I’m asked fairly often where my amazingly tough, easy-flowering, Hoya imperialis came from.  Here is the truth as I know it.  Carol Noel, Ted Green and his wife Dorothy were vacationing looking for Hoyas in Sabah, the easternmost state of Malaysia, on the Island of Borneo.  They discovered a large imperialis growing up a tree and found a large seedpod which they split with both Carol and Dorothy growing out the seeds back home in Hawaii.  Most of them did not amount to much, but Carol sold a number of the seedlings for only $5.00 each in a co-op on Dave’s Garden Hoya forum in 2009.  I was lucky enough to order and receive one of those seedlings, which I believe was a one in a thousand plant.  It flowered for the first time at only 18 months of age and has been amazing me ever since.  Here are a couple more photos of the unaided plant flowering on my work windowsill during the darkest days of the year.