Are you a scientist, per chance? Just curious. I tend to keep this one well watered. It might go ever so slightly dry, but I usually aim to keep it from drying out at all. I inadvertently gave it a dryer period recently, so we can see what happens now, ha. It tends to grow pretty steadily, in my opinion, but based on one year's experience (I've had it about a year and a half), I believe it did start growing more rapidly when it was spring. I personally haven't been too worried about its lack of peduncles or blooms, as I feel like my plant is still pretty young, and most of my hoyas have not bloomed for me yet. Only speckled lacunosa, wayetti, javanica, paulshirleyi (but it came with a peduncle), and now subcalva have bloomed for me, and of these, only wayetti and javanica have bloomed multiple times.

We'll see what this year brings. Well, maybe. When I happen to move will determine whether or not I disturb their growing/blooming patterns. This summer, I hope to see if something else on my plant shelf shows signs of wanting to bloom. Good candidates are cagayanensis and vitiensis. I have yet to see regular lacunosa bloom though. I find that a little strange. It grows well, but not a peduncle in sight. Speckled lacunosa, which is much smaller, was happy to bloom, and is about to do so again, to my delight. It had a setback for some reason that I'm not sure of, but I repotted it in coco husk chips and I guess it likes that. I mention what has and hasn't bloomed as a reference point. The ones that have bloomed in that window that sp. Tanna Island shares are speckled lacunosa, wayetti, and subcalva. Javanica depends heavily on a CFL, and paulshirleyi was still in my terrarium when it bloomed.

Maybe I should root a piece of sp. Tanna Island and put it in a terrarium under lights, and see if that one blooms faster. My only concern is that it will take over the whole thing.

Thanks for starting this thread Mike, and thanks for posting the info. on this plant's native habitat....unfortunately I have no idea how to get this plant to bloom...what throws me is that normally plants unwilling to bloom are slow/non growers as well, but this guy seems to grow away happily no matter what conditions it's in...hot, dry, cold, wet, sunny, or shady it just keeps on throwing out new growth and whistling cheerfully away....very strange, very frustrating, and very difficult to pin down what its specific requirements are....Like Quinn's plant, mine had a (mostly inadvertant) dry spell this winter, so we'll see if increasing water and feeding this Spring will make any difference at all...

Scientist........maybe an armchair scientist. LOL

How long was the dry period your pant experienced? When I mentioned an annual dry period I was thinking of at least a month but two months would be much better. Don't allow the plant to become wrinkled or to drop leaves but noticeably decrease the amount of water while keeping the other conditions of light and humidity the same.

Quinn I will admit that I have far more Hoyas that are yet to bloom than ones I have bloomed. Several of my plants are just plain huge and still no blooms so I have been thinking of ways to try and get those plants to bloom.
My Hoya lacanosa plants never seem to flower until the vine reaches about two feet long and then peduncles start to form.

Mike

Hoya code crackers! Hoya hackers? I like this new direction you're taking us in, Mike. We could routinely tackle stubborn plants as a group. Kind of a loose meta analysis instead of flying solo with our lonely case studies.

I would say the dry period lasted from about Thanksgiving to mid or late January. It didn't exactly wrinkle but the leaves got floppier and a little thin, and it dropped about two leaves, which is barely anything if you look at this plant. It fared far better than say, erythrostemma or villosa. Oddly, some of my hoyas that I thought were more delicate didn't even blink. Buotii in particular, showed no signs that anything was amiss, while finlaysonii, which looks tough, was definitely upset with me... wrinkled, droopy. Weird.

Two feet, huh? I think it's definitely approaching that length. It likes to fill out more than it likes to increase length though. My speckled lacunosa is not nearly as big, maybe about one quarter to one third of the size, but I guess it just likes to bloom.

I will try inspecting sp. Tanna Island a little more carefully, to see if there are any signs of anything. I haven't looked closely at it in a while, partially because it is such a mass of vines and I usually have to untangle it from one or two other plants, and move about four out of the way, before I can access it properly.

Just for kicks, here's a pic of sp. Tanna Island from Aug 2009, right about when I got it. It's the one on the left side.

And here it is much more recently (Nov 2010, I believe?)

Holy cow she sure has grown.I hope she blooms for you this year.

Cindy

GG I think it's a great plan, a group focus on stubborn plants. Who doesn't want more Hoya flowers?

Quinn your plant has grown like a weed. LOL
I did some more searching and it appears that I was too hasty in making conclusions about the geography of the island. The highest point is not Mt. Yasur but the 1084 Meter high Mt. Tukosmera. A mountain this high is still quite low although temperatures above 1000 Meters can be expected to fall to from 66F to 75F at night. Too bad we don't know exactly where Hoya sp Tanna was collected.
As a reference I looked up the average rainfall for Philadelphia (1067.817mm) to compare to the average annual rainfall for Tanna Island (2000mm). Ted Green's site mentions that his plant blooms continuously so perhaps the key is consistent warmth and light instead of a seasonal dry period.

I found some interesting info on the islands and apparently this is the island that is home to the infamous cargo cult from the World War II era.

Mike

Here is a link that might be useful: Tanna Island on Wikipedia

Well,it sounds like no one on this forum has actually bloomed sp. Tanna Island...that's kind of grim....since Quinn and I have done a winter drought kind of deal and hopefully others have maintained warmth and water all winter, it will be interesting to compare results later in the year...maybe it's something only the Swedes and Hawaiians can successfully bloom....sigh...

I had, being the operative word tanna. It bloomed last spring although not many blooms. It did ok during the summer but really didn't seem to like the extreme heat we had. Brought it inside in early Nov and it started struggling, now, gone. I don't think it like the mix I put it in. It had gotten to big for the pot it was in so I potted it up about a month before I brought it inside. Oh well.

Dee

I'm happy to see this post and hoping someone cracks the code!! Quinn sent me a cutting of this one last summer. I didn't think he'd make it, but he's hanging in there. Mine has also been in a winter drought situation even though he gets watered more frequently than my other plants. Lately, when I remember to water him (every 3 or 4 days), he is always bone dry. I keep telling myself that I should probably water him more often. He's also my first (and only) thin-leafed variety, and I find myself worrying about him the most of all my hoyas. I just haven't been able to get into a comfortable routine with him (I can't tell if he's thriving or surviving).

Jennifer

The growth on Quinn's is TRULY amazing!

Kelly