I failed with this plant so many times, and I finally know why; the soil was too heavy for it. The secret lies in using coconut husk chips, which allows the roots to breathe freely while also holding enough moisture . Water when dry by soaking the root ball quickly, let dry and repeat. The plant even does well with nighttime temps falling into the upper 50’s when handled in this manner. Lighting should be somewhat shaded or the leaves will quickly turn red.

In all of my years of keeping this species, it has never looked this good or gotten to this size. Tomorrow I give away my cultivation secrets.

This plant reminds me of Hoya papaschonii in so many ways. Now if it were only self-polinating….

Not much to say about this easy care Philippine species other than it is a great one to have around!

It is always disappointing to put your heart and soul into a plant expecting it to be one thing and then finding out, it is something else altogether. Here is a plant that was supposed to be Hoya surisana, but it is clearly another random campanulate species. Hoya surisana has a distinctive long calyx that these buds are completely missing. To add insult to injury, on three separated occasions the buds have fallen off before opening. The same thing happened to these buds below.

I need to start this plant over this spring, and I have not decided whether I will keep it, or not. It takes up an lot of room, and I have very limited space. I’ve done about everything that I have wanted to do with this Hoya so my brain is telling me to part ways with it, but who knows for sure?

Well, the flowers finally began to open up. I will never probably achieve this again; so these photos are for posterity!

I really love this plant, which reaches this huge size in around 2 years.

I may have to move Hoya piestolepsis into the Hall of Shame shortly if I can’t figure out how to bloom it. The plant is huge with numerous peduncles, but it refuses to bud up. I suspect that there is a blooming trigger that I am missing such as increasing or decreasing day length that is the issue. I will have to start trying different things.

I dug this out of the tent this morning, and will try to photograph again when most of the flowers open.