Hoya paulshirleyi needed to be watered well a couple of times a week and grew quite rapidly.  I was quite surprised when I spotted the first peduncle so early.  From Cutting to flower only took around six months – Keeping in mind this was grown in ideal conditions of artificial lighting in a grow-tent.

Hoya paulshirleyi rooted very quickly and I ended up with two plants salvaged from what looked like a hopeless cause.  I grew them in net pots using my standard chunky mix.  I found out quickly that this was a plant that drank up a lot of water.

I received Hoya paulshirleyi in an ill-fated group order from Thailand in September of last year.  The roots were completely rotted off so I took several cuttings to see if I could salvage anything, and I ended up with two plants.  Below the first flowers of the plant:

I think this Hoya is finally coming around and looking the way it is supposed to look!  Here is Hoya hahniae Yellow/Pink from this morning.

I love Hoya curtisii.  It is common and easy to find; the leaves are spectacular, and if you get it to flower, you will feel like just maybe you’ve got this Hoya thing figured out.  If you don’t have the plant, pick one up, you won’t regret it!

Now that we have touched pot, soil, and watering, it’s time to talk about light and humidity.  Hoya curtisii will grow well in full sun or very little sun.  It is pretty adaptive.  I flowered this plant the first time after having it exposed to full sun out of doors for a full summer.  The second and third time it flowered just as the days were beginning to lengthen in late February/Early March indoors in a northwest window with almost no sun.

There is no doubt that Hoya curtisii grows best in high humidity, but it will muddle along with relative humidity as low as 40%, but expect a lot of dried out growing tips.  My plant lives year around now in my house witch gets pretty dry in the winter time.  I think think this Hoya would like to live in a bathroom where it would get extra humidity from people taking showers.

Now that we have the soil and pot figured out, how about a watering schedule? I have found the schedule should be thrown out; this plant needs to be only watered once it has dried out.  I’m a person who likes to water all of my plants on the same day each week, but with Hoya curtisii it won’t work.  Water only when dry, then soak the plant, and start the process all over again.

There is much advice on the internet about how to care for Hoya curtisii from never let it dry out to keep it dry all the time.  I can only say what has worked for me. The plant needs a relatively small pot where it can literally live for years (Mine has been in the same 4 inch pot for 4 years!). The soil should be relatively free draining, but also have some water holding capacity.  Peat-based potting soil amended with 25% perlite should work fine.

Hoya curtisii has just flowered for the third time since I’ve been keeping the plant, which is probably around seven or eight years. Below are some new photos of the flowers.  Since it flowers so seldom, I will spend a few days talking about it.

Here are a couple more photos of the peduncle with 14 flowers on it that I picked before cutting the plant up into more than 30 cuttings.  They go on sale this week on eBay.  My seller name is erbtarzan24.  I know that the name makes no sense and I would like to change it, but that is impossible.  The name comes from my childhood when I read all of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan books, and there were 24 of them.