Fertilisers… Food for thought
Hoya Hoya — July 10, 2022
Kia ora Hoya lovers. K-J and I spent Matariki reflecting on our dream of a specialist hoya nursery and helping collectors like you get the best results from your collections. We’ve met amazing collectors and are inspired by the enthusiasm you have for your collections. These enthusiasm levels don’t seem to be any different if you’ve been collecting for 40 years or 4 months, which we think is pretty special.
In our own personal collection we’ve had some successes… like our flowering of Hoya caudata ‘Borneo’ for the first time in NZ but also failures to learn from (such as having to ‘chop and prop’ the very samecaudata a few months later… & we also won’t mention K-J’s recent humidity experiment with Hoya meliflua…). It’s these highs & lows that keep us motivated to keep learning and sharing what we learn along the way.
Hoya caudata ‘Borneo’
This month’s blog is all about fertilisers but before we do a deep dive into the ‘when’, ‘what’ and ‘why’ of fertilisers, we wanted to mention that we will be at the Wellington Women’s Expo on Sat 23rd & Sun 24th July at the TSB arena. If there’s a particular Hoya you’re after, message us here and we will bring some examples along for you to look at without any obligation to purchase. There will be some great hoyahoya deals on offer. Come and see us, we’d love to meet you all in person.
Fertilisers… Food for thought
In a perfect world, we’d all have unlimited cash to spend on our collections. And it’s really tempting to spend your available hoya dollars on exciting hoya plants, rather than the unexciting things like fertiliser. But we get a lot of enquiries from collectors who aren’t seeing hoya flowers or amazing leaf development and the answer often lies in the lack of a quality, hoya specific fertilising routine.
At HoyaHoya.nz we want every collector to have a beautiful collection of Hoya that brings them joy. And being the hoya nerds that we are, we’ve spent a lot of time researching just what your hoya needs to pump out luscious leaves and simply stunning flowers.
We’ve done this research using our HoyaHoya database which searches through the NZ and overseas hoya society journals, botanical science research databases, and the training materials provided by plant food producers. Thousands of articles and hoya collector experiences are captured within the HoyaHoya database.
We also talk to fertiliser and plant food developers about their products. And then we trial. Extensively. You see when we started HoyaHoya, we wanted to promote only the best products that are perfect for Hoya. So you won’t find our webshop cluttered with lots of different products, you will find the curated products that we stand behind and use in our personal collection and nursery.
Now if you’re pressed for time and just want to buy some plant food that you can be confident will deliver the goods, click here.
But if you’d like to understand what we use, when and why, read on (but maybe make yourself a cuppa first because it’s hard to boil all those thousands of database articles & hoya grower knowledge into just a few paragraphs).
Let’s cover off the ‘when’ first.
This depends on ‘what’ you are fertilising with and whether your fertiliser contains urea. Granule-based fertilisers are usually applied seasonally but we prefer a soluable fertiliser where water is added. It’s a cleaner way to make sure your hoya are getting what they need, when they need it. We find the way that granular fertilisers harden up in the bottle frustrating and that it’s difficult to make sure you’re getting an even balance of what’s inside.
‘When’ can be as little as never or as frequently as every water (if using a fertiliser like DynaGrow that is urea-free). Hoya don’t need fertiliser in order to stay alive, they need fertiliser to help them grow and produce flowers best. Fertilisers will be most effective during the active growth season but are extremely beneficial year-round. This is because a hoya can be deficient in an important macro or micro nutrient at any time of the year and by fertilising with every watering, we make sure we are optimising their leaf development and flower production. We fertilise our personal collection and hoya nursery stock every water. With the DynaGrow products there isn’t a build up of salts that occurs so you won’t have to ‘flush’ water.
We don’t recommend fertilisers that contain urea. Cheap fertilisers use urea as their nitrogen source and the urea causes root burn, leaf burn, and you’ll get a build up of salts. While we all love a bargain, fertiliser is one product where you get what you pay for and the cheap ones are nasty.
‘What’ to fertilise with. Consider this a little “Hoya Fertilisers 101”
A hoya’s growth is dictated not by the total amount of fertiliser it receives but by the lowest level of each essential mineral required for growth*. So there’s no point just seeking out the highest NPK ratios because if the hoya has low levels of one of the other essential nutrients** (there are 16+ of them), then its growth is slowed accordingly.
NPK refers to the ratios of the macro nutrients: Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and Potassium. The Nitrogen and Phosphorous ratios are particularly important for hoya and what you need will depend on what your goals are for your collection. It’s not a case of “more” being best. We’ll come to that more in a minute.
When you’re searching for a fertiliser, we recommend that you seek out a balanced plant food in order to optimise growth. What the science says is that hoya require the 16 essential macro and micro nutrients plus silicon (sometimes referred to as the 17th essential nutrient).
Here at HoyaHoya, we have trialled pretty much every fertiliser and plant food available, including Plant Runner, Growth Technology, Orchid fertilisers, Tuckers, CX Horticulture, SeaSol, Egmont Plant Booster. We have a fertiliser graveyard hidden in our garden shed!
We are confident in what we recommend for Hoya because we have run the trials and done the research, we’re selling the fertiliser products that we stand behind to get results in your collection.
There are so many fertilisers available, how do you know what your hoya collection needs?
It all comes down to what you want from your hoya collection…
Don’t fret! This is really easy to do. All of these fertiliser products can be mixed together at the same time.
Personally, we use a 1.5L bottle of water and then add 1ml of GROW, 1ml of Pro-TeKt and 1-3ml of EM-1. Done!
I want beautiful leaves and beautiful flowers
Recommended fertiliser
DynaGrow GROW
This has slightly lower (but still very good) levels of nitrogen and higher levels of phospherhous for flower production.
Plus Silicon & soluable potash for strong plant cell development
Pro-TeKt
Stronger cells mean that your hoya will be more disease resistant, have stronger roots / stems / leaves / flowers,
What does the combination of the fertiliser plus Protek (Silicon) tell your Hoya?
“Give me lots of beautiful leaves but don’t forget that I want beautiful flowers too – give me both!”
I want amazing foliage
You’re a foliage lover or are regularly chopping up your hoya for propagation.
Recommended fertiliser
DynaGrow FOLIAGE PRO
This fertiliser has higher levels of nitrogen for leaf production but is lower in phospherous (needed for flower production).
Plus Silicon & soluable potash for strong plant cell development
Pro-TeKt
Stronger cells mean that your hoya will be more disease resistant, have stronger roots / stems / leaves / flowers,
What does the combination of the fertiliser plus Protek (Silicon) tell your Hoya?
“Focus on leaves, don’t worry so much about flowers”,
“give me as many luscious leaves as possible”
For my stubborn Hoya that just refuses to flower for me
Recommended fertiliser
DynaGrow BLOOM
This fertiliser has low levels of nitrogen and higher (but not too high) levels of phospherous. Dropping the nitrogen and boosting the phosphrous is a scientifically proven method for encouraging a stubborn flowerer to flower.
Plus Silicon & soluable potash for strong plant cell development
Pro-TeKt
Stronger cells mean that your hoya will be more disease resistant, have stronger roots / stems / leaves / flowers,
What does the combination of the fertiliser plus Protek (Silicon) tell your Hoya?
“Stop focusing on leaves and put all your effort into flowering. Give me flowers, not leaves”
The fertiliser product mix that has our highest recommendation is the combination of DynaGrow GROW + Protek + EM-1. This is giving your hoya collection everything it needs to produce wonderful foliage, beautiful flowering, and strong plant health for disease & insect attack resistance.
So what about this EM-1 stuff? What is that and why do you also recommend that?
When we started HoyaHoya, we decided to be open about our journey with others. We don’t believe that “special” soil mix or fertiliser combos that get results need to be kept secret. That just seems ridiculous to us. So we’re not keeping quiet about EM-1 because it is special and will make a visible difference to your hoya collection.
We like to think of EM-1 as being like a probiotic for plants. Developed initially in Japan 30 years ago, it contains more than 80 strains of hard-working bacteria, yeasts and fungi. These natural microbial organisms keep everything in your hoya’s water and potting substrate in balance and purify as needed to keep the growing environment for your hoya perfect. It’s an organic product, made in NZ and we wouldn’t be without in our collection. We also use it on our nursery stock because even though it increases our nursery costs, we know that in time collectors will see the difference in the quality of the hoya plants we grow.
EM-1 is used for house plants, home gardens, large scale crops and even vineyards. You can hear Kath Irvine rave about on National Radio here (from around 13:45).
And where does our beloved Groconut or SeaSol fit in all this?
It’s easy to mistake plant boosters such as Groconut or SeaSol for being a balanced fertiliser which isn’t the case. Feeding solely Groconut will not optimise your hoya’s growth because while it has traces of 14 of the 16 micro-nutrients necessary, these are in super teeny weeny ratios that are far too small to fulfil your Hoya’s total nutrition needs.
Now, we’re not getting down on Groconut – we absolutely love it as a booster / perk-me-up feed. But (and it’s an important but..) it’s not a fertiliser and even the Groconut technical team recommend Groconut is used alongside fertiliser. Think of Groconut as a hoya booster, not a hoya fertiliser. We’ve had amazing results with it when a hoya has arrived through the post dehydrated, using it to reduce transplant shock when repotting, and with cuttings that weren’t thriving.
Now that you’ve made it this far, we think you think you deserve a wee reward.
We know that fertilisers aren’t the most exciting plant mail packages so we’re going to see if we can make it a bit more exciting for you.
Purchase a Hoya Fertiliser Combo pack ($82) containing:
DynaGrow GROW
+
DynaGrow PROTEKT
+
EM-1
And we will throw in a 45g packet of Groconut absolutely free.
Yep, valued at $20 and all yours for free for simply giving your hoya collection the best goodies to thrive.
This is a limited time offer, available for Hoya Fertiliser Combo packs purchased between 10/7/22 – 31/7/22.
We love chatting hoya and offer complimentary video calls for trouble-shooting any issues you are having in your collection or if you’d like to learn a new hoya skill such as how to propagate using leca or fern fibre. Book one in now by clicking here.
We hope you enjoyed this deep dive on how to get the best results from fertilising your hoya collection.
Happy Hoyas!
Footnotes
* This was discovered in 1840 by scientist Carl Sprengel and subsequently became known as Liebig’s law of the minimum,
** The essential nutrients a hoya requires for optimised growth comprise of those supplied by air & water (oxygen, carbon, hydrogen), macro-nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium), secondary-nutrients (sulfur, magnesium & calcium), and micro-nutrients (zinc, molybdenum, manganese, iron, copper, chlorine, boron). Since the 16 essential nutrients for optimal plant growth were discovered by scientists between 1840 & 1939, botanical research has subsequently identified the importance of silicon for cell development. Silicon is often referred to as the 17th essential element for plant nutrition.
