Ugh. Redphal, this is a loaded question.
I've been considering it since I read your post last night.

Re-reading it again, something jumps out at me... You say
"All look lush and healthy from the top."

Conventional wisdom suggests if it ain't broke, don't fix it! Further, to my knowledge, Hoyas don't like to be disturbed.
And I think repotting could affect next years blooms.
But next years blooms will really be affected if your EA Hoyas die from root rot...

I'm not an expert, but I do have 3 EA Hoyas myself,
1). curtisii 2). lacunosa 3).carnosa "Krimson Princess"
I have left them all in their original mix, which I don't think is as horrible as it was a couple years ago- btw.
Plus I did read somewhere those moisture crystals do lose efficacy after some time...

I was worried about curtisii. It stayed wet and heavy like a rock, for three weeks after I got it! I put a layer of hydroton (or leca) in the bottom of the basket, to allow for better air circulation & drainage. Minimal root disturbance to do this.

I've read bottom watering is better for EA Hoyas. I just water mine very carefully, and wait until they're good and dry before I water again. I go by weight. BTW- I also grow under T5s, and find the EAs dry out fairly quickly.

May I suggest wait & see?
Maybe repot if you see any problems?
Maybe take some cuttings, for insurance?

Regardless of what you decide let us know what the outcomes are!

Truly,
LC

(Where are you RFG?)

LC,

Thanks for replying. I'm not sure what I'll do yet, but my main reason for wanting to repot (besides to get rid of any bad soil) is to get them into self-watering pots. If the new EA mix has decent drainage, I might be able to get away with preserving most of the old soil and just adding my own mix around it. And if, as you say, it dries quickly, it might balance out OK.

I do have LECA I can use, as well as other fun media ingredients. The mix I want to replant with is a combo of coir, fir bark, perlite, and granite chips, and if even more drainage is needed, I have another bag of pine bark, turface, and granite chips that I would amend with.

I'm fairly experienced with other types of plants, including orchids, but I'm new to hoyas. How soon should I expect blooms from the carnosa, carnosa compacta, lacunosa, and wayetti? If I minimize root disturbance, would these species have enough time to recover?

BTW, what is RFG?

Also, one thing I have experienced with orchids is a plant looking great from the top, while the roots rot away beneath. All too common when orchids are sold in tightly-packed spagnum or worse. I don't have much faith in the medium that plants are generally sold with, of any type, as they are optimized for the convenience of the grower/seller, and not the long-term health of the plant.

One other thing I forgot to mention, I pry the bottom trays off the EA baskets, to help with drying out.

I don't think carnosa needs a self watering pot, as it prefers to dry out between waterings.
Compacta is a relative, so I imagine it has similar preferences.
I just was reading wayetti prefers dryer conditions, too.

I've been told to dump the plant out, and look at the roots, touch and smell to check for health or rot.

EAs are usually a pot of many cuttings, so if you wanted, you could seperate some... My EAs were all so root bound, I would of had to rip'em up to re-pot in order to change the soil, so I left them.

Your mix sounds dreamy for Hoya. And I have heard of Beautiful orchids with rotting root systems, and your concerns are justified. Have you searched on here what others do with EAs? Many people do as you're suggesting, replace the EA soil with their own. And If you have T5s & heat mats, I'm sure it would reduce stress. Probably best to do this BEFORE active growing season in spring.

And it could be quite some time before you see blooms, regardless of what you do! I think Hoyas are about patience! Have you noticed any peduncles already on any of these plants? Look for them. My EA lacunosa doesn't have peduncles, and hasn't bloomed yet. Neither has the KP carnosa, and not a peduncle in site. Curisii has many peduncles, and still hasn't bloomed for me! First step to blooming is to have peduncles. No peduncles, no blooms.

My tricolour carnosa bloomed within two years, from a 2 inch starter pot consisting of 8 leaves. I'm told this is unusual...

Another lacunosa I purchased, arrived blooming out of the box, with three peduncles, and it's a much smaller plant than the EA.

Again, I'm no expert, and am only offering you my personal experience with my EAs. I'm just regurgitating what I've read here..

One last suggestion? Take cuts and root them in spring? This way you're covered.

GG? MD? PG, Cpawl? I'm waiting for you guys to weigh in on this.. (RFG is another member here with much experience)

HIdden problems, indeed. Your statement:
"optimized for the convenience of the grower/seller, and not the long-term health of the plant"

Very insightful. Wonder if I should tale a looky-loo @ my lacunosa... Been getting yellowed leaves... But I also forgot to water it, until it was light as a feather.

Here's a link from PS- The Hoyan- about EA plants
(Scroll down & go to "Growing Tips")

Here is a link that might be useful: PS- The Hoyan

My experience with orchids is probably going to serve me well with hoyas. Orchids are also patience teachers! I make up for the wait by having lots of happily everblooming gesneriads and other plants that are faster growers, to ease the wait!

Orchids are also *all* about the roots. I have all my orchids in semi-hydro, and my phals are just exploding with spikes this autumn. The soil is, for me, the key the successful growing for any type of plant. I'm leaning more and more towards repotting and setting them on heat mats all winter. The self-watering pots I have work by large wicks, plus they have vented bottoms, which provides very good air circulation and even moisture. With good soil, things don't get soppy, and I have moisture meters in a lot of the pots to allow the plants a short drying out period between reservoir refills. I find the system is working well for a lot of different types of tropicals.

I think what I will do is give the hoyas a good soak the day before repotting, be as gentle as I can with the roots, and then heat mat them to help them settle in. I'll see what the real health of the plant is once I get a look at the root system!

I agree about Hoyas not being for self-watering pots. I only knew of one person wo could make that work, she grew outside n California, hung her Hoyas in the trees (Cena are you out there lurking??)

PG,

What about the hoyar.net site? They use self-watering pots with chunky soil. It reminds me of how people recommend that phals should have the same sort of soak-then-dessicate cycle as is sometimes recommended for hoyas, probably because both are sold in very moisture-retaining, low air mediums. Yet phals thrive with airy, even moisture. I suspect it might be the same for most hoya.

I don't know about the Hoyor site (if that's one of the Swedish sites) I think it depends on the environment too. Are those folks growing in Greenhouses or regular indoor environments?

I grow indoors in a city w/ radiator heat, so maybe my situation is different. I also grow mostly succulents, so I tend to use fast draining mix heavy w/ pumice.

I've fared badly w/ most of my EA Hoyas. I tend to end up losing the purchased plant but starting new ones from cuttings taken from it. Currently that's my case w/ H. Chelsea, I've got a couple of sprigs remaining from a main plant I lost. I've been growing these in hydro, but they're just getting started.

I tend to get my Hoya cuttings from my local Indoor Gardening Society or swaps here.

I'm not such a believer in not disturbing Hoya roots. I tend to repot whenever, more important to me to have better mix.

I've never gotten much bloom here, not sure the light is enough. I tend to have unexpected blooms like on cuttings or in water rooting cuttings. I grow more for foliage, maybe since you can also bloom Orchids, you'll do well w/ Hoyas.

Redphal, Please explain the mix you use for phals. I'd love to have mine send out more than one spike!

Zackey, I have them in PrimeAgra LECA, in clear pots with a reservoir and overflow hole. I have them all on heat mats over humidity trays, under mixed T5 lights. I am getting multiple spikes on several phals this fall! The heat mats, I find, are really key for healthy phals in S/H, at minimum to get them over the root transition, but also for winter snugness. I find this setup makes the phals very happy indeed. And this is only their first year in LECA!

I also have recently moved other orchid types over to the same setup, with double the light, for Cattleya, Oncidium, and others. So far they are doing well.

Redphal, your mix does sound good.
I'd consider excluding the coir, personally. The other ingredients should provide plenty
of moisture retention, and won't compact the way coir (or peat) will.

Incidentally, I also have an orchid in a mix of fir bark, pumice, turface, and perlite.

Josh

Redphal,

I have a feeling you'll do just fine, and your orchid experience will serve you very well in dealing with Hoya.

I've been told by "experts" Hoyas like similar treatment as orchids. I even feed my Hoya orchid food (Schutltz) and I enjoy many hoya blooms.
(carnosa, lacunosa, bella, heuschkeliana)

And the soak/desiccation cycle you describe, doesn't it imitate the natural environment of both Hoya and orchids? And aren't Hoya and orchids often found in proximity?? Read posts from a fella whose friends were orchid hunters, and they would always bring him Hoya they had found while looking for orchids...

Yes, I think you'll do just fine!

Happy blooming,
LC

Redphal, I've been growing orchids for about 15 years, and added on the Hoyas about two to three years ago.

They fit together perfectly. I have quite a few of the moisture liking Hoyas in S/H with Hydroton, some that like to dry out in Hydroton with traditional potting, some potted in Turface and some still in orchid seedling bark mix.

The thing to remember is not all Hoyas like the same culture just as not all orchids like the same culture. But for the ones that like the moist conditions, the S/H set up does wonders for them.

Good luck

Renee

I re-potted an EA "hindu rope" today. The soil really wasn't too bad, but there were so many cutting in it that I broke leaves every time I put my finger in it to see how dry the soil was. There were 16 cuttings in a 6 inch pot. I know it really isn't the best time of year to re-pot any plant but I felt like I was doing more damage as it was than I would be if I re-potted and separated it.

16 cuttings in a 6" pot is cRaZy! o_O

3 of the cuttings only had 1 leave, 1 only had a very small new leave. Lots of roots on all of the cuttings though. I have 2 more EA hoyas, both are also so full that I have trouble checking the soil and watering without damaging the vines and leaves. I think I will re-pot both of them before spring. My main concern is lack of air movement promoting disease and bugs.

I hadn't planned on repotting my hoyas just yet, but I knocked over one of them just now (oops) and all the soil was knocked out of the pot. This isn't one of the EA hoyas, but one I'd bought elsewhere. It hadn't been looking so great since it arrived, and I figured it was shipping stress. But when I picked up the poor thing, it just had little tufts of root!

At least the actual plant was undamaged by the tumble. I tossed all the old soil, since it clearly wasn't doing any favors, and used my coir, fir bark, perlite, and granite mix to put it back into its original pot. (I don't have the small self-watering pots yet.) I will put it on a heat mat to help it recover, and hopefully it will have a better root system soon and not look so limp.

Serendipity! A Happy accident Redphal. Good thing you had that oops!

Hi Guys,
I was just reading about the question regarding re-potting EA hoyas. I too had been wondering about the same thing as I have a Lineris, that I've had for about 3 years. When I got her she was beautiful and full. However, as time went by she got weird and no matter what I did to make her happy, she just wasn't responding. I finally got so frustrated with her that I banished her to the back yard in a semi-shady spot, checked her for water and basically didn't pay much attention to her. Well, don't you know, her stems grew long and lush and she even BLOOMED! Needless to say I was thrilled. After she stopped blooming this summer, I noticed that her long,heavy stems were drying up and at first I could't understand what was happening. So, I thought about re-potting her, but upon inspection there were way too many stems to pull apart. It was then that I noticed what was causing the long stems to start dying. The root system of this particular plant is very delicate, as the stems grew longer and heavier their weight pulled them right out of the potting medium, causing the whole stem to die. DUH... Well, I wrapped the long, heavy stems around the pot to stop any further damage. And I then cut the stems that didn't look to good, to a point where there was still some green color and I put them in water. That was about a month ago, I now have ROOTS! Now I'm going to do the same thing to some of the other stems, and repot some back into the old pot, and some into new pots. However, now I'm not sure as to the type of medium I should pot the new plants into. Certainly not regular hoya potting medium as the roots are very small and delicate.
You guys were right, EA puts a whole bunch of stems into one pot to make them look nice and full. However, once these stems begin to grow it's up to us to figure out what to do.... (:
Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
Alba in Hawthorne, CA

hi Alba. I don't have a linearis, so I can't comment on what to do as far as care goes.

I'd try to start a whole new basket with all those stems, I think. Always wanted a linearis... EAs are hard to find here at the best of times...

LC

The potting medium that Exotic Angel uses is Fafard mix #2(it is the loose southern mix and is the very same Hoya mix that Cowboy Flowerman uses.) If you go to the Fafard website, you can read exactly what is used in this mix. I have a Hoya plant that I got on ebay from Cowboy Flowerman with this Fafard mix and I think its great. I called the Fafard people and they are sending me free of charge one gallon of the Fafard solid and a gallon of the loose southern mix to try.

Is it this one? I didn't see anything called Southern Mix on their website.

Fafard 2
Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss (65%), perlite, vermiculite, starter nutrients, wetting agent & Dolomitic limestone.
Bulk density: 9 to 12 lbs.
pH range: 5.5 to 6.5 after wetting.
Use for: Seeds, plugs, cuttings, bedding plants, hanging baskets, flowering plants, foliage & interiorscapes.

Fafard #2 is one of their lightweight mixes that is high in peat (65%). Most of the people in this thread are talking about replacing peat based mixes with chunky mixes using bark, LECA, perlite, etc. The best Fafard products for root health would be the heavyweight mixes, particularly the nursery mix which is only 25% peat.

But if you're willing to mix your own, you can definitely come up with something better than any bagged mix.

Hi All,

I'm new to this forum and just found this thread. My very limited experience with EA plants hooked me on hoyas :).
I got Linearis at my local grocery store, it was all beaten up but grew well and now is blooming in the same EA potting mix! It dries fine with weekly watering in South Florida heat and humidity! Wish to find more EA or other hoyas locally, all others after Linearis arrived by mail...

My oldest EA plants are at least 8 or 9 years old (wayetti & lacunosa) and are still in the original mix, for the most part. I've added my own mix as a top dressing. I don't particulary like the EA mix, but as many of you have observed, the EA plants are so big, rootbound, etc., they're almost impossible to repot. And when I have repotted them, it seems like they often go into decline. So I just have a watering method for EA plants that differs from the others. My favorite mix is very simple - about 2/3 coir and 1/3 perlite. It wets easily, drains fast, dries fast. I've used this mix for at least 10 years and it works perfectly for the way I typically water Hoyas, which is to water and let it get almost dry before I re-water. With EA Hoyas, I let them get dry, then I water, set aside for about 1/2 hour, then water again, drain off and return to their location. They don't soak up the water as well as my regular mix, so the 2nd watering gets into all those nooks and crannies the first watering missed when it drained straight through.

However, I will say that I just repotted my 8 or 9 year old lacunosa from a 6" EA pot into an 8" pot. It's done very well for many years, but this winter, I've had a lot of stems go yellow and it just doesn't seem that happy anymore. The tough thing about EA plants is that crazy root system! They must use some pretty great rooting hormones to produce such a strong system out of the mass of cuttings they put in every pot! I simply took the rootball, made some shallow cuts in the rootball (to hopefully stimulate some new growth), set it in the bigger pot and filled in around the old EA soil. I'm hoping this will do the trick, because I think to try to remove the old EA soil from the rootball will destroy the plant.

Denise in Omaha

I think the reason that the EA Hoyas have a strong root system is the starter nutrients in the Fafard #2 mix.
Penfold2, I don't understand what you mean by "lightweight" and "heavy weight". The Fafard #2 according to Cowboy Flowerman is "a commercial potting mix whch is mostly pulverized Canadian peat moss with perlite and vermiculite added". Could you define what you mean by "heavyweight mix"? For this EA potting mix, I go by weight, if the pot feels light as a feather, then that meams that the Hoya needs water so I water. How I water is, I run warm water into the pot till the water drains out the bottom, if the pot has a reservoir bottom that I can't pry off, I tip the pot till there is no water in the reservoir part. At the rePotme.com site, they said that the Bromeliad Blend would be ideal for Hoya. They stated that "our Bromeliad Blend includes coir, small fir bark, small sponge rock and granite chips. This fluffy mix is ideal for epiphitic tropicals such as Bromeliad, Anthurium, Hoya Clivia, Staghorn Fern and other Ferns. Feel free to contact us if you are unsure which Potting mix is right for your plants."

Fafard divides their mixes into lightweight, middleweight, and heavyweight mixes according to how much bark they have. The lightweight mixes are mostly peat, and the heavyweight mixes are mostly bark. The bark provides more porosity, and does not compact the way peat does. Other ingredients like LECA, perlite, and granite do the same.

The bromeliad mix at repotme.com has some good ingredients, but it looks like they eliminated much of the pore space by using an excessive amount of coir. You can make excellent soils with cheap local ingredients like bark, perlite, scoria, pumice, granite, etc. I know Josh (greenman28) and others have posted some great photos of their mixes on this forum.

Here's a good link:

New Hoya cuttings! (pics)

For the past year, I water my EA Hoyas from the bottom-set them in a bowl for about 1/2 hour each and they have done remarkably better.

I do not re-pot but may top dress them.

Susan

I finally have an update for my repotting efforts.

I decided on using my wick-based self-watering 6" Apollo pots. I wanted to make a really good mix to prevent any moisture issues, so I combined my bromeliad mix (coir, small fir bark, small sponge rock and granite chips) with a bag of bonsai soil mix (small pine bark, turface, slate, pea gravel), and a few handfuls of charcoal, pumice, and perlite for good luck. I get most of my stuff from Repotme, in case anyone wants to try something similar.

When I repotted I found that most of the hoya had paltry roots under the old soil, which was the peat-heavy mix mentioned in the earlier posts. But since I repotted, I've seen a lot of new growth on all the plants, even the tiny ones. I checked under one of them, and I found plenty of healthy roots grown around the mix. Happy plants!

So this looks like a success! The only thing I still want to do is add a supplemental light to the lower shelf, since it's not as bright as the higher ones. I've got a strip of T5 I'm going to move once I've finished growing some african violet babies under it. I didn't end up needing the heat mats, btw.

After all this, I can definitely recommend repotting, and the chunky soil/wick watering combo.