I think I'd keep looking - I've never heard of anyone refer to carnosa as "stinky". I think it has a sweet, subtle smell. But scent is in the "eye of the beholder" so to speak. I love the musky smell of pubicalyx flowers, but my husband doesn't like it at all.

There are some smelly Hoyas - I can't tell you which ones they are off hand because (so far) I haven't bloomed any that fall into this category. Maybe someone here will agree with you, though!

Denise in Omaha

This is definitely not a some like it, some don't smell. These blooms smell like a high school locker room after a football game. lol There's nothing about it that's even faintly sweet. I'm not positive of the ID but thought it was a carnosa. Not Krimson Queen, I have that and this one doesn't have any pink. It's just green & white foliage. This is the main portion of the plant but there's stems trailing all over which is why I can move it out of the greenhouse to avoid the smell.

On a different note my retusa finally started growing. It was a little 3" plant for the longest time but no blooms yet.

Karyn,

That is a 'Krimson Queen', just one of several clones. They're sold with different names (Strawberries & Cream is one, I think...) I have two different clones of it myself. One's new foliage is very pale pink and fades quickly to cream. The other's new foliage is absolutely burgandy and holds it much longer (I got it as "a superior clone".) Neither have ever bloomed for me - when you said "carnosa", I assumed you meant the plain green form. I've always assumed that the 'Krimson' cultivars would have the same scent, but maybe not. Maybe I should be glad mine haven't bloomed for me yet! My 'Krimson Princess' is budding up for the first time on my front porch - I'll have to be sure to stick my nose in the flowers when they open!

Denise in Omaha

There are some stinky Hoyas like Hoya vitellina (never smelled it myself) but Hoya carnosa is at least to my nose a sweet almost chocolate/sugary/floral scent. I wonder of the Stapeliads are not overpowering Hoyas. Many Hoyas only have a scent at night so if you were sniffing the blooms during the day you would have been smelling the Stapeliad. What Stapeliad do you have flowering, is it a Stapelia sp?

Mike

I didn't realize that was KQ because my other one is such a dark pink. Mike it definitely wasn't the stapelias. None of the ones blooming right now have much of a scent to speak of. When S. gigantea is in bloom I can't even walk into the GH. BTW I checked during the day and evening.

My Stapelia leendertziae and schinzii are just about to bloom, leendertziae will be a first and it looks like a stinker. Many of my Huernia sp are not all that stinky compared to the Stapelias.
I wonder if your Hoya carnosa just does not agree with your nose, we all do experience scents differently. I have a friend who thinks that my Hoya DS-70 stinks like sickly sweet sweaty socks. :(

Mike

I have to take sides with karyn on this one. To me the carnosa complex of hoyas are quite stinky!!!! The scent reminds me of fake chocolate like those nasty chocolate frostys that you get from Wendy's. Back when I first began collecting hoyas I had my hindu rope hanging in front of my bedroom window,it came into bloom the following spring for the first time and from that point on when it would bloom the plant went outside!!!! To me it's a very sickening smell and thus far is probably the only hoya flower fragrance that I can say that I do not like.

That's a possibility but it's really musty smelling and I can't imagine anyone finding it pleasant. I'm going to have DH and the kids smell it and see what they say.

I have about a dozen stapelias and huernias but only know the names of a few of them. Most were given to me unmarked. I have several in bloom or that are about to bloom now. I really like them a lot. As a matter of fact I ordered 15 new ones a couple days ago. lol This is what is in bloom now but I don't know the varieties.

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Now see, maybe it is different for everyone, my carnosa has been in bloom all summer, you can't smell it unless your put your nose on it and to me it has a faint smell of chocolate. You would think with all these blooms you would smell something without sticking your nose in it.

Dee

Denise, I'm with your husband on Lacunosa...any more than one bloom on the plant and it goes outside! I do NOT like the smell at all...to me it has a hint of urine,lol... and to me it does stink! I'm definitely not the norm on this one. Everyone else I've heard of LOVES the smell of Lucunosa...but I can't take it!

Dee, I like the smell of my KQ ...I also grow it outside so the smell like Denise said is dispersed...I can only smell it when I put my nose right on it like you!

My husband tells me that all my hoyas when they bloom smell like old lady bathrooms that have the fake soap in them. He doesn't like it. My son does though. The best smell I had one time before they died where some orchids that only let out the smell in the late morning.

Nice Huernias Karyn! Those top 3 are too cool! I would love to get my paws on those! The 4th one, btw, is Huernia zebrina -- aka the Lifesaver plant.

Maybe I have a particularly stinky hoya because DH and all 3 of my kids thought it stank, musty and unpleasant, like dirty socks. I even moved the huernias/stapelias out of the GH the night I had everyone smell it. My S. gigantea is loaded with buds. That will overpower anything and compared to that the hoya smells like a rose!

Paul I sent you an email thru GW.

My Hoya bloomed for the first time this year. I moved it into my bedroom where my mother was convalescing after hip surgery (I thought it would be nice to have a plant in the room) but she insisted on sleeping on the sofa. After she had left, and I got my bedroom back, I thought that she had accidentally urinated in the bed and was too embarrassed to tell me. There was this sickly sweet urine smell that was so strong at night that it kept me from sleeping. I finally discovered, after washing everything twice and using enzyme spray all over everything, that it had to be something else. Thankfully, I realized it was the Hoya!! So time to move the plant to a better ventilated area. Yuck!!! Pink flowers that turn to cream.

I know of one person that ALWAYS smells cat urine when she smells a hoya flower.

We did research on the internet and found that some people smell cat urine, and some smell a wonderful blossom. It comes down to genetics, and differences in our perceptions.