Hoya Carnosa Compacta Flowers

I thought I might be able to restrict myself to taking photos of my Hoya carnosa flowers with my phone and just leave it at that... but as you can guess, I can't. You might say, I'm physically incapable of not taking macro photos of these beauties. ;)

This is the first time that I have a Hoya carnosa flower within my reach and I can't let that opportunity slip. So I took my camera with me to the office yesterday and took "a few" "more detailed" photos. ;)

I have to say I am totally fascinated with the plush look of these flowers. I mean... they're like small, pink teddy bears!!!

But, see for yourselves:
























Hoya carnosa compacta flowers on May 16, 2013

Creepy Critters On My Hoya

This is a different Hoya carnosa compacta than the one -> over there, a smaller one that lives on my kitchen window sill. It was a cutting that I got years ago and that hasn't really started to grow until maybe two years ago. No sign of flowers yet, but now it has inherited some creepy critters from the phalaenopsis two pots down to the left.

Usually I treat mealy bugs (you remember them from my passion flowers in the pests section of this blog) with Lizetan, a special chemical that gets absorbed by the plant and eaten by the bugs which then die (poor things... or maybe not!). But orchids are a bit more delicate than other plants and you can't really use any chemical on them. Apart from the fact that they don't have soil in which the tablets could desolve.
So I asked my friends at the plant forum for some other remedies and they told me to put three drops of ethyl alcohol into one litre of water and spray, dowse and even water all affected plants with this.

Before I did this, though, I used the opportunity to take some nice portraits of my subtenants (who don't pay rent and will hopefully soon move out).







I'll keep you updated on whether this treatment works or not. If it does, I'm going to have to update the pest page's section on mealy bugs to include this remedy. It's certainly a lot cheaper, easier to obtain and much healthier for the plants and anyone else coming into contact with them.

Hoya Carnosa Compacta - What Happened So Far

My mom gave me this plant, which resides in a hanging pot, because it got too heavy for the small hook she had it hanging on in her living room window. I took it with me and put it in my office into a south facing window where the pot is now safely hanging on a big and strong metal hook.

The plant had flowered a lot while it was still with my mom, but I wasn't sure if it would survive the move, the cold winter right next to this (admittedly poorly isolated) window and now the direct sun. All of these are big changes to how it lived before. My mom had it hanging in a north facing window where it never gets too cold or too hot, nor did it get direct sun.

But this beauty made the transition without much damage and in May I suddenly found a couple of flower buds developing at the ends of old flower buds from the previous years.




Hoya carnosa compacta flower buds on May 2, 2013

And then, a few days later:



Hoya carnosa compacta flower buds on May 6, 2013

And on May 10 the first ball opened its flower buds:

Hoya carnosa compacta flower buds on May 10, 2013

It smells sweet and every morning when I get to the office I need to open the windows because the scent that has gathered during the night is actually a bit too heavy for my taste.
But they are so beautiful that I wouldn't want to complain about their scent. :)

Q: Why are my Lithops getting smaller every year after they have shed their skin?

A: I must admit, I don't have a definitive answer to that. My Lithops do that, too, and it puzzles me as well.

When a Lithops has grown two (or more) heads instead of one, the new heads are, of course, smaller than the original one.
The two new heads have to share the space inside the old Lithops and even though the old one will probably have grown quite large during the past year, there will still not be all that much space inside for two new heads.

Lithops dorotheae growing two new heads out of one plant (on March 11, 2012)

Once they have shed the old Lithops' skin they will part slightly and from then on lead pretty much a separate life. So the difference in size is perfectly normal in this case and they will catch up within the next year.

Double-headed Lithops dorotheae on December 9, 2012

Another case in which this "shrinking" is perfectly normal is this:
If one buys Lithops in a department- or hardware store or even in some garden centers, they might not have had the best care. Some dealers will push Lithops (water them excessively and give them lots of fertilizer) so they look firm and big when they're being sold. If they're not sold soon and they continue to get this treatment, they will burst, they won't be able to let their old pair of leaves dry up and they might start to rot.
Once we buy these plants, repot them and give them the best treatment possible on our window sills and in our gardens, they will recover from this overfeeding and after the first winter they will grow a smaller body. But this is nothing more than a return to normality.

However, sometimes Lithops seem to get smaller and smaller even though they only grow one new plant body each year and even though they have been in our care for quite some time. I have witnessed this with my Lithops as well.
I'm still trying to figure out why this happens. I have two theories, though.

1. In years when winter temperatures remain very low until early spring, up until April or even May, and there's not much sunshine, Lithops will take very long to shed their old skin. In that case I always wait until the old skin is completely dry before I water them for the first time. So there is not much time left for them to actually grow during spring and summer. So they might remain smaller than the past year.

2. Maybe this slow but continuous reduction in size is a sign that these Lithops aren't watered sufficiently enough. I am always very careful with how much water I give them because I have seen plants that have been watered too much and that have burst as a consequence (the overfeeding mentioned above). I don't want to torture my Lithops like that.
But maybe the amount of water (and also fertilizer) they get is not enough and as a result they don't grow as big as they might have done the year before.

Growing Lithops really is a balancing act and even I'm still just experimenting. ;)

Lithops Otzeniana Looking Good

My Lithops otzeniana, a species I have always had my problems with, are doing just fine at the moment. They still live in my living room on the east facing window sill and they have just (almost) finished growing a new pair of leaves.

I am totally in love with their markings right now. They already look so beautifully like otzenianas.










Lithops otzeniana C280 on May 5, 2013

Lithops Pseudotruncatella var. edithae

These are my Lithops pseudotruncatella var. edithae. They don't have a Cole number and I think they were among the first Lithops seeds I ever bought. I haven't paid much attention to them in the past year, so I thought it was about time to capture their progress.

In terms of markings, I guess, it's still too early to say anything about what they're going to look like. And currently I have to admit that I don't even remember what pseudotruncatellas look like... shame on me! ;)




Lithops pseudotruncatella var. edithae on May 5, 2013

Lone Lithops

There is only one of them, he is a lone Lithops and he's pale... He's my pseudotruncatella var. groendrayensis (C244).
I cannot wait to see how this one will develop, how much paler he will get with time. I already love its color and the cone like form.




Lithops pseudotruncatella var. groendrayensis (C244) on May 5, 2013