I purchased H. gracilis from the Groovy Plants Ranch in early April 2022. They no longer offer Hoyas for sale. I had it under the GE Seeds & Greens grow light until late fall when I moved it to the grow tent. It did so-so in the grow tent so I moved it back up on a shelf in front of a window. This Hoya does just fine in average household winter humidity in Iowa which is 27% or lower.
This one grew a couple peduncles at some point but I have yet to see it bloom. It’s just starting to wake up from a long winter nap. It seems to prefer quite a bit of light and I might have to move it to a sunnier window or under the GE grow light. It’s in a chunky mix of ABG Mix and coconut husk. It likes to dry out between waterings. It did most of it’s growing last summer when it was warm and humid in the house.
The leaves are green and splashy. The more light it gets the splashier the new leaves. The young leaves grow in a lovely purple color. This is a very nice easy going Hoya that requires no special care. It’s a great Hoya for beginners and collectors. I look forward to seeing mine bloom this summer.
Hoya curtisii is another plant I purchased from Hirt’s Gardens in April, 2022. I ordered two small plants and both were clipped closed to the potting mix. I potted them together in a small grow pot with regular potting mix. I keep them in the grow tent closer to the grow light with no shade. It was in the shade for a while and it got really leggy and grew loads of arial roots. These will come in handy in the summer when it’s out of the grow tent and thrives mainly off humidity. It has grown quite a few leaves in the grow tent since I moved it up under the grow light. I water this one every other week. It doesn’t have quite enough roots to repot. I think it will be fine in this pot for at least another year.
This plant was quite happy last year on a shelf in front of a west facing window. I was only watering once every other week. The afternoon sun streaming through the window encouraged leaf production. I’m going to put it back in the same spot this year. I think it will do well there again and should put on quite a bit of growth now that the roots are more established.
My fourth Hoya haul of 2023 isn’t much of a haul at all but just a single plant. What a wonderful plant it is! This one is Hoya deykeae purchased from Land of Alice for the fantastic price of $55. All the other deykeaes I’ve seen listed were around $100. The box arrived in great condition. The plant was wrapped in brown paper with quilt batting around the plant. It was secured to the box with packing tape.
The gaps in the box filled with packing peanuts. This plant arrived in excellent condition. It’s a gorgeous plant endemic to the island of Sumatra which has lost more than 50% of its rainforest over the past 35 years. Hoya deykeae is named in honor of Deyke van Donkelaar, a Dutch woman. It has veiny, slighly heart-shaped leaves and I’m excited to add this to my collection though its reported to be a bit of a diva.
I turned to Vermont Hoyas for expert advice on this one. H. deykeae succumbs to overwatering easily. I’ll need to move it to a chunky mix. It arrived in a loose mix of potting soil with copious amounts of perlite. I prefer to leave it in this mix until it is more root bound.
The potting mix was completely dry upon arrival and some of the leaves were a bit thin so I gave it some water with Rapid Start and drained the tray so as not to kill my new plant. It wants bright indirect light and can tolerate morning or evening sun but no midday sun as the leaves will yellow and burn. H. deykeae prefers it warm and humid.
The weather turned cool and dry again here so I’m going to put this plant in my grow tent until its warmer and more humid in the house and I can move it to a shelf where it can get some late afternoon sun in the summer. This particular plant is harder to grow than H. callistophylla but easier than H. gunung gading. I’m going to cross my fingers and hope for the best. My H. callistophylla just grew three new leaves that lived long enough to harden off. If I can get H. deykeae to thrive then I’ll invest in one of my wish list plants – H. gunung gading.
I purchased two small H. australis ‘Lisa’ plants from Hirt’s Gardens in late March 2022. Each 2″ pot had two small vines. Two vines from one pot keep pushing out the variegated ‘Lisa’ leaves. The two vines in the other pot reverted back to australis with no variegation. I do see some effort to push out new leaves with a hint of variegation. Maybe some sun will help. This plant prefers a lot of light and I moved it to a west facing window with sheer curtains.
With or without variegation Hoya australis is a beautiful plant with thick glossy leaves. I have these 4 vines in a 7″ pot with a chunky mix of ABG Mix and coconut husk. This one gets watered every 1-2 weeks when the potting mix is dry.
I have this trellised up on 24″ bamboo hoops. I’m anticipating some vigorous growth this year.
Another fantastic day for me with more new plants arriving in the mail. This time I ordered from The Planted Veteran on Etsy. I’ve wanted to order from this seller for a while now.
There are so many lovely little plants on The Planted Veteran site. I had to give it a try. First, the box arrived in good condition and items inside were well packaged and labeled. The plants themselves were packed in cardboard tubes.
Some quilt batting helped hold the plants in place and protect them from being bumped about inside the box. All three plants arrived in great shape. These are thicker leaved varieties that hold up well during shipping. In back I have H. meliflua and H. fungii. In front is H. merrilli.
They’re all in coconut husk which I prefer. I set them in a west facing window with a sheer curtain. I gave them some water with Miracle Gro Azalea fertilizer, 1/4 tsp per gallon of water.
After a couple days in the sunlight they’re already adjusting to their new home. The leaves thickened back up. The vines are reaching toward the grow light on H. merrilli and H. fungii. I look forward to seeing these plants thrive over the summer months and I’ll be ordering from The Planted Veteran again. I’m very happy with my purchase.
I love Steve’s Leaves! I can always count on nice healthy plants from Steve’s Leaves. Today’s Hoya haul was no exception. The box arrived in great shape and everything inside was packaged nicely. They wrap the Hoyas in paper but it all fit nicely in the box without scrunching them together.
There is always a plant stake with the name of each plant taped to the outside of the package and this is a nice touch. I stick these in the pots. If I didn’t I would eventually forget the names of a few plants.
Wow! I was not expecting such large plants. These are fabulous! From left to right: Hoya cominsii, Hoya tomataensis, Hoya balaensis and Hoya ciliata. What gorgeous beauties.
Once I removed the plastic from around the pots and damp paper towels meant to keep the plants from drying out I put them on trays and gave them some water and Rapid Start. I staked them up. The plants come in potting mix with copious amounts of perlite.
I’ll keep them in this mix until they start to look a little root bound and then move them to orchid pots with an ABG/coconut husk mix. For now I added them to my collection in the living room window. The sheers help to soften the sun. Once the ornamental crabapple tree leafs out this window has the perfect amount of dappled sun.
I couldn’t be any happier with my order from Steve’s Leaves. I’ll end this post with a few pictures of leaves. Look at those fuzzy leaves on ciliata. Just melts my heart.
H. tomataensis H. balaensis H. cominsii H. ciliata
I purchased H. bella from Land of Alice about September 2022. I had this in the grow tent over winter and it did so-so. It grew some leaves. It lost some leaves. In February I pulled it out of the tent and put it on a shelf in front of the window. I gave it more light and less water but still leaves yellowed and fell off.
So, I consulted Vermont Hoyas and looked up Hoya bella. When all else fails consult the expert. Turns out H. bella likes a lot of water and cannot dry out or the leaves will yellow and fall off. So now I keep a little water in the tray. Once the plant is root bound I will move it to a self watering pot. I have it in ABG mix and coconut husk which is a nice chunky mix.
H. bella also prefers a bit of shade. Even the sheers didn’t provide enough shade. I have it behind some other plants for now. Once the ornamental crabapple tree out front leafs out I can move things around and Hoya bella will have the perfect amount of sun and shade.
Note: There is also a Hoya sp. aff. bella with all white blooms. The regular bella has white and pinkish-purple blooms. It was sold to me as Hoya bella but I can’t be sure which plant I have until it flowers.
I purchased H. cumingiana October, 2022, from Steve’s Leaves and this is a vigorous grower. It arrived as a small plant with five rooted cuttings. It grew well in the grow tent as long as it had plenty of light. When I moved it down farther to give it more room to grow up it started getting leggy. I took it out and put it in a West facing window with sheers and it really took off in every direction. This one likes lots of sun and it’s drought tolerant. A topiary frame might be a nice way to trellis this one.
I should have purchased one of those wire snowmen during the after Christmas sale. It was even pre-lit with twinkling lights. For now some 2′ plant stakes will have to do. Because the 4.5″ pot tapers a bit at the bottom the stakes tend to flare out. They’re about 13″ apart at the top. Because H. cumingiana is more shrub-like the vines help hold the stakes in place as I wind them around and clip them in place with plant clips. This will have to do until this plant is ready for repotting.
I purchased H. cutis-porcelana from Steve’s Leaves in September, 2022. This one grew longer vines and a few new leaves in the grow tent but new leaves quickly yellowed and fell off. I find this one to be a little persnickety about watering. Too much or too little and the leaves fall off. I have it now in ABG/coconut husk mix and it likes to be watered once every 1 – 1.5 weeks. The mix needs to rehydrate but then any extra water should be drained off because it’s sensitive to overwatering as well as underwatering. The mix needs to dry but then watered again before leaves dry out and yellow.
The existing leaves faired well in the grow tent but in it’s current location they look a bit dry. I moved it to a spot next to the fireplace because I thought it might like the warmth but the air is a bit too dry and I think this plant will do better when it’s warm and humid outside and I can open the windows. Once I pulled it from the grow tent I trellised this on a bamboo cane loop but the plant died back a bit.
I recently started retrellising plants on SuperTrellis which is fun to work with. Here I have some corner pieces in ice blue, bases with stakes and hexigons in a cool gray, gold, copper, silver and a couple blush colored ones at the bottom and one crimp tool. The hexagons come with connectors and the corner kits come with L-connectors. I have everything I need to make a small tower.
I connected two of my corner pieces to the bases a shoved the stakes down into the pot. My intention was to leave one side open to let the plant vine out. I looked at this and something seemed off. I had put the corner pieces on incorrectly for a standard 1×1 tower.
Once I removed the corner pieces and attached them correctly my base now looked like this and I was ready for hexigons.
I fidgeted with this and then put the other on the base to make it more stable since I’m not using 4 bases here. I then attached a couple hexigons. I used the L-connectors on the corners to add hexigons to the remaining two sides.
In the end I wound up a with a tower with open spaces to allow the plant room to grow and move around. I used some plant clips to attach the vines to the trellis keeping the growing ends pointed up. The growing tips will die if turned upsidedown. They always need to point up in order to keep growing. Also, the vines are more likely to leaf out if they are secured to the trellis. This plant has plenty of new growth points so with some sun, warmth and humidity H. cutis-porcelana should be growing like a weed in the next couple months.
Below are my first three SuperTrellis trellises. The first one in back is a little too wide and tall and tends to fall forward a bit. H. caudata is one of my favorites and I want to display all the leaves. I secured it with a 2′ fiberglass plant stake. The one on the right is H. nicholsoniae and it’s going to be a large plant. I didn’t leave any gaps for the plant to grow and spread out a bit so I’m going to have to redo this one at some point. H. cutis-porcelana is on the left. It’s a small plant now but I’m hoping for some excellent growth this summer.
This was one of my impulse buys from Lowe’s. It was in a 6″ pot with just a hint of vine when I bought it. All the leaves were white as snow with minimal flecks of green. I planted this one in a Lechuza self-watering pot with regular potting mix. I water once every 2-3 weeks when the reservoir is empty and the soil is dry.
I thought it needed more light so initially I put it up on a shelf in a west facing window. This was too much light and it ended up with quite a few sage colored leaves. So much for my beautiful white leaves. I moved it to the dining room table which is about 15 feet from the same west facing window. It did better but was growing very slowly and the leaves tended to brown quite a bit.
I moved it once again to a half wall near a shelving unit with grow lights. It’s not directly under the grow light but gets enough light to create beautiful white and green leaves.
There is now natural sunlight streaming through the window for a brief period of time as we move into spring and that is just enough to create a few almost all white leaves. This and some lightly fertilized water in the reservoir will have to be good enough.
H. tomataensis 
H. balaensis 
H. cominsii 
H. ciliata
