Continuing my plan to document the new H. clemensiorum leaf coming in, you can see that it has grown one inch in seven days. Actually, I take take that back, according to the photo dates, it was actually 6 days. Eventually I will assemble these photos into some kind of page, or collage.

Hoya thomsonii ‘Pink’ presented a real leaning curve, but was extremely rewarding to grow and flower. I now know how to flower this one by manipulating its day length cycles, and know that it can be flowered at an extremely young age. This is a wonderful little Hoya and one that I give my highest recommendation to!

At the same time I tried the shortening day length hack on Hoya thomsonii ‘Pink’ I also tried it on Hoya linearis, which is another reliable fall bloomer. I had the exact same results and it also flowered at exactly the same time. I am sure that this process could be successfully used on most fall bloomers. Another one that comes to mind is Hoya nummularioides which only seems to flower in the autumn.

Here is another comparison photo of another cool weather Hoya up against Hoya thomsonii ‘Pink’:

I really love these two together! The wonderful world of Hoyas!

I have several new Hoya photo comparison photos and we will start with Hoya thomsonii and Hoya amicabilis.

I thought that it would be kind of neat to use this slider to compare the flowers of both of the H. thomsonii clones.

This small pot that Hoya thomsonii lives in needs to be soaked every 3 days as it dries out pretty fast. Perhaps that is part of the secret to keeping this species happy. It seems very susceptible to root rot when grown in conventional mixes. The flowers when opened are extremely fragrant and perfumes the grow tent and half of the basement where it lives.

In August of last year I started my remaining two cuttings of Hoya thomsonii ‘Pink’ in a 3 oz cup of coconut chips, put it in my humid grow tent and hoped for the best. It took off and actually grew well and formed a number of peduncles in all of that humidity. I made a decision thinking about its fall blooming cycle. In January, I moved it from a day length cycle of 14 hours of light to a new shorter 12 hour day length, and almost immediately buds began to form on all of the peduncles. I could not believe the crazy amount of buds!

This little cutting grew very poorly and was started over a number of times through the years. Somehow I was always able to save it in the long run, but came close to losing it many times. I had always suffered with Hoya thomsonii as it just never did well for me. It is a fall bloomer and never did well on my windowsill, but under lights it would not flower, because it needs decreasing day length to trigger it. Finally I discovered the secret of flowering Hoya thomsonii under lights. More tomorrow…