I did find evidence of mealy bugs, but none of the pests anywhere..

These were literally the only two locations on the plant though, so I wouldn't call it an infestation. Could they be attacking the roots? I only had mealy bugs on a plant once before, I searched every leaf and got the suckers with rubbing alcohol and a cu-tip.

I also noticed some tiny flys which i suspect are hatching out of the new mix that I used. I'm not sure if they attack roots either though. I've been pulling my hair out trying to figure out what the best course of action is.

-keiko

Thanks for the response! The base is so far gone I was thinking that might be the only option :(

Here's what I had in mind:

-snip at every other node, giving two nodes per cutting
-not removing any leaves(?)
-bury the first node as far as I could get it without covering the leaves

(there are about three nodes in a row without leaves though, not sure what I should do there)

How does that sound? Each cutting would get it's own 4in pot.

I wonder if the outter, decorative pot is too tight fitting. There is definitely no airflow. I was always amazed that it seemed perfectly fine in it's soil-less mix getting water only once a week.

Hi Keiko, yeah, too little water or too much water, it leads to the same thing - the death of the root system, and the plant shriveling in that way, from the bottom up.

Obviously Doug has the right advice and your plan is sound. You don't have to section the plant up into several cuttings unless you want to for insurance.

I went through this with an elliptica this weekend and I just cut vine from the bottom until I got to a healthy section, where the vine wasn't shriveled and it bled well, and stuck it into my rooting medium up to the lowest node.

I can't tell from your pictures if you actually have mealies. When you touched the white spots was it sticky fluffy stuff or was it dry and chalky? It just looks like dried sap to me. Yes, there are soil mealy bugs and foliar mealy bugs, but they are two different creatures from different families. (Technically, there are many different soil mealies and many different foliar mealies.) My point, though, is that if you see mealy bugs hanging out on your vines and leaves, these same bugs won't also be in the soil. Of course, you could have two infestations going on at the same time, but that would just be bad luck!

The fungus gnats won't hurt your Hoya. Technically they do eat plant roots (as well as algae and fungus in the potting media), but they die off when you let the medium dry out, so they aren't a serious concern for Hoya people like us. But they are a sign that this pot has been too damp for too long. So, that's not good. You don't necessarily need to repot the healthy Hoya, since it's survived the ordeal, but you should let it dry out well and be watchful of how that decorative pot affects its water retention. Could be you just had a wonky period with your watering, or it could be the wrong setup. You just have to keep an eye on the situation and if that plant is routinely drying out slower than all the ones next to it, change the medium or the cache pot.

To me, that also looks like dry sap, not mealies, alive or dead. Try scaling it off with your fingernail - if it crusts off easily with no stickiness or cottony feeling to it, and almost no white left, then it's dry sap.

Thanks everyone! I've made a cutting out of the vine that was going down hill and left the surviving plant alone. I'm giving it lots of time to dry out, I think my room mate may have watered it (but she can't remember) leading to a double watering at some point. I haven't pinned down the source of the gnats but good point about using that as an indicator that the soil is too moist. I guess this is why some people discourage the weekly routine and suggest watering by the weight of the pot (or by testing moisture with a finger).

I'm in Seattle, the city where it always rains, so we are relatively humid and cool. That may have caused it too. Though the gnats may be coming from some of my other plants like Jasmine sambac, which i believe prefers not to dry out as much as Hoya do :)