I found this gorgeous leaf yesterday when moving and untangling the Hoya vines in my growroom in preparation for Azamax spraying.  It is Hoya balaensis, which was a cutting that I had ordered from Thailand last year.  The Plant had done nothing for months, but all of a sudden it is growing well!

Hoya balaensis Leaf From Grow Room January 27, 2013.

I have owned both Hoya tjadasmalangensis and Hoya polystachya for five to six years.  Hoya tjadasmalangensis was bought from a collector in Tennessee, and polystachya was bought as a cutting from David Liddle.  Both of my plants have always looked identical, and I had not bloomed either one up until now.  I have been researching both plants on the Internet prior to writing this post, and it was not all that helpful.  If both of these species are not the same plant, then they are so close that there is absolutely no reason for a collector to own both of them.  I have a sneaking suspicion though that the plant I bought as tjadasmalangensis is in reality polystachya.  I say that only because in David Liddle’s description of the plants, he indicates that tjadasmalangensis has small pink flowers, and polystachya has small green/yellow flowers.  If you research both of these online most photos show them both with pink tinged flowers.  I know that flower color is not a real good indicator of identity, but that is really all I have to go on.  I’m also pretty sure after looking at all of the Google Images, many collectors have their plants id’s mixed up.  I will be adding this post to my Hoya pages for both species, if indeed they really are two separate species!

Regardless of the controversy above, both polystachya and tjadasmalangensis are incredible foliage plants.  Also, their flowers are much more impressive than I was led to believe.  Each flower measures close to a centimeter across, and has an incredibly beautiful perfume.  Here is the first photo of several I will be sharing over the next few days.

Bought as Hoya tjadasmalangensis but probably Hoya polystachya.

From this photo, I think you will all agree that Hoya archboldiana x onychoides should be blooming any day now.  While I have bloomed this Hoya before, it is still exciting, because the color of the blooms have varied greatly both times.

Hoya archboldiana x onychoides Buds from January 17, 2013

Hoya praetorii is, to put it simply, one of the easiest, best performing bloomers around.  In the interests of getting a fuller plant, I chopped up all of my praetorii plants into ten inch cuttings in September and shoved them all into one large semi-hydro container.  I then bagged it and waited for roots to develop.  In the short two months that have gone by, it has already grown like crazy and produced a number of buds.  Here is a photo from this morning:

Yesterday, I uploaded my 64th You Tube video called Just the Flowers Ma’am Hoya fobesii Sabah. Unfortunately, my music didn’t clear so there is an small advertisement that appears about 20 seconds into the film, but you can quickly delete the ad by clicking the X.  Here is the link to the one and a half minute film:

http://youtu.be/GDre0AqfKNo

Here is the first photo of my Hoya serpens seedling showing off its seed leaves in an Aerogarden grow anything pod.  I am sure that this will be the world’s first attempt at Hoya seeds in an Aerogarden.  I am a complete novice with this method, and it very well might not work out, but so far so good.

Here is a quick photo of Hoya retusa that I snapped with my Canon this morning. Can I recommend this Hoya to the average grower in the Northeast?  No, unless you have a year around greenhouse or can provide a cool, humid growing area such as a basement grow tent.  Fun weird Hoya to play around with though.  Second year I have managed to get this plant to produce flowers, but not easy.

Here is Hoya elliptica from this morning taken with a shaky camera.  It does however show the different stages of bud and blooms.  There is a fully open fresh bloom, a bloom that has just gone by, and two stages of buds in the same photograph.