Hoya Sweet Scent arrived to me as a cutting in a trade with Jimmy Myers of North Carolina in the fall of 2019. It looked like one of those easy to grow fast blooming Hoyas that was not to be the case.

I was going through my leca, semi-hydroponic phase when I received this cutting so I rooted it in leca and went from there. It grew rapidly, but as with everything I grew that way the roots eventually went before I was able to flower it. In addition, while I have very little problem with plant diseases there were bacterial or fungal spots on many of the leaves, which was very off putting to say the least. See photo in bottom gallery with spots circled for an example of what I am talking about.

Finally I had enough of the plant, and I took the best two cuttings that I could find that had little or no bacterial/fungal spotting and started the plant over in a conventional mix. I grew two plants as insurance that I could get this thing to flower. This time around it put on numerous peduncles, but for some reason the buds would continually blast. Finally in May of 2022 I got this plant to grow and keep its buds, and after 3 long years I was ab;e to experience the flowers of Hoya Sweet Scent. I was expecting a strong floral scent, but was somewhat disappointed in the scent not being that strong. It did however smell very enticing to me like some type of sweet desert.

Hoya Sweet Scent comes from Homchun Nursery, Samut Sakhorn Province in Thailand and is a natural cross of unknown parentage. One of the possibilities is Hoya obovata and Hoya parsitica. The name “Sweet Scent” comes from Homchun, which means sweet perfume in Thai.

I love the flowers and the scent of this Hoya, but for some reason growing like I do in a very high humidity grow tent, it seems to be prone to some kind of bacterial or fungal disease. I am someone that strives for perfect looking foliage so this is a draw back for me. This may not happen at all if the plant is grown in the regular house on a windowsill. I am only giving Hoya Sweet Scent a qualified endorsement, but my experience may be completely different than yours so take it with a grain of salt.