In the course of the year I feel I have learned a lot about growing hoyas - from my own experience and from my visit to Liddle's Nursery in September last year. And even more, I have learned how much I don't know! "… My awareness of what I don't know increases with regards to the answers I am looking for questions for." (If anyone can figure that out, can you write to me -- in private?…I need to know.)

It has dawned on me just how important air circulation is for hoyas. Seldom, in the forest, is the air completely still. Especially those hoyas found near streams, rivers and waterfalls are used to the cooler moist air created by the flow of water. My take is that's why hoyas grow so happily when we put them outdoors. In the greenhouse it sometimes gets very still, and only then (our electricity is .$27/kwh!) do I turn on fans, faced towards a wall where it can ricochet.

We have also added runners of old carpet in the greenhouse. With them nice and wet, the humidity stays higher when we get those hot dry Kona winds from the west. NO, the smell is NOT that bad!!

So far our winter has been dry, but there has been regular snow on Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa (they are 13,000+ feet high). Nights in the lower 60's and days 75-80. Quite pleasant! With the cool, rainy evenings we light a fire in the wood stove …dries us out a bit and it is so pleasant!! The plants definitely know that spring is almost here.

I had a number of NOIDs bloom this winter. They turned out ot be H. chlorantha, H. pentaphlebia, H. halophila, H. pimentelliana (fragrant!), and a couple of others. Very exciting! All of these will be on this Spring's sales list (plus some I forgot last year…ooops!)

Hoya Compendium
You may have noticed the Photo Compendium, a new feature on my website. Presently there are 72 different hoyas listed and new ones being added all the time. I have tried to make it a bit scientific with a fixed format of plant, umbel and flower views. Bob does the photography and writes the code to make it work. He's got it now so you can select various hoyas and compare them on the same page. Soon you will be able to upload your own photos for comparison.

Personal Notes
The picture below is Louise and Bob. Louise weighs 90 pounds and enjoys a bedtime story

If anybody is interested, Bob made a map of the new property and the plantings to just give our far-flung kids and friends some idea of what we do to keep ourselves out of the bars. Below is Bob working on the 22nd huge truck load of cinder/dirt/gravel.

Well…that's about it from this rock in the middle of the ocean.

I sign off with a wonderful greeting I received from a friend for the Holidays:

"Do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am -- a reluctant enthusiast . . . a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it's still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much: I promise you this one sweet victory over those desk-bound men with their hearts in a safe deposit box and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this: you will outlive the bastards".

Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire
:: ©2003 Environmental Defense

Aloha nui loa -
Carol