Hoya Caudata Sumatra – Carla’s Hoya Haven

This Hoya has amazing leaves. They come in soft and fuzzy and purple before hardening up like a thin crispy green wafer. The more light they get the more bespeckled they become. The vine looks dead but it’s not. It’s truly a marvelous plant to behold. I love this one. It is definitely one of my favorites.

I purchased this plant mid summer 2022 from Land of Alice and it grew well under a GE Seeds and Greens grow light hung from a chrome shelving rack. A little afternoon sun shining across the room from a west facing window helped it along. At that time I was turning off the central air and opening windows during the day. Temperatures inside were reaching up to 84F with 77% humidity. It was a bit balmy inside to say the least. I turned on the ceiling fans to create air flow. My caudata was pushing out 4 leaves at a time.

My plant arrived in coconut husk chips and I kept it in the grow pot until early fall when I moved it to an orchid pot with additional coconut chips mixed with ABG mix. This is sufficient for this plant. I water periodically with lightly fertilized water. Getting the watering down can be tricky with caudata. It doesn’t like to soak in water to rehydrate the chips. Misting the surface of the chips and adding a bit of water to the tray seems to be enough. Watering has to be done at just the right time. Too soon during new leaf growth and it drops the baby leaves. Too late and the baby leaves dry out and shrivel up.

Throughout the summer this plant thrived more on humidity but my caudata didn’t like the grow tent. I’m not sure why. It was warm and humid albeit humidity was closer to 90% when I first started using the tent. It may have been the watering schedule (every other week) and soaking the plant too long to hydrate the potting substrate. Maybe there wasn’t enough air flow although I run the fans 10 minutes on and 20 minutes off 24 hours a day. It is possible it went through a dormant phase.

I took it out of the grow tent and placed it under another grow light on a table near the fireplace. One day in January I went off to work and forgot to turn the fireplace off. By the time I got home it was 74F. I thought all my Hoyas would be wilted but no. They were thriving. They thought it was summer. Within days many of them started pushing out new leaves including this caudata. It doesn’t mind the dry air. It doesn’t mind the shorter days and lack of sufficient natural light. It LOVES the heat.

Now I make sure the heat is set at 72F during the day and I run the fireplace for a while at night. This caudata has continued to steadily put out new leaves. A little heat, a little grow light, a little mist, a little fertilized water and this is a lovely plant and steady grower. I can’t say I have this one all figured out but for the most part I think we’ve grown used to each other.

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