My first memory of a hoya goes back to my childhood… I was fascinated by my mothers’ carnosa when it bloomed and I could sit there and just smell the flowers in the evenings… I almost felt like Ferdinand the Bull! Well, you still feel like that when you’re walking around the house sniffing hoyas!

I remember from my teens that my mothers’ carnosa was constantly blooming and twined around cacti and begonias, pretty much anything it could get hold of. When my mother was going on vacation I was the one to care for her flowers and somehow I always managed to kill at least one of them if she was gone more than a week... But never the carnosa! It just kept on thriving and blooming and now that I think of it I can’t even remember that she repotted it! Oh well, I wasn’t at home all the time so...

My mother died more than 11 years ago and my three older brothers took the decision that I should have all her plants in my little two room apartment because I hadn’t had time to buy any of my own in my then new apartment... Said and done, in January 1994 my windows were filled with Crassula ovata, begonias, High Chaparal, Sanseveria, huge cacti, Spider plants, ficuses and some other plants… AND the big carnosa was now in my possession and I was a little nervous about that but I promised then and there that I would do all I could to keep this plant alive and also keep this beautiful memory of my mother. I never killed it when she was on holiday, so there was hope!

It didn’t take long before the first deaths showed up… The first ones to give up were the ficuses and the Spider plants (well, my cat helped me a little with these) and the cacti died shortly after... Luckily I managed to save some cuttings or baby plants of some of them and that’s how I still manage to grow them. The only original plants I have left is a huge Crassula ovata, a High Chaparal which now only has inches left to the ceiling and also the carnosa. I’ve cut it back and given away cuttings over the years but it just keeps growing and blooming more and more... Almost year round it gives me a pleasant fragrance in smaller or bigger doses and therefore also memories of my dear mother. I started wondering if there were other hoyas and I tried for a couple of years to find more but it would take longer than that before I found any. By accident I found a rather big hanging plant of what I thought looked like a hoya in a nursery in July 1998. I bought it and later someone told me it was a kentiana. I had found another hoya and I wanted more!! When my kentiana bloomed like crazy in July 1999 it got really bad!

When we got internet at the office where I used to work our boss told us to use it as much as we wanted when there was time (wonderful boss!) and that’s when I did my first internet search ever. I typed the word HOYA at AltaVista and a whole new world had opened for me! I found a lot of pages describing hoyas and lots of pictures of them and I was fascinated that there were so many different hoyas and immediately I wanted all of them!

In August 1998 the first rooted (just to be safe) cuttings arrived in the mail and the excitement of opening the package is hard to describe, but you all probably recognize the situation… The cuttings that arrived in the mail was ordered from a lady here in Sweden and they were then called: crassicaulis (incrassata), obscura, pubicalyx ‘Red Buttons’, purpureo fusca, sp Bogor (verticillata), sp Philippines 1 (incrassata) and sp Tanna. I potted them in small pots and put some plastic over the whole bunch and placed them in a somewhat shaded west facing window. I checked them every day after work and it didn’t take long before these fast growing hoyas needed their first repotting. They kept growing a little even during the winter and that’s when I realized my apartment was perfect for growing hoyas! Big bright windows in east and west and also one bright window in the north… Obscura, purpureo fusca and pubicalyx ‘Red Buttons’ bloomed already as small plants in the spring of 1999 and have bloomed a lot ever since. Purpureo fusca was beyond saving when it got some kind of fungus during the winter of 2002, but I have found another one... However, when the new one bloomed for the first time the flowers looked almost striped and really cool! Crassicaulis and the two sp Hoyas needed more time to flower, but they were worth waiting for in the spring 2001. What beautiful flowers and lovely fragrances!

More and more of my “regular” plants had to give way for the hoyas, my new hobby that I just couldn’t seem to get enough of. I was possessed! My neighbours and friends appreciated my new hobby since I gave them the plants that I no longer had room for. This way I still had them in a way...

In June 1999 I had my 30^th birthday and my friends at work gave me a nice “regular” camera and it was the perfect gift! I ordered some more cuttings from the same place as the year before and in July 1999 I received unrooted (I wanted to be daring!) cuttings of the following: curtisii, diversifolia, gracilis, PNG 4, sp Nova 1, wightii var. Palniensis, acuta ‘Red’, carnosa ‘Lime’ and a small gift cutting of Dischidia ovata. My baby pots came in handy again, and plastic bags over the cuttings, but I had to wait long for signs of success… I was almost ready to give up hope on curtisii, PNG 4 and wightii a couple of times but they turned out to be tougher than I thought. Diversifolia and gracilis didn’t take long before they flowered the first time. Sp Nova 1, wightii and acuta needed until the summer of 2001 and once again it was worth waiting for. Beautiful flowers and wonderful fragrances! Sp Nova 1 flowered a lot during 2002 and it seems to open all the umbels at the same time. In October 2002 I found out that sp Nova 1 was one of many varieties of pottsii, so now I had a real name for it. Wightii has been close to dying a couple of times, but somehow I manage to rescue most of the vines each time and I’m ”rewarded” by hyacinth like fragrant flowers – an absolute favourite! When my carnosa ‘Lime’ flowered for the first time in the fall of 2001 I was terribly disappointed! I had such expectations that the flowers would be lime green, but they were white! Beautiful, but still... This Hoya later turned out to be the one called motoskei. Curtisii grew buds in the summer of 2003, but they fell of when they were quite big… I had hopes for the buds that showed up in the spring of 2004, but these also fell off… Then, in January 2005 it finally decided to flower! Only three buds made it all the way, but what cute flowers!! I had found out that PNG 4 would have dark red flowers, but when mine flowered in August 2002 they were pale yellow! So my plant is definitely not PNG 4, but it still remains a NOID. I have received one tip on this and it's chunii or chuniana, whatever name is the correct one. I’ll just have to wait for new flowers and that seemed to take forever, but right now (Sep 10^th) there is a new peduncle and buds growing bigger and bigger each day.

Shortly after the new cuttings arrived I had found another place via Internet and this place was only about 30 km south from here and when I came there for the first time in July 1999 it was like Christmas! They had a Hoya exhibition going on and I walked around there for hours and just enjoyed the many hoyas... It ended (of course!) with a couple of new hoyas making the trip back with me and it was bella ‘Luis Bois’ and a huge hanging plant (nearly 2 meter long!) of carnosa ‘Rubra’. Bella is another one that I have to renew now and then, but it flowers willingly all the time. My ‘Rubra’ took a fall in the summer of 2001 and the vines became about 1 meter long and a lot of peduncles fell off… This hoya must be a sphinx or something – it fell on the floor again in the summer of 2003 and this time I could only save short cuttings. I potted a few of them and it seems happy wrapped around a support instead of hanging. It has grown well but turned all green and flowers now and then. Wonderful pink chocolate fragrant flowers!

I had won quite a few flower gift certificates over a period of time and decided to see if any of the local flower shops had any hoyas. I found a rather large plant of australis and knowing this was my 20^th hoya I took it home, but when I got it home I noticed that all the new growth were full of green bugs – especially underneath the new leaves. This was my first encounter with these green bugs and that was one fight that I won and since that day I have not seen any of these bugs on any indoor plant again. My australis flowered for the first time in the summer/early fall of 2000 and it was so intense that I had to move the plant out on my balcony at night.  2001 and 2002 were not that intense when it came to australis and flowers, but in September 2003 it was even more intense than in 2000. This time it was easier since we now have a house and my australis is as far away from the bedroom as possible. The fragrance is nice – in small doses, but for the australis it can be a little “too much”. 

My 21^st hoya was one that I bought in August 1999 and it was pauciflora. Nicely packed in a milk carton I had to pick it up at the post office (the guy behind the counter gave me strange looks) and this is one hoya that I was going to like. Well, at least the first couple of years... The cutting was nice and rather big and I placed it in the east and it grew like crazy, but no flowers… I rearranged it to a hanging plant in the spring of 2002 and placed it in a cool window in the west. It thrived and I was rewarded with lots of fragrant flowers at the same time. It flowered with a couple of flowers after that, but then nothing... I thought it was because we had moved, but it just didn’t want to grow or flower. In the spring of 2003 I had to cut it back and potted quite a few cuttings and hung them on the wall next to our patio door in the south and it started growing again. Around Easter this year it flowered - 6 absolutely gorgeous flowers growing in pairs! They were even prettier than I remembered...

My hoya collection grew fast and in October 1999 it was time for another visit down south at the exhibition place and this time I had no plans to get new ones – I thought the 21 that I had was enough… For the time being! This time we were going to a cacti exhibition, but they also had newly arrived hoyas and being obsessed you just want more and more of them… I came home with four not too big plants of cumingiana, golamcoiana, polyneura and nicholsoniae 1. Golamcoiana and gumingiana resembled each other but golamcoiana had bigger and darker leaves than cumingiana. They all grew fast and soon they were large plants, but the flowers didn’t show up... In the fall of 2000 the first flowers of cumingiana opened and a new fragrance filled my kitchen. The flowers were almost orange and smelled like coconut and citrus at the same time – another fragrance favourite! Polyneura flowered nicely at Christmas 2000 but after that it just didn't want to flower... I renewed the plant in May 2004 and it has grown bether than ever before! One day in January 2005 I was going to turn the pot and that's when I notised buds big enough to burst any day and they did! After that it seems to keep on blooming and blooming... Golamcoiana turned out to be different from cumingiana when it flowered. The first white umbel opened in October 2001 and the fragrance lasted long... Another two umbels the year after, but it hasn’t flowered since... I find this Hoya rather boring, but I would like to see some flowers one more time before I decide its destiny! Nicholsoniae 1 was placed in the east, but after repotting it in the spring of 2001 I moved it to the bedroom window in the west and it didn’t take long before there were signs of three peduncles. Only one made it all the way, but these flowers were absolutely beautiful, yellow and very fragrant. I haven’t seen any of these flowers since, but the leaves alone are lovely. Especially when grown in sunshine and they turn red and the visible veins add to the beauty... Someone told me after it had flowered that nicholsoniae 1 also is a pottsii. Is everything pottsii??!!

In April 2000 I bought another cutting from the same person I bought the pauciflora. This time it was pubicalyx ‘Royal Hawaiian Purple’. It didn’t want to grow at all at first, but then it didn’t seem to stop growing and in the summer of 2001 the first flowers opened. This is one hoya that seems to always flower here... The flowers change from completely pink to almost completely black – absolutely beautiful!

At the end of April 2000 I felt it was time for new cuttings and this is when I found out about Botanova in the north of Sweden and at this time I also bought my first book about hoyas... “Boken om porslinsblommor” and it was to say the least read often, so often that the pages started to fall out and I bought another book a while later. The cuttings that arrived in May 2000 were the following: magnifica, onychoides, thomsonii, caudata and diptera. All of them were rooted so I just potted them and waited... Magnifica and diptera grew fast, but thomsonii and caudata were almost lost and didn’t start growing until almost a year later. Thomsonii was about to flower in November 2001, but the buds fell off just as they started to open so I did get to enjoy some of the lovely fragrance so I knew what to expect the next time... I put magnifica in my north window and it showed signs of flowers a couple of times, but it never really began growing buds. Early in the winter of 2001 when some buds started growing I didn’t pay much attention to them... Until one day when I came home from work and this really horrible smell had filled my entire apartment! I was ready to kill both my dog and my cat for what they might have done, but I soon realized what it was that “smelled”... The flowers were incredibly beautiful but I could sure do without the smell. I wrapped a plastic bag around the flowers, but that didn’t help much! I had to put up with this smell a couple of days until I could take some photos of them on the following Saturday and then the flowers were cut off. It was a shame, but what can you do in a small two room apartment! I haven’t seen any new signs of flowers since then (to my boyfriends delight!) but it has grown several new peduncles so maybe... I only hope the smell isn’t that bad now that we have our house and I can “hide” magnifica in the basement.  Onychoides has been nothing but a joy for me! It flowered for the first time in March 2003 and what a lovely fragrance! Since then it has flowered several times a year and right now it has new buds on the way...      

In July 2000 it was time for another hoya exhibition down south and I just had to visit it. I felt I knew so much more about hoyas this time and it was a pleasure walking among all these hoyas and I knew the names of most of the ones that bloomed – before I peeked on the tag. I came home with another four hoyas: pachyclada, coronaria, australis ‘Keysii’ (australis ssp. australis) and fungii. All of them were big plants and they needed a lot of space after the obligatory quarantine. Bought a couple of pedestals and they solved the immediate problem. All four grew fast and in the spring of 2001 both fungii and pachyclada bloomed. Coronaria also grew fast, but I almost lost it during its first winter. I have had to renew this one over and over again just to keep it alive. This last renewal seems to be successful since it’s happily growing in a sunny and warm south window. I don’t have any hopes of ever seeing flowers, though... Pachyclada died suddenly in the summer of 2002 and I decided not to buy a new one. I liked it, but it wasn’t that special. During my summer vacation 2000 I found a curly hoya in a hanging basket in a nursery not far from here. It turned out to be two hoyas in the same pot; compacta 'Mauna Loa' and compacta ‘Rubra’. Three vines were all green, and one was not. They both grew fast, almost doubled in size in less than one year and they flowered already when they were quite young. New flowers pop up now and then and I really like the leaves of these two, especially the ‘Rubra’.

After the summer of 2000 I decided not to get any new hoyas since I had just started a new job and I felt that the hoyas I already had needed to grow bigger first. The only hoya that was added to my collection in 2001 was a nice plant of caudata and a rooted cutting of heuschkeliana. They were both lottery winnings at a Christmas Hoya party in November 2001. I cut the caudata up and added the cuttings to my own plant. It flowered for the first time in the summer of 2003 and these flowers must be seen in real life! When looking at the foliage in my pot it could be that I have two different caudatas in the same pot. Some leaves are red and have wavy edges and some are smooth and green. All leaves have the typical grey splotches of grey in them... The little heuschkeliana grew fast and flowered, but when we moved into our house it stopped growing but it didn’t look sick or anything. I cut it up and made a hanging basket of it and at first it seemed to like haning in a west window. The leaves turned red in the sun and the little plant bloomed a lot! Until one day this spring when I found it all wrinkly and sad looking. It was beyond saving... I had given it too much water.

In May 2002 I couldn’t resist it any longer. I just had to order some cuttings from Botanova again! The package that arrived contained rooted cuttings of odorata, anulata, glabra, globulosa, parviflora, camphorifolia, limoniaca and waymaniae. Limoniaca and camphorifolia grew fast and camphorifolia flowered with three umbels at the same time already that summer, but then until May 2004 it didn’t flower at all. Now it seems to always have flowers on the way! Limoniaca stopped growing and lost a lot of leaves so I decided when it only had a couple of leaves left that I should throw it out. This was my third Hoya death… So far… Shortly after I threw out limoniaca I was visiting a place that sells mostly orchids, but for some reason this time they also had huge plants of limoniaca and pentaphlebia. Limoniaca flowered for the first time in August 2004 and new flowers show up now and then. Really cute flowers! Pentaphlebia bloomed for the first time in May 2004 and it was completely covered with flowers. This truely is a frequent bloomer! Waymaniae was just growing and growing and growing, but finally there is a peduncle on the way. I check the tiny buds every day... Odorata turned out to be cembra and it flowered for the first time in December 2004 and seems to have new flowers on the way now and then... Globulosa is in my opinion a  very boring hoya... No further discussion needed! Glabra on the other hand has two peduncles on the way and one has rather big buds too - really exciting!

The summer of 2002 was mostly spent on packing all our stuff, move them and then unpack them in our house. I instantly fell in love with this house. The area was nice and this house had lots of “hoyafriendly” windows... Just moving all my plants was one truck full in its own! All of them were just put in the windows as we carried them into the house… It took a while to arrange all of them later, but now three years after we moved in I’m really pleased and I don’t think I could squeeze in another hoya in any of the windows… The 100+ hoyas that I have seem to be the limit for our windows!

A couple of weeks after we moved into our house it was time for some hoya care and afterwards I counted them... I “only” had 46 after that summer’s death... I aimed for 50. It seemed to be a good number and in September 2002 I traded cuttings and got samoensis, vitiensis and padangensis. After some accidents with the help of my cat and a short trip all of them survived and are nice big plants today. Vitiensis flowered for the first time in October 2003 and it seems to be another hoya that doesn’t stop flowering! The flowers are among the prettier of the hoyas, but I can’t say that I like the fragrance... Padangensis has also bloomed a lot since I got it, and the first time was in May 2004 and these flowers look really cool. I’m not even going to write about the boring samoensis… Hoya number 50 also arrived in September 2002, a rooted cutting of wallichii and after a couple of weeks I thought I had killed it when I saw all the leaves looking a little shrivelled but it perked up and it has grown well since then. It had flowers on the way after a couple of months but the fell off... Almost exactly one year after it arrived it bloomed for the first time. Seven flowers opened and some fell off, but these are gorgeous! It has flowered quite a few times since then, but sometimes the flowers don’t open all the way...

At the beginning of October 2002 we were going shopping for stuff for the house and some other things... On the way home there is a nursery with a very nice café, so we stopped there for coffee... Walked quickly through the greenhouse and to my surprise they had nice blooming plants of multiflora and I just had to have one! Now the number 50 was broken and instead I aimed for the 60! I had more space left in our windows, so that was not a problem. Multiflora flowered constantly until the fall of 2003 when it got black small spots on the leaves and there was nothing I could do but watch it die. Tried to save some cuttings, but they died too... I did find a new plant in July 2004 and it's doing really well, flowering once in a while, making a mess on the floor when it drops the flowers...

One month after buying the first multiflora it was time to get some more building supplies for our house... This time it was a trip to the boring "BauHaus" and for some strange reason I was drawn towards their plant department the second we got into the store that Friday evening. Talk about pleasant surprise: They had hoyas - huge hoyas and plenty of them! My boyfriend told me afterwards that I had had the look of a 5 year old at Christmas when I saw all these hoyas. I had to get some since they also were cheap and besides building supplies these Hoyas also made the trip back to Trelleborg; thomsonii, parviflora, pubicalyx ‘Pink Silver’, shepherdii and heuschkeliana. All big plants and the next day they were all repotted and had new trellises to climb on! Later I made thomsonii into a hanging pot and it has flowered a lot since then. Pubicalyx 'Pink Silver' has really nice leaves, but I find it not to flower as much as I had hoped to... Shepherdii and heuschkeliana are flowering now and then, but other than that they are quite boring... Parviflora on the other hand is the best flowering Hoya I've ever had! It has at least 20 umbels opened at the same time - ALL the time! Smells lovely too.

In November 2002 it was time for the annual Christmas Hoya party and again I came home with new hoyas. I won two rooted cuttings in the lottery: kerrii and lacunosa. Kerrii is not a hoya that I would buy, but I decided to give it a chance. It has grown quite big and it has flowered quite a few times now... Nice flowers, but they don't make that much of a mess as I have heard they would. Not that I'm disappointed! My little lacunosa cutting flowered already in July 2003 and I just loved the fragrance! I decided to get more of this hoya, but I couldn't find it anywhere...

In January 2003 it was time for a hoya exhibition. Not in the same place as before, but it seemed like it would be worth a visit. It was not nearly as big, but it was nicely arranged and I did get some new hoyas home with me. A quite large rooted cutting of imperialis, smaller rooted cuttings of bordenii, cardiophylla, chunii, greenii and schneei. I had no hopes of seeing flowers on my imperialis but it grew nicely, just like bordenii, greenii, cardiophylla and schneei. Chunii died shortly after I got it home... Bordenii showed signs of flowers last summer, but the buds fell off when they had gotten quite big. This happened a few times after that and I'm starting to believe that I will never see flowers on my bordenii... Cardiophylla has grown well, but that’s just about all it did for quite some time. Now there are a lot of flowers on the way. Greenii grew really fast and also developed buds that got rather big before they fell off... Greenii was almost lost when I spent one month in Germany to study German. My boyfriend had been taught how to water my hoyas, but when I got home greenii was almost beyond saving. I managed to save a small cutting of it and it has grown some, but not as well as the original plant did. Schneei on the other hand is a completely different story! This Hoya has grown really well and it’s now a very large plant that flowers once in a while. The first time was in June 2004 and then it had only one flower. The second time it had 10 flowers and the third time most of them only had 4 petals! My imperialis has been a really nice surpise! It flowered for the first time in May 2004 and then three more times that year. What an impressive sight! When it opened the buds in September last year I was sitting right next to the plant speaking on the phone. It actually made little popping sounds when they bursted open - fun to have seen it! Right now there are nine buds ready to burst any day!

In February the same year I thought I would buy an orchid so we made a trip to our favourite orchid place - where I found hoyas last time! I did find a gorgeous phalanopsis AND two more hoyas there. The two hoyas; padangensis and purpureo-fusca were quite large, but in not so good condition – like I cared at those prices! I renewed them when I got home and they turned out to be still nice looking fairly large plants. I was glad to find a new purpureo-fusca instead of the old one that I lost to fungus. But I was really surprised when it flowered for the first time in September 2003. I thought the flowers would look like the ones on the old plant, but instead they were more striped. Really cool looking flowers and since then the flowers have been dark purple and absolutely gorgeous! I had traded a cutting of padangensis before and I cut up my new plant and mixed it in with the growing cutting and I don’t know which one it was that flowered, but I did get to see these really strange looking flowers for the first time in May 2004. It flowers once in while, but I can’t say that I enjoy the fragrance. I would more describe it like cat pee!!

Another month passed and I felt it was time to get some new flowers for my father’s grave, so we took a trip to our favourite nursery. The minute I walked through the doors I felt a wonderful fragrance and I knew I had to find out where it came from. Whatever it was I just had to have it! Do I have to tell you what a joy it was to find out that the fragrance came from a hoya?!! They had big plants in full bloom of calycina and they didn’t cost too much either! One came home with me and I loved the fragrance of that umbel that was open. However, when the rest of the umbels opened up I can’t say that I enjoyed it too much. The plant had to live in our bathroom during the nights when it flowered and I still do this whenever it flowers! Luckily this is not a Hoya that flowers often in my care - once a year is enough for me! The fragrance is just too strong to sleep in.

In May 2003 I didn’t buy any new hoyas from Botanova, but I felt I had to get some new ones anyway! I made a trade and got ariadna, leucorhoda and ridleyii. Ariadna turned out to be sussuela and belonging to the same group as coronaria, which would mean that I will probably never get to see any flowers. It grows well and has nice shiny leaves, for what it’s worth! Leucorhoda grew fast and reminded of schneei, but the flowers were supposed to be a little different. Well, my leucorhoda flowered for the first time in July 2004 and the flowers looked exactly like schneei. So, now I had two plants of schneei and these are now potted together making a very large plant. Ridleyii turned out to be (in my opinion) a really boring hoya and is said to be another verticillata. And that’s what I have to say about that one!

In July 2003 I made some trades. In one trade I was really disappointed about the tiny cuttings I got in trade for the bigger ones I sent... Anyway, the cuttings I got that survived were obovata (one leaf and a tiny piece of stem) and an acuta that was supposed to have white flowers. The little obovata took loooong before it even started growing, but it turned out well in the end since it was still nothing more than a large cutting when it decided to flower in May 2004. Cute flowers and nice fragrance too! The acuta, which really should be called verticillata flowered for the first time in June this year. The flowers were not white, but who cares?! They were lovely and the fragrance was really nice too. In the second trade I made I got a large rooted cutting of elliptica. Yes, the one with the really nice leaves. The person I traded with said it was a difficult hoya to grow, but mine grew fast and also developed a peduncle in December 2004. After that I don't know what happened - all of a sudden it started turning yellow, leaves got sort of mushy and fell off... In the end I couldn't even save a cutting. Sad, but true and this was my hoya death number 6.  Not that many considering how long I've collected Hoyas...

In November 2003 I stumbled on a rather large plant of tsangii (or DS-70 some calls it) and of coarse it came home with me. I repotted it and made a hanging basket of it. It flowered for the first time in April 2004 and it has flowered ever since! This is one Hoya that seems to flower all the time. The leaves on this one get nice and red when grown in full sun - really gorgeous leaves! Nice candy fragrance too...

I started 2004 with one month of German studies in Germany. It was rewarding and I learnt more than I thought I would. I did get to see some hoyas in Germany, but it was mostly carnosas and australis. It was not exactly the right season for it either... Shortly after I came home from Germany it was time to renew the flowers on my fathers' grave and I was not expecting to find Hoyas in the nursery we went to, but I did. I found a poorly looking hoya that I thought was longifolia and for less money than the price tag said I bought it... For quite some time I thought it was longifolia, but when the first buds started growing and turning more and more red I started to doubt it. When the flowers opened some people told me it was just another wayetii, but now I know it's inconspicua. The all green inconspicua and the plant has gotten really big now and flowers now and then.

One month later, in March 2004 we went to a local nursery here in Trelleborg to get some spring flowers for our garden. I don't have to say it, do I?!! Yes, they had hoyas too. Big plants of obovata and since my obovata was still so small I thought I would get this one too and make a full pot of it. Said and done, I took it home. I never got round to potting the two together. I cut up my little plant and sold it. It would have been too crowded to put it in with the already big plant.

In April 2004 the South Swedish Hoya Society arranged a trip to a nursery a little further north. This nursery had lots of orchids in bloom and tables full of hoya cuttings. It was heaven for all of us hoya crazy! Some crazier than others... I was "strong" - I only bought one cutting and it was clemensiorum. I liked it because of the leaves. Someone told me on the bus on the way home that it would have yellow flowers, and that is something I like. It grows slow, but I'm a patient person and some day I'll get to see the yellow flowers!

In May 2004 I got my order from Botanova. I just couldn't skip them two years in a row! The rooted cuttings I had bought this time were: arnottiana, chlorantha var. tutuilensis (bought as betchei), eitapensis, litoralis, lobbii, neoebudica, pubescens and another pentaphlebia that sure doesn't look like the one I have before. They have all grown quite well. I don't remember why I bought the pubescens  - I find it rather boring! Litoralis has already flowered several times. The first time was in December and there are new ones on the way all the time... Eitapensis flowered for the first time in July this year and seems to be a frequent bloomer. Really cute white flowers that looked like anulata but had pale yellow coronas. Lobbii flowered about the same time and new buds seem soon after the old flowers are gone. Neoebudica has its first peduncle on the way... May was a good hoya month last year. At least when it comes to increasing the number of hoyas! I also found a nice lacunosa plant in a flower shop in a mall near by and since I had been looking for this I had to buy it even though it was on the expensive side... It has grown really big, flowered a few times and new flowers are constantly on the way!

In July 2004 I found a nice plant of serpens in a grocery store! Really cheap too... It flowered shortly after I got it home, but every time it started growing new buds it dropped them when they were still small... This is not a hoya that I would normally buy, but I did since it didn't cost much and I'll keep it as long as it looks healthy... It didn't stop "dying" at the tips until I placed it in our bedroom window right next to the window that is almost always (yes, even in the winter!) open. It has grown a lot and this summer it has bloomed a lot. At the same time I bought the serpens I found a poorly looking salweenica in a nursery, but because of the state it was in I got it cheap. When I got home I cut it up and saved what looked good. Repotted the cuttings and it has grown well since then, and in January 2005 I found four buds which opened shortly after. Lovely fragrance! This seems to be a hoya that blooms now and then. Also in July 2004 I bought unrooted cuttings of mindorensis, but they took forever to start growing and I must say it's a slow grower... At least for me it is.

In August 2004 I was told that my kentiana was not kentiana, but wayetii. This person was sweet enough to send me photos showing the differences. I now know that she is right (I would never question her!) and she was also very generous and sent me a cutting of the true kentiana and one of lacunosa 'Tove'. All I had to do (she said) was to wait for the flowers on kentiana and I would see the differences myself... I don't know what happened, but 'Tove' died this summer and couldn't be saved. The kentiana doesn't even want to grow - boring hoya!

In September last year I got two cuttings from Hawaii as a gift from a friend. It was cv. 'Joy' and cv. 'Sunrise'. The 'Joy' is a cross of H. sp. Laos x H. vitellina and the 'Sunrise' is a cross of H. lacunosa x H. obscura. Only one of them survived the trip and rooted. It was cv. 'Joy' and it has grown a lot since I got it. Nice big sort of metallic shiny leaves... Also in September it was time for a hoya meeting. I ended up with two more Hoyas from the lottery: retusa and pubicalyx 'Little Leaf'. Two more to make room for... If I have counted correctly these two made number 90 and 91, so then I aimed for the even 100... I found retusa to be soooo boring that I ended up selling it to someone who will appreciate it more - I hope! The 'Little Leaf' is a very slow grower, which I find quite good since I don't know where to put it!

In November last year it was time for the annual Christmas hoya party. This time I didn't win anything on the lottery - finally! However, we all got one cutting each and I got erythrostemma, which is one that I have wanted but never found it. It has rooted and so far grown about 1 meter... Shortly I will have to make room for it in a window...  The hairy flowers look great - at least on photo!

In April this year I got my package from Botanova that I ordered earlier this year. Now I also have hypolasia, montana, nummularoides, sp. PNG 4, sp. Thai 3 and sp. Biakensis. We'll see how these will do here... Also in April I went to Varberg on a hoya trip just like last year... This year I bought australis 'Lisa' and a hybrid from MM, which looks like H. HSI-037 when you just look at the leaves. I also did a trade with a hoya collector in Denmark so now I own my first Mac and an archboldiana! I've wanted these for quite some time. April was a busy month for me regarding getting more hoyas! I also got some from Hawaii this year; cv 'Christine' (a cross between H. subquintuplinervis x H. pottsii), cv 'Jennifer' (a cross between H. intrassata x H. finlaysonii), cv 'Noelle' (a cross between H. vitellina x H. vitelanoidies), cv 'Sunrise' (a cross between H. lacunosa x H. obscura), naumanii, siariae, sigillatis and some more of cv. 'Joy'. This time a few of the cuttings of cv. 'Sunrise' has rooted and started growing - finally! All the other hoyas have rooted nicely and some have started growing. If I've counted correctly I now have 106 different Hoyas to take care of - a little too many I think. I've decided to get rid of memoria, erythrina and a few more which are not yet decided. There's just no more room for any more Hoyas, but it's hard to decide which ones have to go... cv. 'Christine' was said to be an easy bloomer and she sure is! In April I also did a trade and got cv. 'Pinkie' (a cross between H. australis and H. subcalva BSI-1). Either I'm doing something wrong or this 'Pinkie' is one of the slowest growing hoyas I've ever had!

In August this year I did get some new hoyas. Yes, I know I don't have room for them, but what can you do when you are addicted??!! I've gotten citrina, cv. 'Ruthie' and some others are on the way... :-)