One of my favorite Hoyas from the Philippines, Hoya soligamiana just keeps on flowering:

I have completely changed my opinion of Hoya mirabilis Clone B after growing it in a hanging pot in the regular house.  I used to grow this one in semi-hydro where it dripped so much nectar that it was unmanageable.  Now growing it in my regular mix, in the much drier house, it doesn’t seem to drip at all.  A fabulous plant that everyone should own.  Grows well and flowers even with very little light as can be seen below.

Hoya mirabilis Buds Just Beginning to Open.

Hoya mirabilis Flowers Mostly Open.

What can I say, I love Hoya imperialis, and it was a thrill to bloom my third clone of the plant.  It only took 19 months after I had the right system in place to flower this wonderful Hoya, and if you have the room, I can heartily recommend it to every one!

Hoya imperialis wants to grow in a medium chunky mix: 3 parts peat-based potting soil to 1 part course perlite, or sponge rock will work well.  It also appreciates a couple of tablespoons of ground oyster shell mixed in to the mix.  The plant needs frequent re-potting and should be fertilized at every watering at 1/4 strength in the winter and 1/2 strength in the summer.  It will grow faster with high humidity, but does not need it to survive, or flower.

Heartbroken over losing the buds, I decided to move the plant out to the greenhouse over the summer.  It did pretty well growing three to four feet of new vine, and another peduncle, but there was no sign of budding up.  When I brought it back indoors in September, I put it along with some other tall Hoyas into this tent seen below in the video:

The tent with LED light made all the difference in the world; the plant finally started budding up in a big way on one of the new peduncles that it had put on over the summer, and these buds made it to maturity and opened in early November.  Below you see the plant in its full glory:

Within a couple of months of losing that first peduncle, Hoya imperialis Palawan developed another one, and this time I moved the plant out of its tent and put it on a windowsill in the regular house.  This would have been in late April of this year.  It started to bud up, and I could hardly hide my excitement.  The buds got to about 1/4 inch in size, and began to yellow after watering.  At first I tried to kid myself that it wasn’t happening, but alas they yellowed further and all fell off.  This was the notorious Hoya imperialis bud blast that I almost never experienced with my super Rauschii seedling clone.

I finally had so many roots coming out of the five inch net pot that I was afraid to remove the plant from the pot for fear of hurting the plant.  I made the decision to sink the entire net pot with plant into a much larger regular pot.  The plant continued to flourish, and developed its first peduncle at six months of age, which it lost a couple of months later.

As soon as I started using the net pots, my little cutting of Hoya imperialis Palawan started to prosper.  I moved it up from a 3 inch net pot, to a four inch, and then a five inch relatively quickly.  I could finally see what I was doing as far as the watering was concerned by checking the sides of the pot to check for dryness.

Tired of looking at my half dead plant that just sat there and did nothing, I finally decided to pull it out of the pot and check the roots.  They were half rotted, so I took a cutting and decided to put it into a 3 inch net pot, which I had just barely started using.  Net pots are probably the best discovery that I have made in growing Hoyas in the past few years.  I did not come up with the idea, but I have made tremendous use of it!

I purchased Hoya imperialis Palawan from AH Hoyas three years ago.  His number for the plant was AH-283.  The rooted cutting that I received did not respond well to my care and languished for around 18 months.