Hoya imperialis ‘Mary’s Cottage’ Palawan is another clone of Hoya imperialis.  It apparently is endemic to Palawan Island in the Philippines and was named after the Mary’s Cottage Resort.  This resort is made up of a number of bungalows and is quite popular with the tourists.  I received this plant as a cutting in June of 2012 from Joni Kahn at SRQ Hoyas.  She lists this plant with her locator tag of SRQ 3173.

Compared with my one in a thousand Hoya imperialis Rauschii Seedling that I obtained from Carol Noel, ‘Mary’s Cottage’ is a far harder and temperamental imperialis to grow and bloom.  The leaves become chlorotic and yellow very easily when conditions are not to its liking.  It is impossible to ever green those leaves up again making for a very ugly plant until you obtain enough good growth to remove the ‘eyesore’ leaves.  Unlike my ‘Rauschii Seedling’, the first few flushes of buds yellowed and fell off, leaving me very disheartened.  Finally after having this plant outside all summer long, bringing it back indoors, and putting it under an LED lighting, it developed buds that made it to maturity in Late November of 2015.  The flowers are quite beautiful and considerably different in color to my ‘Rauschii Seedling’.  They are a rose/pink and similar in size to Rauschii; they last around 8 days and drip large droplets of nectar.  If you only have room for one Hoya imperialis, this probably would not be the one to keep, but if you have the room, it could make a very nice addition to the collection.

Click on any of the photos in the gallery to see full sized.