Random plant event: Hoya obovata

In July 2010, I got a couple cuttings of Hoya obovata from a PATSP reader. They looked like this:

A year later, they looked like this:

September 2012:

September 2013:

After 2013, I got seriously into the plant-breeding stuff and I no longer had time to document my plants' appearances every year, plus the plant got too big to do that with anyway, but you get the point. It keeps getting bigger.

I never expected it to do anything for me; indeed, considering my history of Sudden Hoya Death Syndrome,¹ I didn't expect it would survive long enough to do anything, but it's still around in 2016, and it's bloomed.

This happened quietly: I didn't notice anything was going on until I saw the first buds on 22 January,

and then I forgot about them because I assumed they would take a long time to develop, so I was surprised to find opened flowers on 5 February.

Like most Hoyas, the flowers are strongly scented; unlike most Hoyas, I don't like the scent. It's floral, and sort of makes me think of some kind of very strong carnation-rose combination, similar to H. lacunosa, but it has an extra something going on that makes me find it unpleasant.² It's just me; the husband doesn't pick up on it. Fortunately, the scent doesn't permeate the whole house, the way some blooming plants can, and I can't even smell it in the same room unless I'm standing close. So it's not really a problem, but I'm still disappointed: I would have preferred something more like the florist's-cooler smell of H. lacunosa.

The appearance could also be more exciting. I mean, I get that not every Hoya can be H. bella, but these aren't even as pretty as H. carnosa, which is as ordinary a Hoya as there is.

I had actually been contemplating trying to sell, give away, or throw out this plant, prior to seeing the buds, because it had never done anything interesting enough to justify keeping it around, and it takes up a lot of room, approximately half of a 1.5' x 4' (0.5 m x 1.2 m) shelf. I've also been worried about it getting scale for the last four years, though I have yet to see any.³ Now that it's bloomed, I'm . . . still thinking about selling it, giving it away, or throwing it in the trash. I do like the leaves, but I could really use that half a shelf. The Anthuriums and Schlumbergeras keep reproducing and growing, and, to be blunt, I like the Anthuriums and Schlumbergeras a lot better.

So, if any U.S. readers are interested and want to wait a couple months for a very large and unwieldy Hoya with blooms that may or may not smell badly, which probably doesn't have scale but could, and which may or may not die suddenly, shoot me an e-mail. It's possible something might be arranged. Otherwise, I'll probably take my chances with Craigslist.

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¹ Still no idea what the explanation for SHDS is. Some kind of root rot, I guess, since the victims usually don't have much of a root system by the time the plant dies, but there's not really a convenient way to find out what's going on before that. There's never any warning, hence the "Sudden" part of "Sudden Hoya Death Syndrome."
² Looking back through the archives, I didn't care for H. nummularioides' smell either.
³ Which doesn't mean they aren't there. My understanding is that Hoyas are normally pretty susceptible to scale and mealybugs, though, so if they're there, you'd think I would have seen at least one at some point. Maybe my particular species of scale isn't into Hoyas?

Random plant event: Hoya bella

Hoya carnosa and I technically got along, when I had them: they grew, and didn't die (until they got Sudden Hoya Death Syndrome, which is presumably my fault somehow but I have yet to see a satisfactory explanation for it¹), but they also rarely bloomed.²

Hoya lacunosa and H. bella, on the other hand, are super consistent about blooming: H. lacunosa blooms sporadically during the winter, and then produces a lot of blooms starting around March or April, when the angle of the sun swings around far enough to let some direct sun hit its window;³ H. bella blooms every year from about May to June. This year is blogworthy just because there are a lot more blooms than previous years. I didn't get a photo that shows that very well, but it's a tough plant to photograph,⁴ so you'll just have to trust me that it's a lot.

This is a better photo of some of the actual flowers, though it's still probably not as good as the pictures from 2013:

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¹ Though I have gotten a couple clues over the years: one, SHDS seems only to happen to plants which are not receiving any direct sun; two, SHDS has so far only happened to plants in plastic pots. So it's probably some variety of root rot, caused by a plant not being able to grow fast enough to take up the water in its pot, or something, in which case a different potting soil might make the difference. But I'm just guessing.
² There was a single bloom last year, and then the plant was exposed to scale and I figured it was easier to just cut to the chase and throw it out, because by the time you see scale on a Hoya, not only is the plant riddled with them, but it's also given them to everything within six feet (1.8 m) of itself. Ask me how I know.
³ (and then proceeds to make me mildly ill every evening, beginning at about 8:30 or 9 PM, when the plant starts pumping out the fragrance. It's not that I don't like the particular scent (which is basically the scent of a florist's display case). It's just that the plant is in my office, where I spend the bulk of my time, so if it starts to be too much, I can't easily get away from it. This pretty much only happens on nights when I'm already starting to get a headache; I don't think H. lacunosa has ever actually caused any headaches.)
⁴ (large, floppy, lopsided, Flowers that tend to point downward, on a plant that's fairly large, with long stems, which is also very lopsided in the direction its light comes from)

Random plant event: Hoya

A very long time ago (September 2007), I cut back some Hoya carnosa plants at work. I think the reason was that some of the vines had reverted to solid green,¹ though I cut the Hoyas back from time to time regardless if they didn't sell pretty quickly, because they got tangled and unmanageable if I didn't. Anyway.

It rooted well, and has even grown nicely for me in the seven years since, turning into this monster as of July 2011:

And, obviously, it's grown even more since 2011. But it wouldn't bloom. It has thought about it a couple times, most recently last year, but it never bothered to finish the job. So it was sort of exciting to see this, finally:

I expected there to be a lot of nectar dripping on things, but so far that hasn't been a problem. I also haven't been able to detect much of a scent from it, which is surprising; that's one of the things that everybody talks -- and sometimes complains -- about with Hoyas in general, and H. carnosa in particular.²

In any case, 2014 is apparently the year in which all the plants everybody says are easy bloomers, but which have never actually rebloomed for me, go ahead and bloom for me. (Previously: Phalaenopsis.) In which case maybe I should be getting ready for some Begonia blooms.³

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¹ The plant in question originally had green leaves with white to yellow centers, like this:

I'm not sure what the variety name was, but I've seen similar things sold as 'Exotica' and 'Krimson Princess,' so maybe it's one of those. In any case, variegated Hoyas are prone to revert to solid green, and like with most plants that do that, the solid green shoots tend to be more vigorous. So if you find the variegation attractive, you need to remove the unvariegated parts when they appear, lest they take over.
² Though there is a substantial variation in scent production over the course of a day. I could practically set our clocks by the H. lacunosa in my office, which starts producing substantial fragrance every day between about 9 and 9:30 PM. Some Hoyas allegedly don't get going until about midnight. The trouble is that I can't smell much of anything from this plant between 9 PM and midnight either.
³ I will not actually see Begonia blooms. At least not this year. The reason why I don't get them is because I don't have enough light to offer the plants, which is probably also why it's taken so long to get flowers on the Hoya. The Phalaenopsis was probably more of a temperature problem, though inadequate light could have been an issue as well.

Random plant event: Hoya carnosa

I have had at least one Hoya carnosa at all times, for the last seven years. My best guess is that I was averaging about three or four at any moment; the current count is five. In all twenty-five(-ish) of those accumulated Hoya-carnosa-years, not once has any of them ever attempted to bloom. H. lacunosa, sure, all the time. H. bella, quite a bit lately. But never H. carnosa.

Until now.

Which, we'll see if it's sincere about this; you know what happened with the Phalaenopsis.¹

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¹ Yes, I know the Phalaenopsis could still produce some flowers, and that whatever happened to it was probably my fault even if I don't remember it happening. You'll understand if I'm not holding my breath in anticipation, though.

Random plant event: Hoya bella

Well, Ivynettle kind of beat me to this post, by posting a larger, better-looking Hoya bella with more flowers on it, but I don't have a lot else going on at the moment, so it's what I'm going to post. I don't think these pictures require a lot by way of context, but I'll note that:

• Hoya bella flowers have been the subject of PATSP posts before (last year; three years ago),

• this is the most flowers my plant has ever had on it at once (in the neighborhood of 15-20 simultaneous umbels, though not all are fully developed),

• and I've managed to detect a somewhat stronger fragrance from the flowers this time around, which still strikes me as being sort of generically floral and not anything to get terribly excited about. Though it's still nice.

Ten(-ish) Things I Have Mistaken for Scale

So we're in the fifth week of checking all the plants in the basement weekly (on the east and south sides) or every second week (on the west). I'm not finding many actual pests anymore, for two reasons:

The first reason is that there's just not that much to find anymore, since any plants with obvious, easy to see infestations were already thrown in the trash.¹ The second is that I'm not looking as hard, because it's extremely time-consuming and tedious to do, and I'm tired of it.

As a result, almost every scale insect I've seen lately has been a false positive of one kind or another. And there are many kinds. So here is a list of ten things I have managed to mistake for scale in the last five weeks:

1. Scars -- on everything. Oh my god. You've never imagined how many little tan corky spots there are on the leaves, petioles, and stems of your plants until you've had to check each one individually to see whether it rubs off. And of course there's no way to actually remove them, because they're part of the plant, so I wind up checking the same scars over and over, week after week. This is far and away the largest and most irritating category of false positives.

Multiple scars on Epipremnum aureum 'Neon.'
Leaf scar on Manfreda undulata 'Chocolate Chips.'
Not actually sure what this thing on a NOID Cryptanthus is, but I think it's either edema, a scar, or edema that became a scar.
Multiple irregular scars on the back of a Begonia x 'Erythrophylla' leaf.
Scars from thrips (?) on one of the Anthurium seedlings.

2. Dots of dried sap -- they're generally the wrong color to be scale, but the size and shape are close, so they have to get checked out anyway. Arguably a subcategory of scars, though distinct because dried sap rubs off. (Usually.)

Dried sap on Euphorbia trigona.
And on Hoya something. (Sold as H. kentiana, probably actually H. wayetii.)

3. Marginal burn, tip burn -- It doesn't happen a lot, but sometimes when a leaf is burnt in just the right way, the dead spot looks like a scale insect hanging right on the edge or tip of the leaf. Since the actual insects tend to congregate around the spot where the petiole attaches to the leaf, on and along the midrib and other major veins, this isn't terribly confusing, but it happens.

The margin spots on this variegated Yucca guatemalensis didn't make it through the recoloring / cropping process in very good shape, but they're there, along with a more obvious scar in the center of the leaf.

4. Aerial roots -- the shape is often not quite right, but when they're first developing, some aerial roots are small, oval, and tan. Best distinguished from scale by the facts that they don't wipe off and that they're pointy.

Aerial roots on a somewhat unhappy Selenicereus anthonyanus.²
Roots forming on a Stapelia gigantea stem.

5. Dirt -- dirt gets splashed all over when I water, so some of it ends up on the leaves and stems. Because there's no wind in the basement to blow it off, it stays attached. The irregular shape usually gives it away, but some pieces of bark are rounded enough to be momentarily alarming, and vermiculite is about the right color, so this is occasionally a problem.

A tiny fleck of potting mix on an Aglaonema 'Peacock' leaf.
A couple bits of dirt on an Anthurium seedling.

6. The natural coloration of the plant -- some plants just naturally have lots of little bumps or brown spots or whatever. In most of these cases, I've either given up on checking altogether because it's impossible, or the plant got scale a long time ago and has been thrown out. Aerial roots is technically a subdivision of natural coloration, now that I think about it, but it's so common and specific it probably deserves a separate entry anyway.

Close-up of a Ficus microcarpus stem, showing peeling bark, aerial roots, and a bunch of other random stuff.
Some of this Schefflera actinophylla's brown spots, if not all of them, are capable of becoming aerial roots if the air is sufficiently humid, but usually they just expand to form bark.

7. Edema -- again, bumps due to edema are usually irregularly shaped, so I don't have to resort to the squish test, but this has still happened plenty of times.

Surprisingly bad edema on a Billbergia nutans leaf, probably because I moved it into a bigger pot and then set it in front of a cold window.

8. Spiders -- only once, but still.


9. Mineral deposits -- parts of the plants that are in contact with the soil will sometimes get a tan, crusty mineral buildup which can resemble a big infestation of closely-spaced scale. Hatiora salicornioides seems to be especially prone to this, but I also see it on Anthurium quite a lot.

Mineral crust on Hatiora salicornioides.

10. Hallucinations -- and occasionally I just straight-up see things that aren't there. Which is usually a sign that I should take a break.

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¹ The last few scale insects I've found also appeared to be dead already. Or at least they were really, really tired, being flat and dried out and crunchy. One hopes that this has something to do with the imidacloprid.
Although thrips aren't really the focus of the post, for readers who are curious: the thrips are still around, here and there, and when I see them they're generally alive. I'm only finding them in a particular fairly narrow section of the basement shelves, though, and I didn't find any last week, so this is maybe progress. I also got my first thrips photos -- none are very good, but they're an improvement over no photos at all:
The thrips in question was photographed on notebook paper (hence the blue line in the top image), through a tiny magnifying glass lens, if this gives you any sense of the size.
² I have two Selenicereus anthonyanus plants, one in the basement and one in the plant room, and neither one has ever seemed very happy to be here. Mostly they just don't grow very fast, and the new growth is thin. Likely a light issue, but I don't have any better spots available.
It's weird, because Selenicereus chrysocardium is fine in very similar spots. I don't know what's wrong.

Random plant event: Hoya bella

The Hoya bella has bloomed again. The last time was two years ago, and I got a much, much better photo out of that one (below) than I did this year (above), but perhaps the important thing is that I tried. (Actually, the important thing is that I had decent light for the older picture, and for the newer one I was trying to make do with fluorescent light in the basement because it was after sunset already.)

As with the 2010 bloom, I could detect a bit of a smell, but it didn't smell like candy, and was pretty faint.

This year's bloom was about a month ahead of 2010's. Lots of things have been confused by the odd weather this spring, though, so maybe that explains it. Or maybe they're just not highly seasonal bloomers. Good timing in any case, because my relationship with the genus Hoya has hit a rough patch lately.

Walkaways Part 16: The Walkawayening, plus one new plant

Just assorted plants that were interesting but left on the shelf. This covers at least a couple months, possibly longer: I had a photo-backlog problem for a lot of the summer and fall.

Acalypha wilkesiana 'Beyond Paradise.'
This would actually have been cheap, unlike almost everything else on the list, but I managed to realize before buying it that I had no spot in the house for a fast-growing plant that needed sun. And, you know, once you have that realization, it takes all the fun out of buying the plant.

Aglaonema NOID.
I don't think I've ever met an Aglaonema I didn't like. (I'm not even sure it's possible.) So this one is on the wish list.

Alocasia 'Loco.'
The variety name wasn't on the plant at the store, but that's what I think it is, based on some internet searching. It's become weirdly common here, all at once -- I'd never seen it before a couple months ago, and then suddenly it was everywhere. I passed it up because, you know, Alocasia = spider mites, and also because I kind of think it's ugly, but it's ugly in an interesting way, at least.

Begonia rex-cultorum NOID (possibly 'Fireworks?').
Never of any serious interest -- I don't intend to buy another rex begonia unless/until I have a dedicated terrarium or greenhouse or something to put them in. And even then, I probably won't bother. But pretty.

Calathea 'Corona.'
Way too big, therefore also way too expensive. Also it's not the best specimen (some burnt margins and scars and stuff, if you look close), and it didn't photograph that well either. But I'm getting dangerously close to buying another Calathea, because I've had my C. makoyana for a year and a half and it hasn't died (probably more a matter of luck than skill). I should probably fight that impulse, though if I found a nice Calathea ornata cheap somewhere, I'd have a hard time resisting.

Hoya NOID.
I don't think I've ever seen a Hoya for sale before that was this loaded with blooms. No ID, though. (Any guesses? UPDATE: Lee, in comments, suggests Hoya nummularioides, which looks like a match from the Google image search results. Thanks!) The flowers were very fragrant, though I didn't entirely like the smell.

Hoya NOID, close-up.
Same plant as above, in the hopes that showing a tighter shot of the flowers would lead to more/better ID guesses.

Kalanchoe tigrina?
Of interest primarily because I've been seeing it forever without knowing what, exactly, it is. I still don't know what it is, but at least I've finally come up with a guess. I would never buy it, because of the aforementioned lighting problems and the fact that about 85% of my experiences with genus Kalanchoe have been bad. Mostly because of lighting. I think.

Monstera adansonii.
I'm not particularly into M. adansonii, but this is an impressively large one.

Neoregelia NOID.
Apparently, this particular variety needs an insane amount of light to maintain its color. This is an old picture, but the plants are still for sale: they've just turned green and are nowhere near as interesting now. This is in the ex-job's greenhouse, which seemed plenty bright when I worked there, so supplying enough light for good color indoors must involve banks of 50 kW lasers or something.

Philodendron bipennifolium.
I had a P. bipennifolium once, and it didn't do well, likely due to inadequate light and humidity. (It didn't actually say what the problem was.) I love the leaf shape, so maybe someday I'll be able to try again.

Not with this particular specimen, though. I didn't check the tag, but I'm sure it must have been like $14,000 or something.

Sansevieria trifasciata 'Bantel's Sensation.'
Didn't need to get this, 'cause I have one (it's been up and down and up again, but it's still alive and producing new growth; currently we're on the upswing), but I was impressed with the size. The only adjustments to this photo were cropping and coloring, but I think it looks more like a real Sansevieria trifasciata when vertically compressed:

Sansevieria trifasciata 'Bantel's Sensation,' 328 x 700 px size. (The above is 328 x 1000 px.)

Schefflera actinophylla NOID.
The last plant I passed up is this yellow Schefflera actinophylla at the ex-job. They told me the cultivar name more than once, but I've forgotten, and I couldn't find it on-line. (I found plenty of names under which people are marketing yellow or chartreuse Schefflera actinophyllas, just not the name they were using for this particular plant. I'm pretty sure I'd recognize it if I saw it again.) I like chartreuse/yellow plants, but again, no money, no room, no light. So I left it.

The one plant I have bought since the last new plants post may be an error in judgment:

Peperomia rugosa.
A lot of the appeal was that I didn't know what it was. The stems looked a lot like those of a cane-type Begonia -- thick, watery, a bit translucent -- and the leaves were wrinkly in the manner of Peperomia caperata but thicker and slightly succulent-feeling, like with some Begonias. There was also a hint of Pilea mixed in there, from the deep grooves running the length of the leaf.

Initially, I assumed that it was probably hard to grow, and declined to buy it on those grounds. Then we went back to the same store a week later, and it looked the same, so I thought maybe this was a recommendation, or at least it was maybe less delicate than I'd originally thought. Also, when I bought it, I was kind of hoping it was an unusually exotic and symmetrical-leaved Begonia, even though I knew that was unlikely.

Of course it wasn't a Begonia. I asked at the UBC Indoor Plants forum, and they told me it was a Peperomia rugosa, which turned out to be correct, damn it. I sort of wish I could take it back, but so far, so good -- after thirteen days, it's only dropped a single leaf, so maybe it has more in common with Peperomias like obtusifolia and clusiifolia (which I do okay with) than with argyreia and caperata (not so much). Time will tell.