Hoya flowers!

Last summer I got a couple hoya plants from Home Depot, just 'cause.  Just 'cause they're pretty and I like plants and they make pretty flowers and stop rolling your eyes Emma it's my house and I can have as many plants as I want.

Ahem, anyway.  So one of the hoya plants that I got was Hoya carnosa compacta, commonly called the Indian rope vine or wax plant.  I had it inside all winter and it didn't do much (conditions in my house in the winter are not exactly the tropical jungle conditions of its forbears' native southeast Asia and India), but when I put it outside this summer it really took off.

I was watering the deck plants when we got back from vacation on August 22, and what did I see?! Buds!



An itty bitty little group of buds on a peduncle (flower spur)!  I've never bloomed a hoya before, and I was so excited that I ran for the camera.  As I was taking the picture, I saw this!



Another peduncle!  With lots of buds!!

I was so excited.  By August 30, the bigger cluster looked like this.  Well defined now, and looking like they are ready to pop any moment.



And then... and then... on September 5, they opened!



The bigger cluster, anyway.  The smaller bunch still hasn't opened.  You can see why it's called Indian rope vine- the leaves are so crinkled and close to the stem that it doesn't look very leafy.



The clusters can form a nearly complete sphere of flowers.



The flowers are so pretty.  They are waxy and substantial, but the surface is covered with little hairs that make them look like velvet.



They are also scented, though I don't find the fragrance of this species particularly pleasant.  It's somewhat reminiscent of chocolate, but just a bit off.  Sort of musky chocolate, and a bit cloying.

I'm so thrilled that one of my hoyas bloomed.

A quick note

I have a couple cacti in bud right now, but this one is the closest to blooming. This is Echinopsis subdenudata, a first bloomer for me, and one of the flower buds is getting hugely tall!  It's a night-blooming species, and I'm thinking that tonight or tomorrow may be the night.



Also of note today is my Hoya subcalva cutting that I got off eBay in July.  It rooted within the first week after I stuck it in the pot (yay!) and then pretty much sat there looking exactly the same for two months.



But yesterday, I noticed that there is a new growth starting!  Hurrah!

New stuff

So I mentioned that I might have a bit of a problem with plants?  Here are the result of a couple incidents of  late night online plant discussion forum browsing and subsequent eBaying.

On the left is a cultivar of Thanksgiving cactus named Inca Sun- it will have spectacular yellow flowers.  On the right is an un-rooted cutting of Hoya subcalva.  Hopefully this will root and in a couple years I should have flowers. The flowers are very pretty, but the best part is that they smell like grape juice.  Grape juice!  I can't wait.



[Note:  I restrained myself to one Thanksgiving cactus and one hoya from eBay. This was not because I was particularly strong and/or rational, it was because 1) I already have three Thanksgiving/Easter cacti, and 2) I got two hoyas (H. compacta and H. lacunosa 'Snow Caps') from Home Depot a couple weeks ago.]

All the rest of the plants I bought this week were desert cacti.  The cactus group is so incredibly varied, with such cool architectural forms.



I find myself gravitating to the ones with few spines, or ones where the spines lie very flat to the body of the plant.

This first one, Echinocereus pectinatus rubrispinus, was what I saw on the discussion forum that sent me scurrying off to eBay.  Isn't this great?!  Pink pectinate (comb-like) spines!  Pectinate spines are my very favorite.



Then there's this one, Thelocactus bicolor ssp. schwarzii, which has two-tone spines and came with several buds.



This one, Gymnocalycium horstii, has spines that are few but lethal.  Luckily they are easily avoided.



This one, Echinocereus reichenbachii v. minor, is another pectinate species. 



This one, Echinofossulocactus multicostatus, is very cool.  It looks pleated.



And lastly, this is Astrophytum asterias.  This was the second species that sent me scurrying off to eBay.  This cactus is reminiscent of a sea urchin shell!



All these have very pretty flowers, but that's a bonus because I like them just as well when they're not blooming.  Each one is so unique.

The nerd in me loves how all the Latin and Greek word roots in the scientific names are so descriptive.  If you know the roots, you can get a good idea what the plant looks like without even seeing it.  Plus it just tickles me how these long descriptive names end up being bigger than the plants themselves.