I followed David around like a puppy - and he generously shared his knowledge and experience. Iris Marie (yep…the IML number is her initials) really is in charge of the hoya houses-does the propagating, cuts and labels for the orders received (last year they shipped 3500 meters of hoya cuttings….that is over 2 miles of vines). She does all of this and works full time as a teacher for special ed. children. David had an encounter with the barbwire fence a few months ago that was devastating…he is recovering well…but the nerve damage lingers and is painful. With all this, it is just the two of them that run the whole operation.

The first encounter with 'reality' was bringing a box of hoya and plumeria cuttings and orchid flasks from Hawaii into Australia. The Australian Quarantine Inspection Service knew to expect me/box and I was "whisked thru" (except I was last in line, so I cleared after midnight!). The next day I went to Cairns with David for the inspection. After every single cutting was inspected with sharp eyes, AQIS took the box to be gassed. We picked the box up in the afternoon, took them back up to Liddle's quarantine house in Mareeba and unpacked them. After they had a chance to breathe overnight their ends were wrapped in wet long fiber sphagnum moss and they were laid on a tray in the misting box. Even with all of this TLC, many of the cuttings lost their leaves…the gassing really stresses them. Those cuttings will stay in the quarantine house until they produce new viable grow and show no signs of virus (approx. 12 weeks). David says that bringing new plants into Australia is very chancy…there is 20-25% mo rtality rate because of the gassing.

The Liddles live on 12 acres at Emerald Creek (near Mareeba) on the tablelands above Cairns in Northern Queensland. It is an area of Eucalyptus, Acacias and lots of wild life. Folks clearing land, planting orchards and raising cows are surrounding them. All of this activity has driven the wildlife onto their property that has become a bit of a sanctuary created a sanctuary for the wildlife on their property with Wallabies, Grey Kangaroo, Cockatoos, and endless bird life. The Liddles raise lorikeets and pheasant; have jungle chooks (the original chicken before the chicken became fancy) and peacocks roaming the property. I was lucky not to meet any of the resident snakes…(still too cold for them)…and Australia has some serious snakes! Then, of course, there is their special Rainbow lorikeet, Bug Eye, who mutters to himself, and I swear I heard, "Piss off, Bug Eye".

Iris, a friend of hers, Elaine, and I drove up to Cooktown to spend the night…we did the museums, parks, botanical garden…even the cemetery! (Cemeteries in Australia are fascinating…full of drama, adventure and history). Cooktown is little more than 4 long blocks with some houses and stores…we ate dinner at the 'Gilled and Gutted' - Breakfast at the 'Bakery'…(local map in the photo…be sure to read the legend). Cooktown was where Capt. Cook pulled the Endeavor in to affect repairs after damage on the reef. In a pub in Cooktown I cut some D. numularia growing in the beer garden. Also found it growing up the tree outside of our motel room. Here are some photos of D. numularia sightings…one of them is the knot of a gum tree where it found a foothold. This was near to where we saw the Wallaby. We also went to a lovely park called Mosman Gorge National Park where I saw H. pottsii growing wild in a wooded glen. Had a great lunch in Port Douglas…sort of a "discovered" tourist town with great beaches and f ancy holiday homes.

On Sunday we went to a great open market in Yungaburra where Iris and friends sell plants…and it was a great fair atmosphere with mimes, plants, crafts and food. David drove me thru the Atherton Tablelands…Rainforest teeming with epiphytes and old growth wood, which was relentlessly cleared to make room for dairy farms. Then they deregulated the dairy industry, which is now collapsing, and the farms are becoming abandoned. Sad. The tablelands are beautiful!

We ate like Kings (both David and Iris are great cooks), drank gallons of Dark and Stormys (Bundaberg ginger beer spiked with Bundaberg rum) that go down like water and pack quite a punch and polished off many a champagne…the perfect libations for a spectacular Australian sunset seen from the potting house!

When I arrived in Honolulu with my box of cuttings, USDA was required to inspect them. The box was too big to get passed by the airport staff and wouldn't be inspected until the next morning at headquarters. As tired as I was, I was at USDA that morning to accompany them thru inspection. I wasn't going to trust my treasure to fate and hope everything would go "according to regulations". I had no trouble and was on a noon plane home.

I am deeply appreciative of the Liddles for their warm hospitality and for sharing this wonderful Australian Hoya world. An annual pilgrimage? Well…I need to forget that Looooooooong plane ride first…!

Here are the main stars: David, Iris Marie and David with BugEye…the Rainbow Lorikeet who gives the most amazing rendition of a squeaky cupboard door!

The photo of the interior of the shade house shows how the plants are grown. Each cutting in its pot is allowed to grow up the wire to the frame at the top. The entire wire can be taken down with the plant for cutting or trimming. The plants are grown in related groups, like species grown together…and it is amazing to see a whole cluster of a single species of, say, H. macgillivrayii, but perhaps 6 or more different clones.

The shade houses are covered with 80% shade cloth, and even within that there are darker and lighter areas. The hoyas appear to like the fluctuations of temperatures (they have it in the wild) as well as the moving light of the sun rising and setting. Daytime temps are, of course, higher than nighttime…downright cool at night. For the "heat lovers" there are warmer spots in the shade house.

While I thought that hoyas could take heat, this is not necessarily true. Most grow with less stress and happier in a cooler/damp condition rather than a hot, damp condition. All tropical conditions are not like the movies. Remember, we are trying to grow hoyas in an artificial environment…so the less stress the better. I would wager that is why the Scandinavians are so successful. They have exaggerated climate conditions, cooler temperatures that are easier for housebound plants to deal with.

The automatic sprinklers go on at 4 a.m. for an hour and the following day the rounds are made to make sure all of the sprinkler heads were working. General humidity is about 50%, but there are wetter and drier areas for certain plants.

I had the impression that one of the critical elements was air circulation. Not a fan, not a draft…but just the open feeling of free air. A ceiling fan would be better than a directional fan…but air circulation is especially critical for some hoyas, particularly those that grow along streambeds etc.

When cuttings are made (generally 4-5 node for the smallest hoyas with short internodes, others depending upon the quantity available, but 2 to 3 node is generally used), the ends are dipped in rooting hormone, wrapped in damp long fiber sphagnum moss and then put into about a 1.5" deep round pot that has soil in the bottom of it. These round tube-pots go into a tray and are then put into a propagation box. This propagation box (there are a number of them and I will describe one of them) has a tray approximately 4" deep full of large perlite. The tray with the cuttings is put on top of this bed of perlite and the plastic sides of the "box" are zipped shut. This box is about 2'x2'x15'. Misters are rigged along the top of this "box" and they go on about every 3 hours for ten seconds. The light is low. The temperature is cool and the humidity is high (because of the water that collects in the tray of perlite). As a result, the cuttings are not stressed at all and can concentrate on forming root syst ems.

Once the roots are formed, any loose Sphagnum Moss is removed without disturbing the roots, and the rooted cuttings are transplanted into the standard potting mix.

The potting mix Liddle's use is volcanic gravel similar to but smoother than cinder, organic matter (peat), #3 perlite and small amount of 14-14-14 slow-release fertilizer.

Most of the hoyas are growing in 4" plastic pots…the larger ones in 5" pots. When a pot is squeezed and there is still "give" in the pot…not time to pot up to the bigger size. Conversely, when the pot is squeezed hard and there is no give…time to pot up. With the proper growing conditions (moisture, temperature etc.) most hoyas are quite happy root bound.

Every single hoya in the Liddle collection has an IML # assigned to it, as well as collection data. Whether they are the hoyas that David has collected himself or those received from other sources, it is noted in detail. I see where this is a key in tracking down the identification of an acquired plant. Oh, and each and every pot is tagged with an ID. For example, Liddle's receives a cutting from me. It has the name 'H. X 'and my notes say that I received this plant from Ed Gilding. My notes say that Ed received this on a collecting trip with another group of folks. One day it comes to light that the plant that Ed Gilding has by the name of 'H. X' turns out to be 'H. Z' - now David can change the name, or research the identity, of his plant.

It is important to know where the cutting you receive comes from, and where it came from before that and before that and before that…hopefully back to the original collection data. This sort of a chain of custody can be the key to the identification.

Until a cutting received/collected has flowered, it is given an "affinis" name and, of course, the IML number. This affinis name means "like" or "similar to" and when the plant blooms the ID can be determined (HA, wishful thinking). Is it actually, I say, H. anulata (but just another clone), or is it an entirely different species? Identification is made only after the plant has bloomed, and many factors are taken into consideration: the flower (of course), the leaves and general aspects of the plant and the collection data (if available).

Liddle's has copies of holotypes and other archival data useful for identifying plants. David also travels to herbariums to research, and works closely with Dr. Paul Forster and other botanists and collectors.

I was able to participate fully in making my order happen! With my list in hand and labels made out, David and Iris collected the cuttings that I tagged and put into a tub of water. Once the entire cutting operation was done, each cut was inspected and the nodes, crevices, backs of leaves etc. brushed with a toothbrush. The entire batch is hosed down individually, soaked and inspected a second time and then put into the quarantine house for the night awaiting inspection.

At AQIS inspection, the box of cuttings are spread out upon a Stainless Steel Table. With a lighted magnifying glass about 10" in diameter, each cutting is inspected under the glass for bugs, fungus or even an attitude!!! The inspected cuttings are passed on to another inspector who looks the cutting over and into the box it goes! The box is sealed, taped, blessed and ready for the trip. All of this procedure is charged for by the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service and it is not cheap. They are very pleasant, very thorough and very good.

I witnessed and lived thru this personally and can attest that there is no way any critter, dead or alive, is going to make it thru this thorough an inspection! No way! I know of an order stopped in California where they claimed infestation and required gassing etc….. Come on….no way.

Some Thoughts on Conversations with David
Nature is constantly evolving, adapting…changing. We see this in the oceans, our food and our air…to name a few. We see Hoyas growing slightly differently for me than they do for you: color/size of leaf, color of flower even if just a hue or a nuance. Sometimes the same hoya plant will bloom different colors… Size, color of leaf, color of flower are aids…but they are not identifiers… (and this is from David)…the only TRUE specimen we have of a species is the Holotype. All else is "our interpretation of that Holotype"… Nature does not recognize species… "species" is a concept created by man for his convenience of orderly identification. Taxonomists, researchers, etc., can do their best giving a hoya a "label", but it is 99% conjecture and 1% luck. Coronas can tip up or tip down within the same species…differences do occur.

I will go further: we have no idea of the state of mind of our first collectors….were they rational, was their eyesight perfect, astigmatism?. Were they describing from live or dried material? Was the ship rocking when they looked at it? Were they drunk? There are SO many unknown factors… Now, I do not dispute, at all, the validity of publications…I just wonder about accepting so much as "perfect"…

As DNA analysis becomes more affordable, it will give us more and more definitive answers…and, probably more and more questions.