Hello Greedy and I hope your New Year is just as good if not better than last!

I am going to label all my plants and if I don't have a clue as to the name of them, I'll be asking for help on that. I can't seem to buy one Hoya around here that say's the name of the species. All I ever see is 'Tropical', 'Wax Plant', or 'Hoya'.lol
I went to a nursery that was selling at least 12 different kinds and I had no idea what to pick up or what they were, so I left them there. All said, "Hoya".

I also promised to pick up three new Hoya plants for the new spring to reward myself with all the hard work I have done. I have been reading here and on the net as to a Hoya plant that will actually FILL a room with fragrance rather than having to put your nose into the flowers. I have not found anything yet though. That is my goal too.

That is just a couple, although I am planning a few more promises to myself and my plants:-)

Mike

My goal when growing resumes, is to re-pot a lot of my plants in a lighter growing medium - more perlite, bark, etc. I have had several suffer this winter from wet feet/shorter days/cooler temps (though never lower than 60 degrees inside), losing leaves and a few deaths; very frustrating after some really nice growth this summer;
Maybe this is how I separate the keepers from the losers?? Whatever I can grow...I guess.

@ MeyerMike

I have to say, Mike, that your resolution is pretty close to mine! My plants are all labeled, but I'm getting frustrated because some of the black markers I use are more dependable than others, so I have a batch that are fading. Plus, some labels from the original vendor that I never made my own labels for. So rather than try and figure out which vendor sold me the "good pen" (I'm pretty sure it was Tindara's "Garden Marker") I'm redoing all my labels and using those aluminum labels and letter/number punches. It's pretty time consuming, but I've been working through them one flat at a time. And at the end hopefully I'll have a bunch of labels that will really stand the test of time! The downfall, of course, is that they aren't readable through the clear pots. But once I've owned a plant for a year I normally don't have to look at its nametag anyway.

@ Kathy

I think I'm going to have to redo some of the mediums I chose for certain plants this spring, too. Live and learn, I guess! I'm not sure that whether a plant survives a particular season is necessarily a fair test of its overall nature. Some plants I definitely do think are sensitive. Other times, I'll have a plant go downhill that has been fine with me for several years. Like, right now, my dolichosparte is hanging on by its fingernails, and I've had that one for a long time. It took a turn during my period of erratic watering, but even though I had that explanation, I know it's toughed out worse without any problems before. I guess I'll probably never know exactly what happened. With so many plants, sometimes you can't track these things as well. Maybe the time before the "drought" I accidentally skipped that plant and its drought was longer than the others. I'm not sure... :\

I think I have two main resolutions this year.

1. I want to take better pictures, more often, and find out how to take interesting pictures that capture the overall essence of a plant. I think Sylvine does this best, so maybe I'll take a page out of her book and compile sets of pictures. Not necessarily in a mosaic format, although I do like her style.

2. I want to make sure I'm fertilizing the plants well. So far I've just been following a blanket schedule with Dyna-Gro Foliage Pro, but I haven't really delved into it beyond that.

I just made a spreadsheet of growing conditions and I'm going to make sure to give each species the proper conditions so it can thrive. I just made a humidity increasing device (shower curtain around the plant shelf) to help during the winter.

Your post made me think that it would really be cool to do a visual chart of species grouped by growing condition. I originally tracked all that data, but then I stopped updating those fields in my database because I wasn't really utilizing the information effectively. I think I might just need a different approach.

I've heard those curtained shelves are the bomb in winter. Unfortunately I think if I did that, my dining room would end up looking like that scene where the scientists have ET!

For me personally, years ago when I started trying to track all my plants, it became too much of a project & not enough on the plants, so I quit. I keep all necessary info. on the plant tags themselves, sometimes if it's an old plant, it's got 2 or 3 tags in it.

I gave up my database, too much of its own project which I found ultimately FOR ME was not useful at all.

GG

"those curtained shelves are the bomb in winter." What's this you're talking about pls.

Also just curious, what part of the country are you in (can't tell from your Member Page)?

I don't know if you were talking to me, but I live in Oklahoma.

I attached a picture of my plant shelf in my dining room with the shower curtain around it...like that scene in E.T. :-) I'm going to get another curtain tomorrow when I go to the store and maybe a humidifier later if I need to.

Hm. I guess you'll have to turn your head sideways...

@ PG

I'm referring to plant shelves with zip up plastic enclosures or custom built spaces like Tigerdawn designed above. Many veteran growers have mentioned how sticking Hoyas in one of those over the winter helps a lot. I have no personal experience with it, myself.

Here's an example of a pre-fabricated model:

@ Tigerdawn

I have to say that looks fantastic!! You did a really nice job, and I'm inspired. I really doubt you'll need a humidifier if you get enough plants in there. I find that even without being enclosed, the Hoyas I have grouped together really do a nice job of creating a micro-climate around themselves, so once you help them out with sheeting... (Unless you meant to support plants outside the unit?)

Here in another week or so, I'll have 11 more Hoyas in there!

I was going to maybe put the humidifier in the general area to help those some, plus the plants in the window to the right of the shelf, plus us humans and our mucous membranes. My poor nose is so dry!

I'll make only one resolution - that way I'll be more likely to actually keep it. This year I'll try S/H with a couple hoyas. Any advice on hoyas I SHOULDN'T try this with? Thanks!

To be completely honest with you I cant think of any hoya that can not handle S/H.I almost 300 hoyas growing S/H.I even grow pachy this way,I just let it sit a few days after all the water is gone before adding more.
I went and took this photo to show you my pachy grown S/H.