Hoya magnifica

I bought this hoya as a rooted cutting from Botanova in May 2000, but it was something I would get to regret later. It's an okay grower and the leaves are nice and soft, but the flowers that I first encountered in November 2001 are not my favourite ones. Even though they are white and quite pretty to look at... And that's all you want to do, LOOK at them, because you certainly don't want to smell them. They smelled awful, like a stable that hasn't been cleaned out in a while!

I never wanted anything bad to happen to my magnifica, but in July 2002 I found root mealies in the pot. I treated the roots, changed the soil and showered the plant with soapalcoholwater just in case. It was then time to move into our house and shortly after my magnifica started getting yellow leaves that fell off and I thought it was because I had moved it from a northern window in my apartment to an eastern one in our house... The leaves stopped falling off and I renewed the plant in the spring of 2003. It even started growing, but at the end of the summer the same year I gave all my hoyas a nice sopalcoholwatershower because they look so clean afterwards. Again the leaves on magnifica turned yellow and fell off... By that time, I gave up. Live or die! In May 2004 when I was gathering information for my website I read in a hoya magazine that magnifica don't do so good after the kind of showers I gave it and that the leaves turn yellow from it. I've learned a lesson and I've only showered it with plain water since I found out. The plant looked good for a while, but then it was downhill again... Today I have a cutting that I'm trying to keep alive... Pity, because I really like this hoya (except the smell) and I want to get it to bloom again so that I can photograph the flowers AND smell them again! Perhaps they don't smell as bad as the first time...

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