Are the yellow/brown spots on my Hoya from transplanting it?

I recently propagated my Hoya that is roughly 9 years old. Now leaves are turning not just yellow, but they have brown circular spots. What could this be?

 

its really hard to be able to diagnose the problem without a picture, and by now, its probably too late for your hoya. i do however come to victoria every month to see a specialist, if you would like a healthy cutting, or rooted plant, please pm me and i will bring you several. peace.

 

Is it a cutting or the mother plant? All leaves or just a few? Do you know what kind of Hoya it is? Some are more sensitive than others.

 

Thank you for your reply! It's not too late as it is a new plant from a cutting, and it IS rooted, I just wonder if changing it's environment could make that much of a difference, or if by accident I over spilled when I was fertilizing other plants.

 

Hoya carnosa, (L. f.) R. Br.
I believe this is the species of Hoya I have, but there are so many.

 

The picture is small, but when leaves on my plants look like that scorching by intense light is usually the cause. It does not look dangerous.

 

Mandarin,

Again, thank you for getting back to me. I am new at this propagating stuff, so I'm just excited to see all 4 newbies taking off. One of my other newbies has 3 new leaves already. What kind of fertilizer works best for the little guys and should I fertilize in the winter?

 

it looks like sunburn, as these plants do not like direct sunlight and will burn. i keep mine under florescent lights while rooting and they do very well, with tight leaf joints and dark leaves with silver spots and splashes.
my mother is kept in the main bathroom, as it loves the humidity and low light levels. once the hoya flowers, it will continue to flower on the same spike for months, even years, with dormant periods. these plants like to be root bound, and are rarely transplanted, or so i am told, if you expect to see flowers.
here are a few pictures of my 1 year old plant from clipping,rooted under a florescent light,18 hrs a day.

 

I grow mine in an essentially nutrient-free mix, and while I water less frequently in winter I add fertilizer to the water all year around.
Type of fertilizer – the name would not mean much as I use a local brand. I can describe the contents if you like, but I am not sure if it is that important.

 

i use advanced nutrients 2 part program, for all my house plants, as well as several additives for micro nutrients, distilled water, because you don't want to give fluoride enriched water to your plants.
your plants look a little grey, and could probably benefit from a topical feed know as 'green-stay', works wonders. if you use an organic food to troubleshoot, remember that they can take up to 2 weeks before it becomes usable, so i dont recommend it, but with a little green-stay, your plants will have readily available food until the organic food becomes avail. never use topical feeding while the plant is in direct sunlight/ hps/mh or florescent, or your leaves WILL burn. plus it couldn't hurt to add some defused light, as the light will help your plant use up its food reserves, so its leaves don't burn from over feeding.
most indoor potting mixes are 'soiless mix', and if your plants are planted in soiless mix, you are better off using a hydroponic food intended for soiless growing. food intended for growing in soil, is held in the soil particles before the plant ingests it, if your not growing in soil, you could be burning your plants roots with the wrong food. soiless mix drains easily,is very light in weight, and is often used by the nurseries for rooting plants quickly, but has zero nutrients, so if your not feeding plants that are grown in soiless mix, your plant is starving to death.
i hope i was able to shed some light on some of the possible issues your young plant might be facing...peace

 

Why would you not want to give fluoride-enriched water to your plants?

 

most of the foods on the market have enough calcium already, as they are balanced and complete. if you give your plants fluoride enriched water, meant for humans, not plants, you are putting your micro/macro nutrients out of whack, possibly causing nutrient lock out, and salt build up, plus its just not good for your plants. but don't just take my word for it, try giving your plants distilled water, and see for yourself how much healthier they will be. i also add food grade peroxide to my water, to kill off unwanted guests larva in soil, and add more oxygen to the root zone. here is a picture of my nice healthy hoya...

 

Well, it is certainly true that adding fluoride to water, like adding anything else to it, takes it outside its natural state. And it is equally true that anything "unnatural" should be prima facie suspect. But are there any controlled experiments that show detrimental effects to using fluoridated tap water, which pretty well every city person in North America has used on all their plants for half a century? I say 'controlled experiments" because although there is of course no value to anecdotal reports, after all these years I would expect that there have been actual controlled experiments to test this hypothesis.

 

i am sure there are studies that back this up. growing indoor medicine has brought me to this conclusion, as i have had crop failure due to ph balance and nutrient lock out. the culprit? city tap water w/fluoride. the water when tested had more than the 50 ppm, ( parts per million) which is considered tolerable, but causes spotting, and once again nutrient lock out, as well as yellowing roots. most cities have more than 50 ppm added to the water.
in regular house plants, i notice greying of the leaves in my hoya and succulents, they just looked sickly. so i did my own study, giving each test group exactly the same food and environment, 10 x 1000w super growlux hps bulbs, co2, bleeder system, and advanced nutrients plant food, and food grade hydrogen peroxide. i grow in soiless mix, with 1/5 coconut choir, and dolomite lime. only difference was the group that had city water, also needed ph up/and or down, to bring the water to the right ph before watering. (city water fluctuates drastically)
the plants in city water needed constant flushing each week and suffered from many deficiencies, they were not as healthy, and produced far less than the other group, about 3 oz less.
note that most house plants are not as picky as organic medicinal plants, but the concept is still the same. healthier plants, is the goal. i wouldn't drink city tap water, and i most certainly wouldn't give it to my precious house plants, they are my children!! lol.... ( i am posting a picture of my exemption, as i am a legal producer of medicine, and do not condone recreational use, or illegal behavior )

 

http://www.fluoridationfacts.com/ausfnews/sepoct04/plants_flowers.htm

Googled that for you.

 

thank you so much for supplying the link... i should mention that 3 oz of dry medicinal marijuana is 15 oz wet, and to me that is a HUGE difference between my test subjects. also that the (.) is missing from my previous post, it was supposed to say .50 ppm,lol, not 50!!
damage to my hoya plants took longer to show, as they are house plants not kept in grow room, and only through the process of elimination did i realize the culprit was fluorinated water. i now live in the country and use rain water for my plants when possible, and distilled water, gets expensive, but the 23 years i have invested in some of them, it would be a shame to loose them now...i hope you hoya is feeling better...cheers

 

I completely agree with Cagreene on the water. It's a huge difference! Plants that I give rain and distilled water do so much better! I started realizing that when I began raising carnivorous plants, city water will kill them in a heartbeat! I would get tired of switching cans or containers and paying so much attention which is going where that some of my other plants just started getting the same treatment as the carnivorous plants near them and those plants did better. I am a biologist. I know what a controlled study is and I agree that anecdotal evidence is not worth much, with one exception - and that is when it is so wide-spread. No one cares enough to do a mass, controlled study of ornamental plants, but there are so many people who report to use not city water - especially on certain plants: spider plants for instance. Still, this is not a leap, and I really don't like anecdotal evidence at all. But this one is pretty good stuff. And it is not that the fluorine in the water is necessarily bad, it is just too much! I think that the chlorine in our water is too much too. And city water changes so drastically and so often. I still use it on my plants….sometimes. I like to let the fluorine and chlorine evaporate out though. You still can get mineral problems. Hope this helps a little.