Here are a set of buds emerging on a Hoya that is new within the last couple of years to the trade – Hoya sp. Kalimantan SLM-01

One of my oldest Hoyas, Hoya sp. Bangkok Red, is doing fantastic after a restart from cuttings this summer. It has been flowering like crazy; here is a set of buds from this morning:

I cut my last Hoya nyhuusiae flower off to do a comparison photo with Hoya dennisii.

I’ve always grown Hoya lobbii as a trellised plant in the past. Perhaps some of you have seen photos or a video of the giant plant that I had in the past. Well, that plant is no more, but it lives on in cuttings. I decided to try growing it this time as a hanger to see what it looks like and so far I’m liking it!

Happy New Year Everyone! Let us all hope that 2021 brings all of us a much better year than we had in 2020. The pandemic made our lives pretty miserable and we will hope and pray that by this time next year, we will be much more back to our normal way of living.

Every year at this time I like to look back at the my Hoya keeping highlights from the previous year. We have to go all the way back to June to find anything really noteworthy and that would be my flowering of Hoya undulata. This is my candidate for the most difficult Hoya that I have ever grown, and I was pretty darned proud to say I finally got this one to flower.

Another exciting flowering in 2020 would have to be Hoya sp. SR-2017-012 Frog Foot, which I am pretty sure may now be called Hoya amrita.

My next blooming highlight of 2020 would be the flowering of Hoya flavida after five years of trying.

My final flowering highlight for the past year would be a recent one, and that was the gorgeous Hoya nyhuusiae.

The other two Hoya keeping highlights for 2020 was getting to do an podcast interview with Maria Failla of Bloom and Grow Radio. If you have not heard it and want to hear me talk for an hour on Hoyas, here is the link: https://bloomandgrowradio.com/hoya/. The other highlight would be all of the positive responses that I had to the Hoyas that I offered up for sale last year. It totally blew me away! Well that is my wistful look back at 2020. I wish all of you the happiest and best growing years of your lives in 2021!

I love Hoya bellas of all types, and Hoya paxtonii is just enough different to make a worth while addition to any collection. I look forward to being able to have a large plant that will really show off its longer leaves to great advantage and will definitely bring it back for further discussion in the future.

The primary difference between the two plants is that the leaves on H. paxtonii are much longer and more narrow than on the typical Hoya bella that I have grown. The leaves on Hoya paxtonii are about 2 1/4 inches long compared to about 1 1/4 -1 1/2 inches long on the regular bella.

The newly rooted plant did not seem to like the warm conditions and LED lighting of the grow tent that I had it in, as the leaves did not look particularly healthy, and the first peduncle fell off. I moved it to a cooler tent with a T-5 fluorescent lighting, and it perked right up and soon formed a peduncle that actually grew. Buds formed and they opened a few weeks later.

Hoya paxtonii was rooted in sphagnum when I got it and as I began to unwrap it, I noticed the dreaded root rot. I took cuttings and placed them in water with a couple of drops of KLN Concentrate and a few weeks later there were ample roots to put it into a 2 inch pot using a soil substrate.

Let’s end the year with a new Hoya for me in Hoya paxtonii. I had never heard of this Hoya prior to a kind and generous woman, named Mandy, contacted me and asked if I wanted a cutting. I immediately accepted the offer as it was closely related to Hoya Bella, which I always did pretty well with.