Hoya minahassae flowered almost to the day of the one year anniversary of its arrival.

After 3 weeks I moved the plant from the propagator potted in a small net pot to the regular high humidity grow tent.  The plant grew steadily and I eventually moved it up to a 4 inch plastic pot.  It developed a peduncle in May of 2019, where it quickly formed buds.

This plant came to me in May of 2018 from Thailand.  It was in rough shape as most plants are that come ripped from their growing media and shipped across the world. I potted it up and put it into a warm propagator for about 3 weeks where it began to revive.

The foliage of minahassae gets a lovely reddish bronze coloration in good light, which makes for a very becoming plant.

Hoya minahassae comes from Sulawesi and was collected on the Lake Poso side of the Tineba Mountains, and it was described in 2001.  Below the flower buds of the plant:

Hoya RHM-009 makes a most pleasing specimen plant if you can find it.  The plant was an accidental cross that was worth growing out.  The flowers while similar to many other Hoyas are fragrant and long lasting.

I recently contacted Ric Morier to ask about the parentage of Hoya RHM-009 and here is what he had to say:

“It’s one of my crosses. Hoya ridida IML 1424 is the mother. The father is mostly Hoya merrillii.  It has large shiny leaves and grows fast.  I took two blooming plants to my friends garden, and she keeps bees so I think the bees were the pollinators.”

So there you have it.  It was an accidental cross that produced this very handsome plant.

Hoya RHM-009 have some really amazing leaves and makes an outstanding specimen when grown well.  Below the plant in its entirety:

There are so many Hoyas that have these same exact type of blooms.  These flowers however were not nearly as fragrant as some, but they lasted far longer. Most of these type of flowers only last a few days at most, but these lasted around 8 days which was a big plus.

Hoya RHM-009 grew steadily needing a number of up-pottings and finally ending up in an 8 inch pot.  The plant finally flowered after two years on two peduncles last week.  Here are a couple of flower photos: