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I like hoyas

On Tue, 22 Jul 1997, The Jeli's wrote:

> Mine is in a pot hanging in a brass hoop, and the hoya is trained around
> the hoop.  I have it hanging next to a west-facing window, but I think my
> problems are that it isn't getting quite enough light there, and I always
> forget to feed it.  My husband hung the plant way too high so I have to
> get a chair any time I want to do anything with the plant, and being the
> slightly lazy person that I am that's just too much trouble sometimes. :-)
> Maybe I'll just have hubby lower the bracket on the wall, since I really
> want to get it blooming.  How much sun can a hoya take?  I'd like to hang
> it directly in front of the window if possible.

	I assume that you are talking about the usual hoya, H. carnosa.  I
had one in a South-facing window, here in foggy San Francisco.  Despite
the fog (which makes the East-facing windows I use at work only get direct
sun about 3 days of the week), it does get blazingly bright in the
South-facing window where I had the hoya.  It is a variegated one, Hoya
'Krimson Queen', and it never showed signs of burning.  It has yet to
bloom for me, and actually hardly grew at all in the very bright window. 
I fed it regularly.  Had to move it out of the window, so now it's in an
East-facing window.  

	A woman I know from other plant listservs has a regular H. carnosa
which has not grown a new leaf in about 9 months, for no obvious reason. 
As far as I know, hoyas almost all come from equatorial areas like Borneo,
where one would not expect them to experience a dormant period, unless
they were collected from some high elevation area, maybe?  That's just
guessing.  

	A couple of blocks from here, there is a mealybug-covered hoya
which I have observed in the window of a beauty salon for years.  I think
that is has had a couple of balls of flowers on it every week for years.  

	Sitting next to me is my newest hoya, which puts me up at over 10
species.  Newest one is H. limoniaca.  Bought it from Kartuz in Vista, CA.
I first ordered a collection of three sp, letting him chose.  Since then,
I've ordered one or two other ones each time I've ordered gesneriads and
begonias from him, and from one other dealer.  

	I pick out ones I don't have, avoiding the $10-15 ones, sticking
with the ones which cost $4-5.  I had to jot down the name of the ones I
have, so that I could make sure that he doesn't send me one I already
have, so I happen to have a list of the ones I have...

Hoya bella  (bloomed as soon as I got it, nice thick pointed leaves; I saw
a photo of a specimen-sized plant with hundreds of inflorescences).

Hoya carnosa 

H. diptera  (looks good even when not in bloom, with dime-sized leaves,
has been in bud for weeks and weeks, but my room is probably too cool for
its ideal conditions)

H. fungii  (nice, yellowish blooms, light green, thin leaves).  

H. kerrii (have yet to bloom this one myself, although it has the spurs
left from previous blooming episodes).

H. lacunosa  (beautiful leaves with pressed down indentations; can't
remember the flower, but it has bloomed at least once).  

H. limoniaca

H. tsangii  (this one just bloomed for me, and, if I'm not mistaken, has a
really foul smell.  I didn't realize that any of them smelled bad)

	The above adds up to ten because of having at least two varieties
of H. carnosa.  If some of you are thinking that ten is an incredibly
different number of hoyas, you must not have read the posting in which I
mentioned meeting, via e-mail, a woman in Sweden who grows over 200
different hoyas.  She has even gone on hoya-collecting trips to the
Phillipines (and perhaps elsewhere).

	The more plants one has, the less it matters when one of them 
takes a long time to grow well and/or bloom.  

Keith Dabney
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