know we all love to share our experiences and it keep the forum lively for us hopeless Hoya addicts.

Mike

Soooo jealous! Ah well. Good batch of cuttings there!

Nice bunch of choice cuttings you have there. Thanks for sharing and keep us posted to how they do please.

AWESOME Hoyas...you're so lucky they arrived in that great a shape after 19 days. Enjoy them and best of luck!

Thanks everyone ^_^ I appreciate your support as I go into my hyperanxious mother rooting stage. I'll definitely post updates going forward (hopefully good ones!)

Mike: Yes, that is a "lonely bloom" on the megalantha and a cluster on the pimenteliana. I know they're sapping resources, but seeing as I'm terrified I'm going to kill the megalantha anyway, I can't help but treasure it.

Any advice/success stories re: rooting cold-growing hoyas like megalantha? Logic suggests it will despise my warm humid rooting aquarium. I feel like I read a thread about this issue somewhere, but I can't find it now.

Just a little update on my cuttings (most of which are still in their tanks)...

megalantha & pimenteliana dropped their buds a few days later, but I'm still keeping megalantha alive, so superyay! (knock on wood).

pimenteliana has put out some more buds - boy is it stubborn!

inconspicua is having a go at it

and paziae has flowered

A couple of the Thai cuttings did end up getting angry about their poor treatment & now they're just sitting green stemmed but leafless in the maybe someday corner of the tank, but otherwise everything's doing well. :)

On an unrelated note, my nematanthus 'Tropicana' blooms are super cute.

More updates next time there's news. :)

Wow! I love that last plant! Now I want one of THOSE!
hahaha

Carolyn

Your cuttings are looking fantastic, blooming and everything.

That is the strangest Nematanthus I have ever seen, is it a species or hybrid?

Mike

Mike, this one's a hybrid (N. perianthomegus (tessmannii) x N. radicans (gregarius)).

Carolyn, I have a bunch of rooted cuttings just dying for a new home - when we finally get our trade going, I'll slip one in the package. They grow right merrily.

woohoo!!!!! We need to get to tradin' before it starts to get cold out . . . :)

Carolyn

mm... I was just thinking the same thing. :3

We need enough cuttings to stave off the No New Acquisitions Winter Blues
...a disorder commonly confused with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) in the DSM-IV.

Nice going GG, Congrats!! I too love your nemathantus...very unique and cool flowers.

GG I managed to get germination with both Sinningia pusilla and mixed mini Sinningia seed. I wish it were easier to get some of these plants in Canada but our biggest and best nursery The Gesneriad Garage is no longer selling plants.
I did find a good link for seeds, someone mentioned it on DG.

Mike

Here is a link that might be useful: Gesneriad and other seeds

Mike, that's so cool that you had success with your Sinningia germination trials! I love the idea of growing "mixed Sinningia" - little pots of variable tiny fuzziness. You wouldn't be willing to share a picture, would you?

The international vendor issues are (sigh). I wish we could all use the same vendors with equal ease instead of constantly being teased by someone's perfect-for-them-impossible-for-you find.

Are you sure you don't want to become the next great Canadian gesneriad hope? No, on second thought, don't do that. Then I'd be constantly plagued by the futility of getting my hands on one of the infamous Ontario Mike's plants.

GG I will post a photo when the first true leaves are mature, not much to look at yet. The Sinningia pusilla are the tiniest little seelings, very cute. I think I am going to try may hands at a few more Sinnginias, some more mini species and one of the tuberous types with tubular flowers.

I am trying to get some seed for Paliavana tenuiflora, don't ask me why because the plants get huge but they are just so cool I have to try. I really don't need to get into any other plants but a few more can't hurt right? LOL Even if one is a massive tree sized Gesneriad. :)

Mike

4-6 feet! That's the size of a new roommate. Makes me wonder whether you have cohabitants in that jungle of yours!

And here I was giving myself a hard time for acquiring two mere 1 foot Pearcea!

Footnote: Somewhere along the line I developed this weird habit of buying plants to match the origins of the guys my sisters and I date. My sister broke up with this guy and her Pearcea died. Coincidence? I think not! But now they're back together again, so I needed a new Pearcea, of course!

No I don't live alone and yes sometimes I do hear about my "plant problem". LOL
Yeah now that you mention it maybe a six foot tall multi-branched plant will be hard to hide amongst the rest of the greenery. Oh well it will start off as a harmless looking seedling at least for a little while.

Good luck with your Pearcea. LOL

Mike

Hah. I'm starting backups of this Pearcea right away, seeing as my sister defines the relationship version 2.0 as a "monogamous dating non-relationship."

I see heartbreak in this Pearcea's future (hence I bought it a Pearcea friend so it has a shoulder to cry on).

As for your new roommate, luckily it won't start out at 6' tall, so by the time they notice, it will be too late. Or you could try the "I bought this for you, honey" approach I've often employed. Then they just get excited as it takes over your living room.

This post is completely gratuitous, seeing as this is the HOYA FORUM, but...

Pearcea schimpfii & Pearcea sp. Ecuador

I'd just like to say that schimpfii is THE softest plant in the world. I'm going to cuddle its leaves bare. And its blooms (which unfortunately aren't photographed because they fell off during shipping) are minuscule fuzzy crimson Chinese lanterns. This plant is quite possibly more adorable than puppies and everyone here should have 200.

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Those are cute plants! My Siginnia seedlings are a little bigger so I took a photo. The little (usually covered) cups I germinated the seed in are 2" across so you can get an idea of just how small the seedlings are.

Siginnia mini mixed seeds

Siginnia pusilla

Mike

Aww the pusilla are so small they're almost microbes! So sweet! I wish you the best of luck with them! Where are you going to keep them when they are adults?

I was thinking of keeping some in a large vase and others on the wet wall in the back of my killifish tank. The cork wall is kept wet by using a water lifer pump or misting and the cork is covered in Java moss, Christmas moss, ferns and a few little orchid divisions. I have a couple little cuttings of mini Hoyas in there as well.

Mike

Mike, that sounds pretty cool! Wanna take a pic? :)

Carolyn

Here is the killifish tank a few months after I set it up, notice there is not much moss yet.

This is a photo I took of the right side tonight showing the moss and ferns. I took a little tree fern mount that once held my Bulbophyllum moniliforme (RIP) and mounted it to the cork to see what would grow from it. I was not disappointed and within a few weeks tropical mosses and ferns began to grow. You can see a little Hoya kanyakumariana, a few little Bulbophyllum pieces I stuck in there and a little Pleurothallis. There is a hideous black algae growing over the moss on the wet wall so I have turned the water lifter off and just mist every now and then in hopes that the algae will dry up. I wish I knew a good way to discourage algae because it can smother the moss which takes it's time to grow. I may try mounting more tree fern panels over the areas with algae because the tree fern never seems to get algae due to it's airiness. I may try to mount the Siginnias to the wall using some sphagnum moss or I may drill out a cavity in a piece of tree fern to make a pocket where I can add appropriate growing media.

Here are the Nothobranchius guntheri that live in the water portion of the tank. These fish are annual African killifish that live in temporary pools during the wet season and breed like crazy, their eggs survive in the dry mud until the rains return. I am hoping to move these fish into another tank so that I can house my new Rivulus cf. ornatus in this tank where they will be able to develop into a small colony.

These fish are all males, the females are plain brown and not as heavy bodied as the males.

Mike

*squeals with delight* Thank you, Mike!!! Awesome setup!

Carolyn

Thanks Carolyn, it's a work in progress as certain plants don't do well. Flower thrips got in there and pretty much killed the Cryptocorynes that were growing in the water along the back wall and the Dischidia supurba cutting rotted due to the high moisture levels. I just moved a water lily in there, one with red and green spotted leaves because it was too shaded in the rainbow fish tank so hopefully it does well in it's new home.

Mike

Wow, what a beautiful setup. Your landscaping puts me in mind of the mermaid lagoon of Neverland.

I so love Christmas moss. I hope some of mine is surviving until I can start it up again. And I truly sympathize with your algae situation from the bottom of my moss-loving heart. It does sound like you might need to put something more assertive in that area.

Now you have me curious whether the siginnias would take to a wall mounting. Although your idea of drilling out a little alcove for them sounds super sweet.

Well I sprinkled the remaining Sinningia seeds on the moss wall and some on the moss covered wood that comes up out of the water. Now I will just wait and see if anything germinates because I am a little scared to put my only seedlings in there and loose them.
I am going to try and get some Sinningia 'Rio das Pedras' seed, that one for sure grows on a moist moss covered rock wall in nature. The only problem is that the Nothobranchius killifish need salt in their water to ward off disease so some sensitive plants might not like that too much. So far I have not noticed any problems even with the ferns so maybe the concentrations are within an acceptable range for most plants.

Mike