A popular exotic plant, hoyas are also called wax plants – a name inspired by its thick, dark green waxy leaves. We grow a diverse assortment of the vine plant from the compacta to the kentiana and carnosa, with unrooted leaf and eye cuttings sourced straight from Kenya.
Depending on the variety, the unrooted clippings are stuck in either 2’’ pots or propagation trays. Each plant is carefully drenched in a liquid rooting hormone and closely monitored over the next four weeks until roots begin developing. While the soil is continually kept moist to prevent the hoyas from drying out, they are also kept out of direct sunlight during this initial rooting period to prevent their leaves from scorching. In our greenhouses, we create the optimal growing conditions for these vulnerable plants, using shade curtains or even filtering the light by delicately covering them in remay cloth.
Our team is constantly monitoring the hoyas to ensure they’re maturing under these prime growing conditions. Once they start developing roots, the soil is allowed to begin drying out. It’s a test of patience as even after the cuttings are rooted, the slow-growing little plants will not start producing any new noticeable growth for over a month. However, it’s an exciting day once delicate new growth starts shooting from the leaf nodes! At this stage, the hoyas continue calling our greenhouses home for another four months until they have matured into a large enough plant to make it onto our weekly plants list. Each year, we grow over 15,000 hoyas in our greenhouses!
