Mites ain’t right.
All the hoya people are talking about flat mites, like I need one more plant thing to think about. Adam “knotdude” and Betsy “betsybegonia” did great, in-depth videos about them. But did I really want to get into all that?
Then Doug from Vermont Hoyas did his video about them. He talked about seeing a dramatic change and new growth soon after the first treatment with sulfur. Doug always seems level-headed, not prone to drama, so I paid him a bit more mind. Lots of my hoyas are growing like weeds, but some of them haven’t done anything since they arrived. I ordered the little “microscope” thing and took a look.
And darn it, of course there they were. Not everywhere, but enough. So I got the sulfur and started treating the plants that hadn’t shown any growth for months: H lyi, H manipurensis, H erythrina, and H phuwaensis. (See any of the above videos for the how-to details. Wear a mask when handling the sulfur, trust me you don’t want to inhale it.)
Three days later there was new growth on each of them, literally three days; like they were just waiting for a chance to grow. So this weekend I’m going to start others on the treatment program. It’s not difficult, just takes a bit of time, but for me the results were worth it.
I’ll keep you posted.
