Congratulations, Mike!!! I sure hope to see blooms on my lambii sometime soon. I do have peduncles on a lot of my hoyas...but, they've been blooming quite well all winter. I found a peduncle on my shepherdii today...first time for this plant...the first time is always exciting....I also have a peduncle on davidcummingii...it's close to blooming for the first time. But, none of these are as exciting as lambii....way to go!! Fondly, Patrick

Mike, oh I wish mine would flower.At least its bin growing non stop all winter so maybe this will be its lucky year.
You have the magic touch with lambii.

Cindy

Mike,

Congrats on your lambii flower. It is really nice, special! Another one for my wish list!

Mitzi

Beautiful picture!

Nice flower, Mike.
I also like the bamboo support.
The texture works well.

Josh

Lambii is expensive! LOL, too much to loose!

Mike how do you think the flowers on H. lambii smell??? To me it has a strong hint of vanilla along with a bit of spice but I still haven't put my finger on what the spice might be!!! It's my favorite hoya fragrance of of course everyone already know;'s that it's my favorite hoya!!!

David

On my list too. Does yours have a IML # Mike? I love greenish flowers and buds. It reminded me of some Serpens bloom photos that I saw last night. Any special growing requirements for this one? Do you happen to have a full length photo of that beaut. I wouldn't mind seeing the leaves.

I am still awaiting my order from SRQ. Unfortunately I cannot find much info about Rigida online.

-David

Thanks for the nice comments everyone.

David Michael I think the blooms smell like Brassavola orchids but without the heavy mushy scent, kinda sweet smoky vanilla. I love that Hoya lambii's blooms are fragrant during the day. This is definitely one of my favorite Hoyas, an amazing plant in every way.

David my plants IML # is 1046. This Hoya has large leaves so when you get a cutting it needs very high humidity to root or the cutting wilts. Some people will trim half the cutting's leaves to reduce water loss but mine rooted fine in a warm sealed aquarium with some additional misting.
This Hoya is a serious climber and it wants to grow straight up so you need a tall trellis or even just a thick bamboo stake. The leaves form a funnel that catches organic debris and they often house ants in nature. The leaves look best if you don't try to manipulate the plant around a smaller trellis and just allow the plant to climb straight up as high as you can. This is a warm grower and it likes bright light but direct sun can burn the leaves.

Oh if you are thinking about Hoya rigida I say buy it, great plant with huge leaves and it is supposed to be very fragrant. My plant is still just a cutting but one of the leaves it came with is larger than my hand.

Here is a photo of the bottom portion of my plant. The bamboo trellis if five feet tall and I will be adding a straight bamboo pole to add another three of four feet this summer as the plant grows taller.

I grow my plant in a plastic pot that sits in an old piece of stoneware that is glazed on the inside surface. There is an area about an inch deep in the bottom below where the plastic pot sits and I keep this full of water. Once my plant started to grow it sent roots down into the water an the plant seems to really enjoy this. The mix in the pot is medium fir bark with a little potting soil and perlite, a nice open mix.

Mike

Great mix!

Josh

The leafs of my rigida looks different from yours Mike

Carolyn my Hoya rigida is on the left in this photo. There are several different forms of rigida and yours looks like the one that is sometimes described as having spoon shaped leaves. I believe that the Apodagis and Epiphytica sites show these Hoyas.

Mike

Mike,

Carolyn should be me? Mitzi? LOL

Mitzi

Sorry Mitzi I thought I recognized your photo as one Carolyn had posted in the past, must be the dragonfly clips you use.
If you look at the leaf veins you will see the resemblance between our plants even though the leaves seem to be quite different in shape. Notice the strong central vein as well as the two parallel veins that emerge near the base of the leaf. My plants leaves are succulent and fleshy feeling but your plants leaves look very hard, a nice looking Hoya.

Mike

Peanut, hoya rigida is a VERY fast growing hoya and is quite easily rooted if you are starting with un rooted cuttings. Once it takes hold and begins to grow give it plenty of space as it will become a monster sized plant in little to no time!!! If you search on GW for threads I have started you should be able to find many with pics of my H. rigida in bloom.

It's also like Mike D says rigida leaves are quite varied in size and shape. I have several clones from David Liddle as well as a few others from Thailand

david

Mike,

This kind of leaves are the ones that always resists to the long trip!

Mitzi

All of the rigida are beautiful! I haven't been disappointed yet. If I had to limit myself to one type, this would definitely be it.

Whoa bold statement. That's what happens when I drink caffeinated tea.

Mike, I love your lambii photo. Very unusual and beautiful composition, with it peering and pirouetting around the bamboo.

Mike: Wonderful and just beautiful. I can't wait to see what else you have. I love it.

Thank you for sharing with us. Quite a nice looking bunch of flowers. I can only hope I get some.

Mike

I think I will try your idea on one of mine Mike. The plant in the pot into a container of water.

Once the roots are grown as you show into the water, do you cut them off and keep that plant in the same pot?
If not, how do you up size in pot without having to cut all those roots exposed into the water? I would love to give this a try.

Thanks Mike. Just beautiful and such a good mix too:-)

Mike

Mike you will need to be sure that the water level is low enough so that the bottom of the pot is never in contact with the water. The high humidity between the pots coaxes the roots to grow down into the water and as long as you change the water once every week or two the roots stay healthy. The pot I have my plant in is a 6" and it is as large as I will go with this Hoya. The outer pot needs to taper enough that the inner pot can not reach the bottom, some pots have a lip near the bottom to help hold the inner pot up but these are hard to find. The extra root growth and the easy availability of water must be what causes my lambii to bloom so often, this is one of my most frequent bloomers.

Mike

NICE Lambii Mike!! Very cool blooms!

Not the best photo but I was too lazy to light the buds properly and back lighting was obviously not the best choice. I promise to take a good photo when the buds open.

Hoya pachyclada.

Mike

I kind of like soft back lighting. It makes me feel like the shot was taken in heaven. Which is basically my mental state while ecstatically photographing new buds.

Can't wait to see the follow ups. Right now they rather look like alien belly buttons.

Here is a pic of my recently acquired Rigida. It has 3 large leaves with 3 other small leaves forming.

Here are a few non Hoya blooming additions.
{{gwi:511668}}
{{gwi:511670}}
{{gwi:511671}}

Thanks for sharing everyone and thanks for looking.

-David

David I can't help but think that it looks like someone planted a big kiss on that rigida leaf. Nice plants.

Mike

I love the pachyclada buds! They're so round!

David, the mark on the rigida is really cute!

Very sweet plants. They all look kissable (although you know I'd go for the rigida first).

Well my Hoya pachyclada started to open it's blooms last night but today when I went to water the older leaves looked wrinkled and the flowers were obviously about to drop. I think it's time to repot this one so that it hold moisture a little longer than it does now. All this sunny weather really seems to dry this plant out fast.

My Hoya lasiantha is flowering like crazy right now so that more than makes up for the failings of a few others. I had to put a splint along the stem because the weight of the blooms was twisting the stem upside down.

The blooms are a fantastic bright orange colour, really eye catching.

There are two more sets of buds developing along the stem.

The first set of buds to open are getting ready to fall.

A couple close ups

Mike

Wonderful! Thanks for providing the full progression of pictures. They're just magnificent. My heart is now heartily aching that I don't have this plant. ^_^

Mike,Thanks for sharing your photos.I love the colour on this hoya.Mine is budding up also, now cant wait for my flowers to open.Is there any fragrance?

Cindy

OH MY GOSH! They're gorgeous! Just recently got lasiantha for the second time...keeping my fingers crossed!

Beautiful, Mike!

I can tell you're starting to get "oh it's no biggie" about your flowers, because you're relaxed enough to take artistic shots. Whereas I'm still at the point where I drop my camera three times, kick over a bucket of water and knock the plant off the shelf b/c I'm so nervous the blooms are going to fall off or implode before I hit the shutter.

hahahahaha....greedyghost...you are just like me....i'm shaking when i'm taking the pics because i'm afraid of god knows what happening! hahahahahaha...thanks for the good laugh!

Wow Mike...those are absolutely GORGEOUS!! Love, love those orange blooms. Thanks so much for posting them...great pictures!

Lol GG...that was hilarious! I too enjoyed the "visual" and had a good laugh over it :o)

GG I try to be as calm as possible while taking photos but believe me I am not a calm person. LOL

I routinely spill water on the floor, knock plants over and all that stuff. For example while carrying my big basket of Hoya lacanosa 'Ruby Sue' yesterday I stepped on one of the longest vines and ripped the end off. I was not happy with myself at all but because I did not end up removing any peduncles I got over it pretty quickly. I am glad Hoyas are forgiving because I have accidentally broken off more new growth that I care to remember.

Thanks Kelly I hope you do well with your lasiantha. Do you know what the problem was last time, was it the rooting process?

Mike

Mike,

The last one was REALLY stressed from shipping. Oddly praetorii was in the same order and not nearly as stressed!

This time the cutting was beautiful and REALLY big, so I cut it into three pieces, hoping it will increase the odds of rooting!

With these larger, thin leaf hoyas do you ever cut the leaves in half when rooting or is transpiration not as much of a concern when in a really humid aquarium?

Also, at what point with single stem hoyas do you take cuttings to make a fuller plant? Still haven't hacked up the bean-stalk lobbii yet! Thinking I need to do this with several plants though!

Kelly

Kelly,

Where did you buy your hoya?

Mitzi

Great pics, Mike.

My Obovata is just about to bloom.

Josh

Thanks Pug. :)

Kelly I just kept this one really warm and moist while rooting, sealed up in a covered aquarium with a heat pad underneath and very high humidity.
My plant has three growth points that all go off in different directions. I am going to have to take cuttings some time this season because my plant is taking up too much space. I think it all depends on how much room we have to grow our plants but I usually cut mine when they start to get tricky to move or otherwise start to become too large for the space I have them in. The photos are of the longest growth and the others have always dropped their peduncles before they had a chance to bloom.

Thanks Josh and congratulations on the obovata buds!

Mike

Thanks, Mike!

Mitzi,
Those came from Aleya.

Kelly

I almost forgot about the question concerning the scent of lasiantha's flowers. I checked both late last night and today during the brightest and warmest part of the day and there is not much scent to speak of. I can detect a slightly sour orange rind type scent, citrus but sour and not a light warm type of scent.

Mike

Thanks Mike for that info on fragrance.I was hoping for something nice but I will have to be happy with how beautiful the flower is.

Cindy

Your lasiantha is just beautiful, and I agree with everyone else, the photography is wonderful.

Other pictures I've seen of lasiantha must not have done it justice, I didn't realize how attractive the flowers actually are.

Thanks Rennfl. :)

I think I like this one so much because it's flowers are thoroughly unusual but still beautiful.

Mike

Mike,

Beautiful pictures, but I can't watch too much! LOL, because this one is one that I think wont make the long trip!

Mitzi

Your right Mitzi this is a very tricky one to get in the mail because the leaves are so thin. I got my plant from Thailand in 8 days but I don't think it could have survived much more. Hopefully one day you will get to grow this one.

Mike