Hoya memoria 360° Mini Video

Here is a 13 second video of Hoya memoria.  In the coming months I will be devoting an entire catagory of this website to 360° videos of some of these wonderful plants.  It should give all of you a little better idea of what the mature plant will look like.  This is my first attempt, so don’t judge it too harshly; I have many ideas for greatly improving them for the future.

Hoya memoria 360°

A Few Words About Clustrmaps Hit Counter

Some have you may have noticed that I have installed a Clustrmap Hit Counter (It can be seen in the lower right-hand sidebar).  This little widget has to be one of the coolest features ever thought of for a website!  If you click on it, you can see yourself, and where you are located.  I am completely blown away that in the past 10 days, I have had over 350 visits to this site from every corner of the globe – 44 different countries and counting!  I am very gratified that there is this much interest in what I thought was a fairly obscure plant.  I want to thank everyone who visits here, and finds something to comeback for.  If nothing else, I hope that my enthusiasm for growing Hoyas, no matter where you live, or what language you speak, comes through loud and clear!

Let Talk Humidity!

Let’s talk a little about humidity needs for Hoyas grown by northern gardeners.  I find it to be one of the most important Hoya needs, and probably the toughest one to provide for in the typical centrally heated home during the winter.  I add between 6-10 gallons of water a day into the air in my home, and still when it is zero degrees outside, it is almost impossible to get the relative humidity above 35% in the main house.  It does not take long for the effects of the dry air to be seen in most (but not all) of your plants.  All of the newest tenderest growth will dry up and crisp, leaves will shrivel and fall off.  When you remember how beautiful your plant looked in the summer, it is a little hard to take when try as you may, there is no new growth to coax out of your poor desiccated plant.

The easiest solution to this frustrating problem is to grow only those Hoyas that do well and tolerate lower humidity well.  Here are a few that take dry air in stride for me: All of the carnosas, obovata, cumingiana, motoskei, pubicalyx, cv. Iris Marie, nummularoides, and kerrii,.  The next solution is to add a humidifier which can keep your RH consistently above 40%.  Then you can expand the group of Hoyas you keep, adding such species as lobbii, macgillivrayi, memoria, lacunosa, kenejiana, magnifica, javanica, diversifolia, polyneura, revoluta, imperialis, and bella.  If you add grow tents, or a grow-room and can keep your humidity consistently above 60% you can add some of the following group: patella, elliptica, megalaster, kentiana, lambii, campanulata, and heuschkeliana.  This is far from any kind of complete list, but are just examples of the way these particular plants behave for me.

 Now the good news: Most of those dried out plants will begin to recover for you in the spring/summer as the RH continues to increase.  It is a frustration we northerners must bear for falling in love with a jungle dwelling, humidity-loving, tropical plant!

Couple of Real Close ups!

I started fooling around with my new MP-E 65mm f/2.8 1-5X lens today – it is a tricky one!  I am not really set up yet to properly use it, and it will have a large learning curve, but here are a couple of early attempts of shooting single blooms of H. heuschkeliana with it at around 3x.

Also, check out my Best Photos section for a particularly nice shot.  Once I am set up properly, I think this lens will be capable of some outstanding images.

Valentines Day Video (One Day Sooner than Expected)

Here is the link to my newest time-lapse video: A Valentines Day Extravaganza or Hoya Compendium II.  It is another humorous Cat-themed holiday video with never before shown, short, time-lapse, videos of four different Hoya blooms.  If you have sound make sure it is turned on.  I really like Oscar Grogan’s 80 year old Web of Love!  Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFRIWntQJQE&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Let’s talk about Hoya imperialis (Again)

I really can’t recommend Hoya imperialis strongly enough as an outstanding houseplant.  I have made three time-lapse videos, a five minute video tour of the plant, and taken hundreds of photos of the blooms.  My plant is about to bloom again; it is unfathomable to me as to why.  By all accounts it should not be blooming; it does not receive enough light, doesn’t have enough humidity in the air, sits on a very cold floor, and bloomed profusely only a couple of months ago.  The plant, which is now too big for me to get into the shower to wash the dust off from the leaves consistantly amazes me.  I encourage everyone to try this plant for themselves – A true standout in the tropical plant world!