I believe they cut some of the leaves so that they are easier to ship - easier to fit more in the box and not so difficult to pack. The plants look perfectly healthy and should do well for you.

They're all growing nicely. :)

The potting mix seems to get dry pretty fast but not at the same time for all of them. Is it because some of them are more thirsty? Is vermiculite a good component for potting hoya? I personally don't have experience with it. For how long can I keep them in those cute little pots before potting them up?

Hi Mima,

Although I've heard Violet Barn's plants are small and expensive, I've also heard they are well grown. I don't get the cutting of leaves. I say put them in a little bigger box and ship them all intact, but I'm not a commercial grower...

I don't like vermiculite myself. I think it retains water too long. I grow mine in coir mixed with perlite, but an all-purpose potting mix with some added perlite also does fine. I use coir just because it doesn't require I repot every couple years, which is important when you have a LOT of plants. When you have a few, it's no big deal...

Best of luck with your new lovelies!

Denise in Omaha

Thanks, Denise!

I use coir for germinating different seeds and for rooting plumeria cuttings. Which btw I didn't have any luck with. With the cuttings I mean. I love germinating new plants, it's so rewarding! And coir works just fine for that.

Regarding the babies from Violet Barn, they came in a huge box with tons of airbags wrapped around a big thermo bag, inside which were the 4 hoyas, each one of them pavked individually. I guess it was enough room in all that setting for the whole leaves. Anyway, they are growing now, that they seem to be out of the initial shock. Hope for the best with them!

Should I repot them or keep them in their small pots longer? They said no need to pot them up for at least one more year.

Mima

Hey Mima, I think your pots are fine. I'm a newbie on the subject of hoyas (and gardening in general) but I've read quite extensively that hoyas like being pot bound. In fact, when I started to grow my clipping -- 'My First Hoya Adventure' -- I used a pot roughly double the circumference of yours. People said my pot was a bit too big.

Anyway, I wish you the best on your hoya adventure! :)

I know they love to be snuggle and warm inside their little houses so that's how I'm going to keep them. So you think these tiny pots could be all right for another year before moving them up then.

Thanks for your warm wishes!

The Pubicalyx that's in the first pic at 10 o'clock and in the second pic on top left came with only 3 leaves. The 4th one on top grew in its new home :) Is that leaf looking normal? Not completely grown yet maybe? I noticed the potting mix hold the moisture for very long. It's vermiculite-based so maybe that's why. I water them once every 6-7 days, that's how long the mox is moist. Could it be dangerous for the babies? Should I change it with a mix without vermiculite? TIA.

Total newbie here but I when I started to root a cutting of my begonia I did cut the first few leaves that grew just to speed up the rooting process especially if the leaf did happen to have some sort of illness or whatever so to not have energy focused on the leaves

probably unnecessary but I did see it somewhere online....

your plants look great btw

Thanks for the support, greedyghost and bkempress!

Indeed, when the package arrived, it was huge. I thought they would be bigger, in such a large box. Too bad they cut small some of the leaves, but I can survive that if they can. :)

Their pots are really tiny, more like 2, maybe 2.5". They are some kind of cardboard stock pots for nursery use. Indeed, some of them get dry faster but that's fine. I have other tropicals that don't need wet feet so Iknow not to overwater.

Oh duh, I'm an idiot. I didn't even pay attention to the pots in the picture. I'm just so familiar with the VB pots that I assumed they were in the azalea pots lol. Yeah, you can move them up to 4" pots if you want, or you can leave them in those for longer. A 2-2.5" pot is a good size for rooting Hoyas and I keep young Hoyas in them for quite a while. In fact, I have a serpens and linearis from VB that I bought... a year ago... and still haven't repotted from those pots. They're ready to be repotted, but have done fine in that size. But the little pots dry out faster and are tippier, so it might be easier for you if you move them up in size sooner rather than later.

Sorry again about not looking at your picture better!

Also sorry for over-explaining about the wet feet. I never know who knows what they're doing and who doesn't. ;P

Oh no, please, no need to apologize for anything! You're right, couldn't have known who knows what :D

You're also right about the instability of the pots! The tallest one, that has grown a long vine and has a metallic stake for supporting the vine has fallen several times and a nice little leaf that was barely growing has been knocked off. :(. Maybe I should pot them up a size...

Btw, what do you all think about the pots here:

http://www.greenhousemegastore.com/category/standard-plastic-pots

Any place else cheaper than here? What about quality? Which ones would you suggest?

I like the clear square ~4" pots from Chula Orchids, personally. They are a bit sturdier than the black ones you linked to, or at least the black ones like that that I have. And good aeration.

I know those pots, they're simply too expensive for my budget. And with an increased shipping from another state... While the others have a warehouse right in California ;)

The black tiny pots are pretty sturdy too. And I wouldn't use them for something big anyway since they are so small. For bigger pots I go to Farrand Ent close to where I live and they have all kind of stuff. They have the small ones too but that small pots are usually sold by case. I don't need hundreds of pots, and I don't have the budget for that either. Unfortunately.

I go to garage sales & thrift stores and look for something, anything to use as a cache pot for those heavy plants/cuttings. I figure that constant toppling isn't good for them, but some of them are just so dang top heavy (and thank goodness for that, as it means they're growing nicely!) A plastic pot just doesn't do it. So I put the light pot into something else. For the very small 2.5" round pots, I buy coffee mugs, which sell really cheap at garage sales. They're also nice because they sit nicely on my window sills, so those little rooted cuttings are good and stable and don't topple off as soon as they dry and the mix becomes light.

Denise in Omaha

I put my babies in 4in clay pots theyre 1 dollar at home depot

I don't think it's a big deal one pot or the other. :) Just make sure it's no bigger than 4" diameter.

I have my rigidas in clay pots as an experiment, but I really struggle with them. It's not bad if you just have a few plants, but plastic is definitely easier if you have a bunch, because they don't dry out as fast. I just couldn't water all my plants twice a week, and that's the pace during the summer in a terra cotta pot, for sure.

Denise, your advice is making me regret getting rid of so many of my excess coffee cups. It also reminds me of this funny piece of art I keep wanting to buy. I bet the sad mug would be happier as a Hoya pot than as a toothbrush holder.

http://society6.com/product/mugs_print#1=45

Indeed, it's not a big deal. For me it's mostly a matter of budget... :(

Mima, just a note. I keep rooting plants out of direct light. If your little windowsill doesn't get much sun, it's not a big deal. But I just like to point out that rooting plants are more likely to dehydrate, and I find if they are in some sun, it's sometimes (not always, mind you) a race to see if it roots first or if the leaves dehydrate first. So keeping them someplace shady seems to speed up the rooting process. Once I see new growth, I put them in a nice, bright spot and they take off!

Denise in Omaha

That makes sense, Denise.

Now about the hydroton. Do I need to soak it first? For how long? I'd try both an almost clear cup and a soda bottle cut in half and the upper half turned upside down, to see which one works better. Hope to have enough hydroton for this. But how long to soak the hydroton? And is it all right to add some hormex to the soaking water?

Then, after soaking, how much water do I need to have in the lower half of the bottle? Is the top half going to actually sit on the bottom, or it needs some room underneath it, to absorb the water through?

Too many questions, but I appreciate your tremendous help!

Mima

Update on the small one in the original posting: the carnosa Crimson Queen I got from the Violet Barn has gone south this week, when I didn't have any time to check on them. Like really bad. I guess the mix containing vermiculite has not been good for her. The others are looking fine though. I want to repot this one, maybe I can still save her. Does she like being watered more or less? I haven't watered her when the mix was still damp, I waited for it to be dry between waterings. I told the others not to water it if they're not sure, better to skip a couple of days. And now it looks so bad...

Thank you in advance for any advice.

I'm sorry you're having trouble with your KQ. T_T

Hoya carnosa likes to dry out between waterings. You don't have to let it go bone dry, but you should be able to stick your finger in a couple inches and feel dry medium. A mature carnosa can endure months without water before starting to look visibly parched. But, you know, sometimes even though it is a durable species and you are following instructions, something still goes wrong, you know?

Can you post a picture so we can see what you're seeing?

Thanks for getting back to me. I am extremely busy now (end of school year) but I will take and post a pic in a couple of days. I repotted all four of them just to be safe. The other 3 seem fine.

I was not letting them to get bone dry or soaked them, just as you said, feel the potting mix being a bit dry under the surface. :)

What is the variegated one called? I wanted to look that one up.

That's carnosa Krimson Queen. Love it so much but unfortunately I think she's a goner now. Thankfully I repotted them on time before the others started showing signs of distress.

I am searching for a nice cutting of Krimson Queen if anybody has one. :)

I just ordered from violetbarn and I was very pleased with my order. They are very well established cuttings and they pack them incredibly well. I think sometimes they trim the leaves so they look prettier (messed up leaf tip for some reason) or in the case of the Hoyas with long leaves, if they didn't cut the leaves, when they tried to package them, the leaves would snap off from being twisted in an unnatural way.

here's a picture of the grab bag trailing violet I got from them. They chose for me and it even bloomed within a week of me having it and I actually REALLY love the blooms. Purple and white striped? I am not a big AV fan so I didn't really know they came like that! The name is a little off putting though, which is maybe why I got one that was close to or in bloom already. "Rob's Humpty Doo" yeah, there's so much wrong with that name lol, but the plant is a great one.

whoa...did I jack this thread or what....sorry guys :(

Still, the others had bigger leaves and they could pack them very well without trimming them. Anyway, the little variegated carnosa died anyway... I think it didn't like the mix of being trimmed with the potting mix. The others put new growth now.

laticauda, I love trailing violets, so I don't mind your jacking at all! :)

mimalf, sorry about your experience with KQ. If you feel comfortable rooting cuttings yourself, send me your email and I'll send you a KQ cutting to replace it. I think there should be a place on my profile to message me since I ticked the box but idunno... maybe not. I'm not used to the new forum features yet.

This is how it looks today. She's a goner, isn't she?

Thank you, greedyghost! I am ok with rooting I guess. I have tested a few cuttings with different rooting media and most of them seem all right. I will try to message you.

Thank you much!

Is there any part of it that's not all papery like that? The base/roots? It doesn't look good from that perspective. The other ones are doing well for you though, right?

I have to be honest, I went the lazy route and left most of my new Hoyas in the original VB pot and mix....it seems like I just don't have to water as often. It looks almost like it's straight vermitculite!

That one is gone. The roots looked ok-ish when I repotted it, even now the stem is still strong but the leaves are all dead. The others are doing just fine, waiting for them to restart growing anytime soon, once they get comfortable in their new pots. :)

If it looks okay it'll probably be fine if you can water the stick right (*correctly*) for long enough. If it's anything like poinsettias.....well, let's just say fortunately, they aren't as hard as poinsettias.

They may cut the leaves while rooting the cuttings. I do it all the time to make the cuttings more likely to root. I've been reduced to rooting all Hoyas in a gallon bag though, so it's not really necessary for them. Anything I'm trying to root in a pot though, for the most part gets its leaves chopped.

Oh, and that Rob's Humpty Doo...I got a pretty good picture of it the other day while I was taking a picture of something else.

I really wish I could crop out those ugly peperomia leaves. It's not the best picture, but shows how cute the blossoms are all lined up in a row. It looks like a purple stripe surrounded by two thinner white stripes with an even thinner purple outline.