It is difficult to let an indoor potted plant completely drain while completely wetting the entire rootzone. I have this problem too. I want to completely wet the roots when I water, but I don't want to have the water drain out of the pot and onto my floor or countertop. What I have done in the past is have two trays at the ready. When the first tray fills with the leftover water, I perform the ol' switcheroo with the trays (replacing the filled tray with the dry tray, while emptying the filled tray). Another thing to remember is that in winter, Hoyas will need a little bit less water since they will grow less actively. I hope this information is helpful. Please let me know if you need any other horticultural advice as I am always happy to help a fellow gardener. Cheers...Robby

Second scenario: Hoyas do best with sharply drained soil. If Hoyas are standing in constantly wet soil or have wet feet (this is the term people will use if a plant is sitting in standing water), they will invariably suffer. Basically the roots suffocate due to lack of oxygen and will begin to die off. If a plant starts losing roots, it will be unable to absorb enough water to maintain the amount of leaves it has. As a result the leaves that can't get enough water will wilt and eventually die off. This is unfortunate because the symptoms of over-watering can resemble the symptoms of under-watering. Your mentioning of your Hoya sitting in a tray of ruddy water was the hint that makes me think this is the case.

First scenario: Hoyas do well with high humidity. Being inside for the winter, chances are your Hoya is experiencing some dry air. When we heat our homes, we artificially dry out the air. This could cause the leaves to dry out like you described, but I think the more likely explanation is the following...

Hey Aimee...I'm sorry to read this. I do think I may have an idea of what is going on. I am going give two scenarios of what I think may be the problem, but I think the second scenario is the more likely of the two cases.

I hope this is helpful. Definitely let me know if you have any further questions. Cheers...Robby

If you were to ask several different horticulturalists which fertilizer is best to use with roses, chances are you will get a different answer every time. Generally speaking fertilizers that are high in phosphate and relatively low in nitrogen are good for promoting floral production. I say this with a warning though. Roses love their nitrogen as well. The trick here is to find that balance that promotes both luscious foliar growth (nitrogen helps with this) and abundant floral production. My suggestion would be to go to your local nursery and purchase some fertilizer. It could be a liquid fertilizer, organic or slow release or some combination of the three. My recommendation is to follow the fertilizer use instructions. A rose can recover much more easily from too little fertilizer than they would be able to with too much fertilizer.

As for promoting flowering for your climbing rose, there could be several issues at play. Chances are the climbing rose is either not getting enough sunlight or nutrients (my bet is on the latter). I would be surprised to ever hear that a rose was getting too much sun. Roses love the sun and the more the merrier for the most part (of course there can always be issues with dry soil that will complicate the sun issue, but as long as there are no other limiting factors, give your rose as much sunlight as possible). Many roses are also heavy feeders. They like the nutrients, which means you could potentially be feeding your rose every other week during the growing season. When your roses are dormant, it does little good to feed since the roses will have no place to put those nutrients since they will have no new place to put them, aka new leaves and shoots.

Hey Elizabeth...I actually know a thing or two about roses :)...(My dissertation for my PhD was primarily based on roses) Granted there are thousands upon thousands of different cultivars of roses and for the most part they have different cultivation needs, but they all have similarities. Roses like sun and warmth! This is what they will thrive on. Of course roses can withstand cold (they will drop their leaves and go dormant if it gets too cold), but if given warm temperatures year round they will continue to produce leaves and some cultivars will also produce flowers. As for your climbing rose, some climbing roses will become a large mound of leaves, canes and flowers without any type of support to cling to. If you have enough room, I actually feel this is a good look, but the shrub can get HUGE! I like to compare this look to a shaggy hairdo, as opposed to the clean cut look of a climbing rose trained and pruned to some sort of support. Since I'm not sure which cultivar your climbing rose is, I can't really give you a sense of what it will end up looking like.

Now here comes the monkey wrench in this whole situation. Many plants will also drop their leaves because they have too much water in the soil. You mentioned that the Ficus was sitting above a radiator vent, which leads me to believe that you may already have known that the soil is drying out too quickly. I can foresee a gardener deciding to give lots of water to the plant in an attempt to save the plant from drying out. If this is the case, once again sensor-based irrigation will take this into account as well. I hope this helps you. Let me know if you have any further questions. Cheers...Robby

It's situations like this that time-based irrigation will fail, since the normal irrigation interval has changed due to these different factors. Using sensor-based irrigation goes right to the source. Your EasyBloom will tell you when the soil is too dry and when it is time to water again. Also, since it's winter, you will not have to fertilize your Ficus for a bit, so be sure to use tap water when watering your Ficus.