I received this plant as a cutting from Rachel Colette Conroy late in the summer of 2022 with the following information on the tag: Hoya aff. serpens (xiaojie 001 RC-645 Jack Wei’s #s).

This new Hoya serpens’ clone could not have come along at a better time for me as I had struggled with the regular H. serpens for years, and was on the verge of losing it. It did finally succumb to root mealies less than a year later. I chopped up the cutting that was gifted to me into three small pieces and rooted them in coconut husk chips. What I noticed almost immediately was how much easier Xiaojie 001 grew than the regular serpens that I had kept for 15 years.

I grew this Hoya in my regular humid grow tent with constant day length of 14 hours, but knew that it was unlikely to ever flower that way. The regular serpens only flowers when the day length increases in the spring. I did not worry about that because I was primarily interested in getting the plant to a large enough size to want to flower. It was a very good grower and put on many peduncles, and went through a series of up-pottings. I finally decided that I wanted to try to flower Xiaojie 001 so I moved it for two months into a grow tent with 12 hour days, and then in April of 2024 moved it back up to 14 hour days, and I was lucky, almost immediately it started to bud up! I think that the flowers on Xiaojie would have made an excellent time-lapse video as they opened slowly over the course of 24 hours.

I love this Hoya and for anyone who struggles growing the regular Hoya serpens, I strongly urge you to give this much easier clone a try. The flowers may be slightly more impressive on the regular H. serpens, but the much easier cultivation requirements of Hoya aff. serpens (Xiaojie 001) more than makes up for it. This Hoya gets my highest recommendation!