Hoya Archboldiana

I got this hoya in the summer of 2006. In the fall, it sprouted its first long vine and at the end of it a peduncle popped out. It then did nothing until the following spring, when it produced about a dozen buds. These are the only three that didn't fall off, but they thrilled me anyway. Each of these flowers is nearly 2" in diameter, and have a very light scent, that reminds me a bit of baby oil. I just love their cup shape. Hoya Archboldiana grows wild in Papua, New Guinea. The leaves average about 7" long and 2" wide and are a very dark green. It has put on a lot of growth this year, and budded up one more time, but the buds blasted unfortunately (fell off before opening). I have great hopes for it next year, in our new house.

New Use for a Mini Greenhouse

This stand used to be a mini greenhouse. At one time I tried to start annuals from seed, so my wonderful mother bought me this for my birthday a few years back. Some of my seedlings did okay but it was just too labour intensive for me, especially when bedding plants are so cheap and so easy to find in my area. So, I took its plastic "cape" off and initially turned it into shelving for my office closet. When the big clean-out started, I realized I had another display souroce for my hoyas. There's at least 35 hoyas on this stand; the bottom three shelves have hoyas on it that are all new this year. The hoyas on the top shelf is the one that gives me the most problems, because they send vines over to visit their neighbours, and I have to unwind them. If you look on top of the speaker sitting to the right, this is a 7 year old plant that is an offspring of my first hoya, which itself was an offspring of a hoya my mother had for 20 years. Its hoya carnosa, and is sometimes known as an heirloom hoya, because, looked after properly, they can live more than 50 years.

The stand sits to the right of a window that faces south-east (in fact its in the room directly below the stand in the post below), and gets very bright light and lots of direct morning sun.

Dad's Plant Stand

My hoya displays are in a state of "work in progress" right now because as I said earlier, we're listing our house for sale in the spring and are doing some redecorating. Hoyas are moved from shelf to shelf, shelves are moved from room to room. I'm getting nicer display shelving for some of them early in the new year. This picture is of the stand in our bedroom, sitting beside a south-east facing sliding glass door and gets really bright light all day, and direct sun for a couple of hours in the morning. The stand was made by my father more than 20 years ago; he's been gone since 1995 andI hope I can hold on to it for a few more years. It has one of my oldest hoyas on it, H.compacta, which is the one on the top shelf with the gnarled looking leaves. That one's flowers are a nice pale pink. Other hoyas in the picture are carnosa, carnosa krimson princess, densifolia, obovata, calycina, pallilimba,verticillata, montana, and a few others I can't remember the names of right now.