Hoya Haven 

Since COVID-19 started I became interested in Hoya's as house plants.  I have found Facebook groups where you can trade cuttings and it has become a huge hobby for me.  I know that Mom is looking down and thinking, WOW, lovely!  She loved them too, although she only had the common varieties.  I have found such inner peace messing with these plants, watching them grow and taking care of them.  Alan has helped me do the hangers and he said the office now looks like a jungle as there are 7 hangers in this room. As well as a plant stand, and a book case with plants.  

I have learned to take cuttings and start my own plants, which has been so rewarding.  They have grown so much over the past 7 months.  Hoyas are Tropical plants that reside mostly in SE Asia and NW Australia.  There are between 500-600 species that have been located, but they are finding new ones all of the time.  These plants are known as wax plants, and they are in the same family has the milk weed plant, which is home to our beautiful Monarch butterflies.  They have a milky substance in their stems, that emerges when the plant is cut or broken.  Their blooms are amazing balls of beauty.  They each have their own unique color of flower as well as shape, in fact, it can be impossible at times to tell plants apart, except by their flowers!

They are all unique and have beautiful scents to them that can permeate an entire room with their fragrance!  They use these blossoms when making sweet perfumes.  They also have a really sweet sticky nectar.  This nectar attracts ants in the wild, which help the plant in its life cycle.

Hoyas flower on a stalk called a peduncle, each plant can produce many many of the peduncles, and once they do they never lose them, as they will re-flower each year on the same peduncle.  It is so fascinating to see and observe this process.  They form these magnificent round balls of beauty.

So, long story short, I am Hoya obsessed and I am loving it.  My love of gardening comes from Mom, I know this, and I have most always had house plants of some kind in our home over the last 40 years, but not until this year did I get into this species so much.  There are literally societies dedicated to this cultivar!  I do not know if there is one locally but it would be nice to find out.  

The beauty of collecting house plants is growing and sharing cuttings with others and swapping.  This is how I got my three Holiday Cactus as well.  The Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter Cactus are three of my favorite plants I own.  They bloom so beautifully for me and my grandmother grew these very plants as well.

It makes me feel closer to Mom, when I am taking care of my plants.  Just something we both loved, and I am happy knowing she is watching down and loving all of it!  I miss her so much!

Kristin