Hi Mama Z, Pls. not these are NOT Jade plants, given the name you've provided. Generally, we suggest that pots for succulents are just 1-2" (maximum 2") in diameter larger than the rootball. My sense is a WIDE, SHALLOW pot will not be good for this, may hold too much soil which may bring back too wet close to rot issues. No, pls. don't cover the drainage holes, that's what they're there for, to drain. I'm sorry, I DO see you plan to hang the plant. Pots for hanging plants usually have a saucer for this purpose. I suggest you attach a saucer to whatever hanging set up you will use. FYI, I use rounds of newspapers several layers thick to line the inside of my pots & while water comes out the bottom when I water, soil does not. I'd wait 4 days to a week, when they're really DRY. When you pot it up DON'T WATER IT IN. Pls. wait a week to water, to let the plant/roots heal.

Hi, Jon. The age of the plant makes no difference. We tend to think of the age of plants in the same manner we think of age in humans or animals - chronologically. We, like plants, go through several life stages - embryonic, juvenile, adolescent (intermediate in plants), and mature are stages roughly mirrored in plants. Where we vary greatly is in the way our cells age. In animals, body cells all mature at approximately the same speed. Plants grow by consecutive divisions of cells at the growing points (meristems), so their various parts are different ages (the top of the plant is younger than the basal portion, chronologically). So, if the plant has reached a sufficient age to have mature tissues, vegetative cloning can occur from 3 of the 4 phases I listed above (embryonic excluded for the purpose of what I'm talking about). So, the age of cloned plants is not the chronological age of the parent plant, but the age (or phase if you will) of the portion of the plant from which the cutting was taken. To further confuse you, dormant buds retain the ontogenetic age of their origin. In plants, the more times a cell has to divide to make the tissue, the older it is. This is termed the ontogenetic age and the most recently formed tissue is the oldest, ontogenetically. With this in mind, imagine this: Take a cutting from the basal part of a plant (remember, this formed first & dormant buds retain the age of the tissue at the time they were formed, so the cutting will be immature, but vigorous) and a cutting from the upper portion (this is the older tissue). Let's imagine the cuttings strike (make roots) and begin growing at the same time. The basal cutting will take much longer to flower and fruit because it is taken from a portion of the plant that remains in juvenile phase, while the other cutting will be quick to flower/fruit, because it was taken from mature tissue.. Since juvenile cuttings are more vigorous, it's best to take cuttings from the lowest parts of the plant to help insure a high % of strikes, but fastest flower/fruit can be had by taking branch end-cuttings from upper parts of the plant, at the expense of a lower strike rate. The reason basal suckers root so readily is that they arise from dormant tissues that retain a young ontogenetic age, making them juvenile and vigorous. Al

Hoyas are tough. That's why we can mail cuttings through the mail with no problems. So I wouldn't worry too much about the move. As for the problems you're having, are you putting your plants (and rooted cuttings) in smallish pots? Too much soil for the root system is hard on Hoyas. They need to be somewhat potpound to be happy. And the soil needs to be a very loose soil mix. In the wild, most of them grow up trees and root in debris (bark, twigs, decomposing leaves) in the crotches of trees, where water just washes through and doesn't linger. So keeping that in mind, make your mix as airy as possible. It's better to have a mix with some bark and/or perlite added that dries out faster so you have to water more often than to have a heavy mix that will suffocate the roots. Good luck with your move to Alaska. (And with your new cuttings...) Denise in Omaha

i consider stuff non-viable when it turns brown and dies .. lol .. anything short of that ... what do you have to lose???? stick in soil or water.. in a baggie and give it a go .... most 'green thumbs' live under the the theorem of 'just try it' ..... and my theory is .... 'don't overthink it all' .... ken