u/Sokkas_Instincts_

When the plan was to stop at reputably good plant nursery then go to the splash park, but the plant nursery was WAYYYY more spectacular than you expected.

This is for my son. I need to reposition the car shade, but the windows will be all the way down. They’ll be ok for a few more minutes of play.

I’m trying to learn macrame, and I bought this pattern from Etsy. It’s a disjointed, horrible pattern, but I’m also new at macrame. It’s hard to figure out if I’m just too much of a newb to understand, or if it genuinely doesn’t make sense.

What’s killing me about this picture, is the number of cords around the pot.

Each cord is supposed to be doubled and looped through a ring at the top in a lark knot.

No matter how much many cords you double and loop through the ring, that’s supposed to leave an even number of tails to work with around the pot, right?

I count 15 cord and I can’t figure out how that’s even possible.

Actually, as I write this, the more I see the more I’m convinced the whole entire pattern was AI created, and I feel like an old middle age idiot for falling for it.

I never see globulosas looking bushy in a pot like obovatas or carnosa. All I ever see is one or two long weird stalks.

Mine is two different plants in one pot. They grow super fast, and are very rooty and this one needs to be repotted pretty bad already. I want to see how to style them and what kind of pot I should put them in next.

I have a lot of plants but I shied away from alocasias. But my sister got one and wanted me to grow one with her, so I got a frosty one from Lowe’s yesterday. (I told her if I got one, it would *have* to be one of those frosty types, ok?) None of them looked that good, and they are all in this soft peat. I know that’s probably not the best for it, but I’m terrified to repot it.

It does need repotting, right? I think I’m going to repot it like my xanthosoma, a layer of pon on the bottom and then a chunky organic mix at the top, inside of a net pot and cache pot set up.

I also got the heaviest of nutrients already for my anthurium.

I got the how downpat, I think, but not the when. Do I wait, or do it asap? It’s outside because it’s very warm and humid here. It’s on my covered west facing porch for right now, which is further protected by a shade screen tarp thing, so it’s getting good bright afternoon light without it being direct sunlight.

My instincts are urging me to get it out of that peaty monstrosity. Some of the leaves had already died when I got it. But it was getting barely any light at the store.

This is my Hoya mathilde. I have a bunch of Hoyas but I never had a bloom before.

How long between this point and blooms?

I made sure to keep her reservoir from drying out. Also I slipped her a little extra bloom stuff in her regular nutrient solution. I sprayed her with orchid spray the other day.

Now we wait? Is this like the way they sit with peduncles forever before they do anything, or are we close?

I received 6 cuttings (5 of which survived my incompetence) and rooted them in water for several months until they had nice long established roots.

After a while, they started to get too wide for the narrow propagation vessels they lived if. So decorated my smallest self watering pot, because my research says they’re somewhat thirsty, and because they would make great hair, and planted them in some chunky orchid bark, tree fern fiber, perlite, and a little sphagnum moss mix, since my research says they’re epiphytic.

Now, how can I make them start their journey toward being bushier? I’m assuming by propagating more leaves to pot in the pot. But the cutting leaves I received narrowed down to a little stem at the bottom, and the roots grew out of those almost invisible little nodes on the narrow little stem.

I guess I don’t understand the growth pattern and where I would cut to make a new cutting, and at what point in their growth patterns. I only see tiny nodes on the stems. They seem to only grow wider and they have developed new berries off and on.

Added pics from all angles because my research says that you may be able to, like, cut up a leaf. I’m skeptical, because I don’t see what counts as nodes on the leaves themselves, but if that’s true, tell me which leaf to cut up.

Last pic is of goals from the listing pic from Etsy where I got it. How does a few cuttings become that?

I received this about a month ago. It came in nothing but a little plug, but it wasn’t a “death” plug, I got some of the firmly packed peat off, and then I potted it in a very chunky mix in the smallest pot I have.

It only had 2 bottom leaves, but the top green one was in progress when I got it. It spent some time in my plant hospital. Which is like a heated terrarium set up. But I’m not sure how much heat the McDowell like. It finished pushing out the pending 3rd leaf in there, but then the two original leaves looked bad.

I can’t quite read the drooping leaves. I can’t tell what it wants. Should I just leave it in the heated terrarium longer, or does it do better in ambient conditions?

Disclaimer: The white stuff is some remnants left over from rooting powder I gave it when I potted it up, not pests.

Also: it’s so much smaller than I expected. Is it tissue cultured?

Claire on The Jungle Haven on YouTube posted a short yesterday. Today, I am still gobsmacked over the size of this xanthosoma lindenii that was at one of the locations she visited, and I needed to share.

I think she said it was at the Heliotropic Carousel.

We never thought we’d make it this far! I didn’t know she was getting that long because that tendril hangs behind my computer. She’s also low-key trying to do that little reachy thing that happy Hoyas do with their tendrils.

I struggled with the curtisii, and this is my second one. I got this one from Lowe’s and it looked moderately ok with a lot of dying leaves here and there on it

I will put the long rambling info below in case anyone also struggles with these, (I know some do, and then others have absolutely no issue with it whatsoever). We found success when I modified my new succulent approach: I switched it immediately out of its nursery soil and into some pon after I got her home.

She is my first plant that I started experimenting with pH on. I mixed a few crushed oyster shell that they use for chickens in the pon.

About 50% of yall in here say they are THIRSTY and the other 50% of yall say she HATES water, so I didn’t know where to go with this. 😩.

To me, she seems to lean toward hating water in my care. I had put her in a wicking self watering pot, but she HATED the reservoir. But I was not about to repot this diva AGAIN so soon. I ended up removing the reservoir and sitting the whole pot on a terra-cotta dish, the kind that comes with the terra-cotta pots. It dries the wick out fast. But i was afraid she would start shriveling. I ended up giving her a sip of water at the top twice per week, based on how fine, short, and delicate, I found the roots to be from my last curtisii.

After all those steps were in place, she went from trying her level-headed best to rot and die, and she immediately stopped dropping leaves. I kept going with this, and before I knew it, there were tiny points of new growth at the end of her vines!??

After about six months, I decided to try her reservoirs again. This time she didn’t get mad about it. 😳

And suddenly we have the top filling out and trails!

So anyway, my best guess is that they differ so much in people’s care based on the conditions and the hardness or softness of water they have in their house.

Anyway, don’t stop trying on a difficult plant that you like. Every one that dies on you, that’s that much more of a learning experience to lend towards your next one.

I officially dub the Hoya curtisii as no longer my most difficult Hoya.
I reserve that spot for the Hoya sigillatis round leaf. 😒

Would you prefer the McDowell or the Gloriosum?

Do they do ok under grow lights? I know the need space to crawl.

I saw one at a good price on Etsy and got convinced to try one.