Dad's Plant Stand Again

My last post was several weeks before we moved last spring. I don't know why I keep forgetting to post to this blog, but I guess that's just one of the benefits of getting older: discovering forgotten things that give us happiness all over again.


The old townhouse sold quickly, we bought about 15 km away, in the area we wanted, and moved at the end of May. Our new house has far more windows than our old house, but there are no sliding glass doors so we can only use the top-most shelves of most of the plant stands. This first one is Dad's plant stand again, and is located in our dining room. I'd estimate there's about 25 hoyas on it, and a few other non-hoya plants. The dining room has another slightly smaller window and there are six plants in it, but they're not hoyas, and thus have no place in this blog.

Hoya fraterna

This plant comes from Borneo and can have up to 50 flowers in an umbel. This picture, taken tonight, is of my plant's first flowering. The flowers which are still opening, are an inch wide. I got it as a cutting in October 2005, and accidentally planted it upside down to root. I'm sure it would have flowered long before now if it hadn't had such a stressed beginning! The leaves are 6" long by 3" wide and are glaborous (not fuzzy like some hoya leaves), nicely veined and quite stiff, but are not succulent. It's a happy day for me when a hoya blooms, but a first blooming is a very special occasion.