I almost lost this Hoya last winter to root rot and started it over in the summer. It now seems to be growing strongly and has just flowered for the first time. This is one of those Hoyas that wants to flower more than it wants to grow.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! My Hoya darwinii has just flowered for the 3rd time with eleven flowers. This has to be one of the most difficult Hoyas that I have ever grown, and I can’t in good conscience recommend it to anyone unless you really want a challenge!

This past summer I started my Hoya wallachii over by taking the best cuttings that I could find on the plant. While this Hoya flowered quite a bit the plant was always sickly looking; leaves would yellow and fall off all the time. I am proud to say that I finally have a couple of healthy looking Hoya wallachii. It was achieved by rooting the cuttings in water and growing them in a modified bonsai mix. Below one of my new plants flowers for the first time:

Once again all good things must come to an end, and so goes my coverage of Hoya linearis. This is a great plant that I have not been growing long enough to have a firm opinion of its difficulty. I do know that it is considered a cool grower and those plants always seem to present problems for many growers myself included. I will update this blog at the end of the winter after I see how the plant fares. For the time being it will remain in my grow tent unless I start losing leaves.

The flowers of Hoya linearis smell delightfully of lemon and last for two weeks plus, which is a solid run for a Hoya. The plant is a native of the Himalayan region in Northern India.

I noticed that as we moved into late September that there was a couple of very small peduncles forming on the ends of two of the vines. That was very exciting as I had not seen or experienced the blooms in over 10 years. By mid October there was very little light in my north facing window where the plant had lived so I opted to move it into one of my cooler growing tents to see if the lights would mature the buds and get them to open. It worked!

Watering the little plant once per week seemed to do the trick and the plant was actually growing! By the end of the summer it had roughly tripled in size, and needed repotting. I pulled it out of its 3 inch pot and moved it up to a six inch. The roots looked healthy. Below the plant in its entirety:

The problem that I found with the bonsai mix was that it was very difficult to tell when to water. The mix is hard, sharp and difficult or impossible to put your finger into to test for dampness. It is also heavy, which throws off my ability to test for dryness, by hefting the pot. It seemed that water pretty much poured right through it, but I settled on a weekly watering routine just by guess work.

I was intrigued by the mix; as everyone knows, I am a notorious over-waterer myself. I ordered up a bag to experiment with other Hoyas and to have on hand for transplanting my little linearis plant if I was lucky enough to have it grow for me.

When I received the plant my first shock was the medium in which it was growing. She was growing the plant in what looked to me like bonsai soil. I emailed her to ask what it was, and she said that it was indeed bonsai soil made by a company called Bonsai Jack. She used it she said because she was too kind to her plants, which I interpreted as she watered frequently and this medium was insurance against root rot. Below a close-up of the mix: