What do you do when a plant has reached a size that is no longer manageable, and you are tired of cleaning up the mess that it makes when it endlessly flowers. I recently found myself in that position with Hoya cutis-porcelana. The plant is now so widely available that there is no commercial value in chopping it up to sell it off as rooted cuttings. You can’t give the large plant away for two reasons: one it has a trellis that is valuable, to you, because it is no longer made, and two you don’t know anyone who would take it off your hands anyway. I made the hard choice; I took two small cuttings to root so I could keep it in my collection, and then I saved the trellis and the pot. The rest I disposed of. Hoya cutis-porcelana RIP!

Over the winter my Hoya desvoeuxensis developed some root issues. I did not want to lose this plant at any cost so I chopped it up into 41 cuttings. 40 cuttings survived, I sold or gave away 38 of them, and save two for myself. I put them into a 5 inch pot, and they have already flowered in less than six months. This photo is from this morning.

These flowers just opened this morning, so they are as fresh as can be.

Hoya danumensis has been flowering for weeks now on the windowsill, and I decided to move it outside for the rest of the summer. It needs to get restarted, because I simply can’t keep it watered enough any longer. If I have to water a plant more than once a week, it becomes untenable!

I will never be able to duplicate this plant again so I have to make the most of it and take as many photos as possible.

I find that with very large Hoyas, it is very difficult for me to convey the size of the plant in a photograph. It is also difficult for me to show the splendor of a plant when it is covered in many flowers at the same time. Below is an attempt to show off H. stenophylla to its best advantage. Tomorrow I will display a couple more attempts.

I have continuously cultivated Hoya patella now for around 14 years now. According to the data that is recorded with every digital photograph, the first time I flowered it was in May of 2010. Here is a new photo from this morning with the plant looking very happy against this fence as a backdrop.

There are currently four open peduncles full of flowers on this relatively tiny plant. Here is a hand full of the blooms:

Before I flowered this plant last year, I waited nine years in between flowerings. It now flowers profusely, and easily; what changed? I think that the biggest change was switching to coconut husk chips as my primary growing substrate. Plants that use to give me fits to grow like H. inflata, undulata, buntokensis, etc. now grow with ease using the coco chip medium. Now plants like acicularis flower without me ever thinking about it. It currently has 4 peduncles with open flowers; here is one from this morning:

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!