Hi Kim,

It's always easier to answer this kind of a question when looking at a picture of the plant, but I'll make an educated guess. Usually VB Hoyas have well-developed root systems, and those little pots are half as deep as the 2.25" orchid pots vendors like Joni (SRQ) use, so it can be difficult to keep most species of Hoyas in them for very long. I would say that you should go ahead and repot them.

4" is the correct size to pot them up to. I have reservations about putting plants in terra cotta pots unless you are really good at keeping up on your watering. Back in the day, when I only had about 20 plants, I used to very happily grow AVs in them, but if I put an AV in one today, it would be dead by the end of the season. >_< But, you know yourself best.

I usually pot up cuttings when they have 4-6 lateral roots growing. It's not an exact science. Since you can root a cutting perfectly well (if not better) simply by sticking it in the pot and medium you intend to grow it in (and keeping it moist), the primary advantage of rooting in perlite, hydroton, or water, is simply being able to SEE whether or not the roots are growing. So, there is no harm in transferring cuttings when roots have just started to form (imo). You have to baby the young plants for the first year anyway.

As far as pot size, I select between 2" and 4" pots on a case by case basis. 75-80% of them go in 4" pots. If it has large leaves and vines, there's usually no point in potting it in a 2" pot, even if it's just a single leaf. It will become too top-heavy too fast.

On the other hand, if it's a finer-boned Hoya, like leytensis here, I really like to keep it in a 2" pot for as long as I can. (Keep in mind, again, that when I am talking about 2" pots, I am talking about the tall 2-inchers, like this:)

That photo is a perfect example, because there is a lot of length to it, but it is still going to take that plant a while to fill out the pot with roots.

That said, if you don't have 2" orchid pots, then just use 4" for everything. It will be fine. Do not go larger than 4" for a newly rooted plant, though. I mean, I guess if someone gave you 6'+ of diversifolia... you might want to pot it up in a 6" pot lol. That's what happened to me... /pokes moonwolf ;P

(That is the cuttings when I first got them, and no, that is not all of them...)

Thank you so much for the detailed response! My little AV pots are drying out in a day or two, and good points on the terra cotta. It's tempting to use them just because I have a ton of them laying around, but with my ever growing hoard of houseplants and busy life less maintenance sure wouldn't hurt. Sounds like half of my cuttings are ready for new homes, yay! Oh, for the climbing types, any pointers on how to wrap them on trellises? My neobudica is already 18 inches long, and sooner or later my imperialis and diversifolia will need this. I also have a pubicalyx, and two types of australis so there is a mix of vine types. I plan on getting a big obelisk trellis for the imperialis, not sure on the others yet.

Hahahahahaha, oh someone who understands. My friends look at me like I am crazy when I start talking about my houseplants and the lengths I am prepared to go to make my less than ideal lighting work for them. And even more so when the realize how big some of mine are going to get. I am currently in the "I am not buying any more u til my current ones get larger" phase. We will see how long that lasts. Probably not long, since I am already trying to decide just how many grow lights I can have before the police show up asking questions. I am up to 12 hoyas, a dischidia, and 7 or so non hoyas... Operation jungle is under way. One friend told me he is sure it is only a matter of time before I go "full jumanji" and he and his wife find me hiding behind my couch, clutching a spear and demanding to know what year it is.

Kim,

Invest in LED lights, they don't draw much power and they don't put out much of a heat signature but they have the best light output. So you can have more grow lights than if you were using less efficient hardware (money is the only restriction or here)

Know where you can get really cheap lighting? From aquarium people (both planted and reef tank hobbyists). They upgrade their lighting all the time and dump their old fixtures on Craig's List. I get lighting for pennies on the dollar and run them until the original bulbs burn out and then either toss the unit or buy new bulbs, whichever ends up being more cost effective. Sometimes the bulbs aren't the right color temperature but when bulbs are older, they shift into the red spectrum, which causes algae in aquariums, but which plants LOVE. Anyway, cheap lighting for wintering plants. ;-)

lacticauda -- Do you have any advice on LED lights that don't, well, make the plants look weird? It seems like most of the LED grow lights I've run across are optimized for the light wavelengths that plants actually use, which gives everything under the lights a neon pink/purple color. Or do you just use LED lights intended for general use, rather than LED grow lights?

I have to admit, I haven't the time (craigslist) nor the money (new) to get LED lighting. I just use squiggle bulbs with 6500k it's blue toned but works great for my foliage plants.

You can also buy t5's in both the blue and the red wavelengths. The fixtures themselves are cheap shop lights at hardware stores.

OK, thanks... I mostly use 5000K T12's, actually, with a few red/blue T5HO pairings for plants that really like a lot of light. (I should post pix of the H. macrophylla variegata I have under T5HO's... After a year spent rooting, it's finally started throwing out these gorgeous golden leaves with almost no green at all.)

I keep looking at LEDs, because I'd like to have something with less heat... But a) they make plants look weird and b) yeah. WAY expensive, not sure I'd ever save enough in electricity costs to make up for that.

They can't all turn the plants colors, right?

Can someone tell me what this is? Is that what new leaves look like? (At the end, not the thing in the bottom left corner, I know that's a new leaf) click the image to fix the proportions

***elevator music***

Oh, that deleted my picture.

***elevator music***

There we go...