Hoya Addiction and the Joys of Selling One's House

A year ago, I had a few less plants in my house - 115 or so, including the hoyas. Then, just after Christmas last year, we decided that we will list our house for sale in February 2008. We watch all the "Buy Me", "Sell Me", etc., type shows, and the main messages you're given is "declutter", "depersonalize" and "people don't want to see your stuff, they want to see the house".

So, I was encouraged to find new homes for various plants. I found new homes for my philodendrons, bromeliads, ferns, monsteras, sanseverias, epis, succulents, cacti, even a few hoyas that I had more than one of - about 45 plans in all. I have some very happy friends, because I couldn't sell them, I considered it to be far more important to find someone who knows how to look after the plants that I nurtured into lush, healthy and beautiful specimens. Some of these plants were more than 10 years old.

I did keep two that will be staying - a Norfolk Island Pine that's about 15 years old and a farily large pony tail palm. I also have two hibiscuses, a duranta and another one I can never rememer the name of that a friend gave to me. I can't part with any of these either, but will try to get them fostered once we list. Other decluttering meant packing up all of our books, keepsakes and collections. Wow, that's been a big job-our garage is nearly filled with boxes!

About the hoyas though - being a confirmed and unrepentant hoya addict, and having nearly a whole year, I managed to acquire another 50 or so hoyas last year (okay, 56). I don't consider my hoyas to be clutter, but just to be cooperative, I have "contained" them onto five stands. I had one plant stand that my father made about 20 years ago, which has always been used for plants. The other four, I got from Ikea, and they all have adjustable shelves, which is helpful because some of the hoyas are on trellises that are more than 3 feet high. But, "condensing/containing" this many plants onto shelves has given me some challenges. One is to be very, very careful that I don't miss any of them when watering. My biggest job these days is keeping the individual plants from having "twining parties". One of the nicest surprises I had was a few weeks ago, I found an umbel of Hoya lobbii flowers two days before the flowers opened! I hadn't even noticed they were there.

We also replaced light fixtures, taps in the kitchen and bathrooms, the dishwasher, repaired everything that needed it, and completely repainted the house.

Now, we can only wait until the sales rep sends a stager to help prepare the house for showing. I'm fully prepared for the stager to tell me how completely wrong I am and that my hoyas will have to go if I expect to show the place to its fullest potential. My message to that stager will be along the lines of "if you can't handle the challenge of showing our home with the few limiations we're posing, then you're in the wrong business".

I'm really curious to find out how this is going to work out.