Hello all, I have been having the same issues. Let me recount my story for you. I planted zucchini eight ball squash, yellow crooked neck squash, and butternut squash. They were all doing awesome and producing a lot of fruit. Then the snails arrived. They were eating all my fruit so I bought some natria slug and snail killer. Worked like a charm. I was watering the plant for 10 minutes 2 times a day, in the morning and in the evening. This brought out the white mold on the leaves. I tried using a milk and water mixture to spray the leaves as well as cutting off all the infected leaves. This kind of worked, but I have been battling it for 2 months, but not seriously trying. I cut the watering back to 1 time a day in the morning for 10 minutes. Recently I have switched it to 3 times a week for 10 minutes. But what I have noticed is that the new leaves yellow and quickly turn brown and die. What would be causing this? I have checked for vine borers by slitting open some leaf stems but I found nothing. Here are some more pictures. Whole garden New green leaves, yellow on the outside and dead leaves around the plant Lemon cucumber plants. Started out great and now leaves started yellowing and just now they are starting to brown Heres is a little bug hat I've seen around my plants...it looks like a discolored lady bug. Anything to worry about? Thanks! This post was edited by paperslammer on Fri, Sep 5, 14 at 11:27

The quality, and specifically, the pH and type of minerals (or lack thereof) found in your tap water will affect the type of color change that happens to various vegetables during the cooking process. My tap water here is naturally very hard and alkaline, and it discolors many vegetables badly unless I acidify it with vinegar, lemon juice, or sour salt prior to cooking or soaking. Usually, I try to avoid boiling vegetables in tap water for this very reason, preferring instead to steam them in their own juices or just a bit of bottled distilled water. You might find that you get somewhat better color retention in beans and other items if you add acid to the water. It won't completely stop the loss of color, because many of the plant pigments are naturally water soluble and will leach out, but it helps somewhat. With beans, too, remember one other thing is playing out as you soak them -- they pick up water and expand quite a bit. As a result, the seed coat stretches out, diluting the pigmentation. It's kind of like writing on a balloon with a magic marker and then blowing it up -- the writing becomes more and more spread out and lighter in color the bigger the balloon gets. At least that is my take on it.

Hang in there - the Pachy leaves are truly beautiful as they grow. I just kept my seedlings inside my sunroom this summer since nights are pretty cool in Colorado. Also got some H. fungii seeds started from Sue resulting in about 30 plants around the same time. Now I suspect a little interference from a different parent?? as they have a noticeable carnosa-look with some long vines. Can see the risk in growing from seed that the offspring may not grow true to the parent. But these H. pachyclada look pretty darn identical to H. pachyclada.

Alexis, check out these threads: http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/hoya/msg090019167294.html http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/hoya/msg0921115413324.html http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/hoya/msg100027501688.html People gave me some good advice there about hoya wayetii and another one from Exotic Angel, and I've also learned a lot and reported stuff there that I believe will be useful to you. > I'd suggest removing parts that are really damaged I wouldn't - not for this particular plant. Some of my H. wayetii leaves have mechanical damage from the store and more that I've added (leaves getting caught under the pot or between the pot and the wall or whatever). Part of the leaf dries out to a crisp, but the rest of the leaf looks green and healthy on this plant - and those leaves are doing their photosynthesis job for the plant. You can snip off the ugly parts for cosmetic reasons later when it's clear the plant will survive, but for now every functioning part counts, I think. > See how the crown is stripped of leaves? As long as the stem itself is alive and the conditions are right, new leaves and vines will come out of the nodes and the existing vines will get longer. I do not see new growth on my wayetii coming out of the ground - it all comes out of the existing nodes and on the new vines. My plan is to fill out the plant more with its own cuttings once the vines get longer than I want them to be. Give it a lot of light - maybe not direct sun right now as it is recovering (although it's fall, so "direct sun" ain't what it used to be). You will see in the threads I've linked how important I found light to be in my experiments on this and other hoya. I am debating whether to suggest to bag this plant. Perhaps somebody else can chime in on this. Bagging (or enclosing into a container with clear plastic top) helps it preserve more moisture and grow some roots quicker. But there are fewer leaves now on the plant than it was used to supporting - so maybe loss of moisture through leaves is not gonna be a problem here. Anyone? If you do bag it, note that it will need significantly less water in that case. Leave holes in the bag, air it out periodically and watch for stale smells. Keep us posted on how it does. I am personally very optimistic from the looks of it that you'll be able to save many of those vines.