Gardening with Wilson

For a long time, I was not interested in growing hoyas at all. I have always regarded them as messy vines that require space to grow. In addition, many of them require good light to grow which was what my growing area in my old place at Serangoon North severely lacked. Even though most of the species on sale in our local nurseries produce fragrant and attractive flowers, I was not attracted to them because they are not frequent and continuous bloomers.

The most unlikely thing occurred just recently. My interest in hoyas was unknowingly triggered whilst I was trying find out more about them during my preparation to write a Garden Treats article for the local Home Concepts Magazine. At about the same time, I was about to move to my new home at Hougang that has a balcony which is blessed with relatively good light for half a year and I thought I should just go buy a couple of hoyas since I now have conducive environmental conditions to grow them. 

The Hoya caudata plant that I have.

One species of the hoyas that I first started my hoya love was Hoya caudata which is native to Malaysia and Thailand. This particular species caught my attention via its beautiful elliptical leaves that are mottled with random silvery white patches. The leaves have slightly wavy margins that feature undersides that are solid red in colour. As mentioned earlier, hoya plants are not known to be frequent and continuous bloomers and I thought H. caudata is one plant that will remain ornamental even when it is not in flower.

Beautiful leaves of Hoya caudata.

Because my balcony is north-facing, the growing area where the H. caudata is now located does not receive direct sunshine at all. As a result, the stiff leaves take on a ‘greener’ look although the silvery white patches are still visible. When the sun returns to trace its northerly path from March to August next year, I would expect the leaves to have more red colour on them.

Hoyas can be rather boring plants to grow. Their growth rate is quite slow compared to many other vines we normally come across. But their sluggish growth rate can be viewed as a good thing too as they do not require frequent maintanence from their owner. Hence they make ideal houseplants for today’s busy executives!

The first umbel of flowers that was produced by my Hoya caudata. 

After I bought my H. caudata plant, I hung it in my balcony and thought much nothing about it. It was only in the recent few days while I was moving my plants around, I then realise my H. caudata has actually produced an umbel of flowers for me. Unlike some of the hoyas that I have seen, the flowers of H. caudata are rather small and each measures about 1 cm in diameter. The umbel that was produced had 7 flowers hanging from a rather flattish umbel.

Not only they are small, the flowers of H. caudata can be easily overlooked as they do not emit an overpowering fragrance to make one take notice of them. Each flower has a characteristic star shape, are pink in colour with a rather red center and features numerous fine white hairs all around its edge. They were not particularly long-lasting and they fade away about 3 to 4 days after they bloom.