A couple of years ago I got annoyed at the nectar mess that Hoya sp. AH-014 made when the flowers were open so I cut off all of the peduncles; that was a mistake! It did not produce another peduncle for a very long time, but finally it has and is currently flowering with another set of buds coming right behind this batch of flowers. I will not be cutting off any more peduncles!

There is no Hoya that I own that I have more request for than Hoya lithophytica. I get asked almost on a daily basis if I have any to sell and have been told that I am the only source for it in the U.S. I find that hard to believe as I have sold a lot of it over the years and others must have it available as well. Here are flower photos from this morning:

When Hoya chinghungensis Decides to flower, it really decides to flower. There is no Hoya that is capable of putting on as many flowers per square inch as Hoya chinghungensis!

I find that Hoya onychoides is the most difficult of all the Macgillivrayi type Hoyas, and this ‘New’ clone seems to be much harder than the regular version. It is not a plant for beginners, but most people can be successful with it if you keep it very warm and humid. I have laid out the exact parameters that I used to finally grow and bring this one into flower so give it a try if you want!

I thought this would be a good time to talk about my Hoyas and the plant Mother of Thousands – Kalanchoe x laetivirens. Here is the story behind how I ended up with so many of these plants growing in my pots of Hoyas. A former coworker and good friend of mine went to buy her lunch one day at our local market, walked next to their houseplant section, and noticed a tiny plantlet of Mother of Thousands on the floor and picked it up. She put the little plantlet in one of the potted plants on her work windowsill, and voila it grew and started spreading everywhere. It ended up in a couple of Hoyas that I kept at work, and I brought it home where by its very nature started spreading through my collection.

I don’t feel that it causes any harm and I kind of think that it helps take up some of the excess water that I am prone to giving my plants. I mostly leave them alone, but occasionally I will go on a purge and get rid of a lot of it, but this plant is one tough survivor! Below my onychoides and Mother of Thousands:

It had 15 hours of LED light every day with humidity levels never below 70%, day time temps around 78F, and night time temps around 63F. It was watered only after the reservoir was almost dry. It sat on a small 11X20 heat mat. It was fertilized with every watering using Jacks Nutrients for RO Pure Water 12-4-16.

Unbelievably, a peduncle formed in late March and began budding up in late April. I did not want to get my hopes up too high, and tried to ignore the buds as much as possible. Finally the plant flowered in mid-May and seemed to have an extra ripple in the corolla, which probably why AH called it ‘New’.

This time after re-rooting in water, I decided to try growing the plant in leca using passive Hydro to see if I would have any better luck. It rooted and grew well at first, but then stalled out again. It did nothing for months until finally I added a heat mat underneath the pot in January of 2021, and it was as if a miracle happened, actual new growth formed within a couple of weeks.

Although I suspected root rot, I did nothing about it for months continuing to hope that the plant would somehow turn itself around and start growing again. Of course it it did not, and after it finally started losing leaves to yellowing, I took a cutting to attempt to save it once again.

I up-potted the plant through a series of net pots and then planted the 4 inch net pot, with plant inside, into a six inch pot with soil. It did okay for a while, but then it quit growing once again, and as much as I did not want to contemplate it, I suspected root rot once again.