What a wonderful idea for a post, Brad! I have had a wonderful year. I started off this year with only one hoya, a regular carnosa. It was one my husband has been dragging around with him. It has easily doubled in size over the year. I also have expanded my collection. I ordered H. mindorensis, H. fungii, H. lobbii, H. australis (believe it's a tenuipes?) H. pubicalyx "pink silver" as cuttings and so far they are all doing very well. Pink Silver and fungii are both starting new leaves. I also purchased a H. carnosa Krimson Princess and H. carnosa Krimson Queen. No blooms on the larger plants, though the regular carnosa has had a peduncle for about a year now.....All in all, it's been a wonderful year for plants for me, and I look forward to spring to add some more to my collection.

Mel

I started my collection this year, it is very difficult to buy cuts as we cannot bring from anywhere, is is prohibited, but I tried as much as I could and all I bought arrived. Most of them died, but now I'm buying only cuts which are a better option for sure!
I have around 23 types of hoyas, but they are cuts yet, only have 5 plants in a reasonable size.
I'm waiting 9 cuts from PS, but don't have any idea where these cuts are, no track number.
But there is something that I've being reading over and over here and have no idea what you guys talking about!
Is the melies, when I google it appears corn, and a lot of things but no bug or insect that I could face and be sure it is it what they meant. Does anyone could upload a pix of this insect or whatever it is. Because it seems that this is a commom problem for all of you.

Hi
mealies are mealy bug.They are a nasty thing once you have them.I have only been growing hoyas for about 5 years and this summer I found them on a few of orchids.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mealybug

Cindy

Here is a link that might be useful: Wikipedia

Hi Cindy,

Thank you very much for the link..... melias = cochonilhas, right it is a plague here also, but they do not attach hoyas under our climate, however I never heard anyone complaining about it (yet). I'll keep my eyes open for them..... thank you again.

Hi Great Topic idea Brad!

My history with Hoyas just began this year. I found the Hoya Rope on Ebay...this was a Hoya that my mother had for many years while I was growing up. So I purchased 2, one for her and one for me. That is when I found out there was many Hoyas out there.

I met a very kind and generous Hoya friend who gave me 6 Hoya cuttings already rooted. All of these are doing great! I also began to purchase Hoyas from Lowes and Home Depot. And now I have ventured onto the internet to find these beautiful plants that I have seen here on the Hoya Forum. I've met a lot of friends here:);)

Over the past year I have watched many of my Hoyas grow to near blooming size, have bloomed a few new ones for the first time and have added many new species to my collection. I have also been fortunate to meet and form friendships with a group of local Hoya growers which is great fun.
Of course it has been great to participate in the lively Hoya discussions we have here on the forum, such a nice group of people we have here.
I think the only negative thing that has happened concerning my Hoyas would be mealy bugs, still fighting those.

Mike

Hi everyone. I'm new to this forum. I've posted on the sans forum to get advice. I got my first hoya this year, a KP, from Lowes. It's an EA plant and I really enjoy it. It's putting out vines with peduncles. I've learned so much from this forum and it has paid off. I'm not a faithful poster but I'm a faithful reader. I'm looking forward to getting several new plants in the future. That's my year in review! Thanks everyone!

Hello all

I am also a newbie here, and pretty new to Hoyas. When the year started I had one. Of course it was a carnosa. I got it as a cutting from my sister some ten years ago. Then a long noid plant I inherited from my grannie bloomed. I decided to identify the plant, and ta-daa; I suddenly had two Hoyas. And an addiction.

During the last few months I got australis, pubicalix, compacta, linearis, Crimson Queen, DS 7 and a noid...and two tiny cuttings (fingers crossed).

I`ve been reading older threads with a passion, and have learned so much! What I enjoy most is looking at the beautiful photos that you people share. Thank you all!

My Hoyas seem to grow nicely, I had some concerns about the climate; they have to be inside all the time, we have very little light in winter, and temps/ humidity isn`t ideal. I even managed to root some cuttings in october. I have decided not to put any more money into Hoya until I see how these live through winter...but that`s what I said after getting #3 also :))

Might as well put my noid in this post...anyone?

Thank you all for sharing your photos, and knowledge, and possibly for giving my incognito an ID ;> (Tagging here is terrible! Every Hoya is a carnosa...)

Inger-L

Cute thread idea. I put off posting for a while, b/c I wanted to look up my actual statistics, but then I figured you guys can't possibly be interested in more than a guestimate anyway.

Although this year did not mark the beginning of my Hoya addiction, it was the year I joined this lovely group of people and came under the influence of its enabling effects. Thus, I acquired over 100 Hoyas. A fact that I can admit to with only a little blushing b/c I know there are people here who have me beat. Luckily, I've hit a wall with space and next year can't possibly be so bad, right? B/c I keep detailed records, I can unfortunately sum up the total amount spent with a few clicks. Although, startling, it's still an improvement over my previous addiction to kitchenware (Oh, Le Creuset, how could you use me so?).

I learned a lot this year and, like Inger, do a lot of backreading... yet have still only gotten back as far as October 2009. :P So, thank you to all of you for all your sharing and teaching, even prior to my arrival.

This is also the year I learned to be a fair hand at establishing cuttings. Of the plants acquired this year I lost 10, 2 of which I already replaced. All but one of these were lessons in the finer details of cuttings mastery, or Aleya tragedies, so I think my success ratio has been pretty good (due mostly to the unconquerable spirit of Hoyas). Incidentally, when I came back from Thanksgiving, I discovered that my last two struggling cuttings have turned the corner and put out new leaves!!

I saw my first non-carnosa Hoya blooms in person this year, which was just as amazing as I'd hoped. So that means my next goal is for my apartment to be stinky with too much perfume at some point.

Are we going to do Hoya New Years Resolutions, too? ^_~

Take heart, Inger. I had the same concerns as you last winter but didn't lose a single plant. (Just almost lacunosa from overwatering). I was in Minnesota, not Norway, of course, but it was still cold and dim. Since you like reading old archives, I thought the link below might help you with your identification.

Here is a link that might be useful: Hoya wayetti

It's so interesting to hear what others have to say on here, I am learning so much about these beautiful plants.

A year ago I did not have any hoyas ... I must say, it really is an addiction. Fortunately it is now winter and there's no way I can add to the ones I have until spring. And it is very hard to remember that little hoyas (of which I have many) will one day become big hoyas!!!! What do all of you do for space???? For those of you in cold climates, how many windows do you have? How do many of you fit 100+ plants in your spaces? I have no idea!

This year was a good year, I went from 0 to having quite a few, mostly good beginner plants since I did not want to lose plants before knowing how well I can grow them: H. fungii, H. cv. Mathilde, H. carnosa, H. australis, H. publicalyx 'Red Buttons', H. diptera, H. mindorensis, H. motoskei, H. wayetti, H. obovata (2), H. pottsii (2), H. obovata x carnosa, H. heuschkeliana, H. lacunosa, H. affinis, H. nicholsonii ...

I have no space with my other tropicals, I have no idea what I'll do when spring comes because I already have a wish list of other hoyas I'd love to have. My favorites are the ones with round leaves, like H. obovata and H. cv. Mathilde ... what others out there have round leaves?

Beth 'Lightning'

Honestly, I was surprised my number was that high. They don't look like that many to me. As far as accommodating them, I take it one day at a time. This moment is all we really have, right?

In a nutshell, wire storage shelving and supplemental artificial lighting is the secret to keeping 100+ Hoyas (and again as many gesneriads) in a small apartment. I have 7 large old fashioned windows and glass balcony doors. Mike has some nice pictures of his setup somewhere around here if you want to get inspired about how crazy you can go in a small space and still look like an intelligent and rational human being.

For round leaves: graveolens, bilobata, cummingiana, kastbergii, serpens...

I would love to see those photos ... any idea where they are on here?

I bought all my hoyas this year Carnosa,publicalyx x2, australis, pauciflora,polyneura and bella, maybe obovata soon

Beth- I did some poking around, but honestly I have no idea where I saw them. People are always posting pictures of their setups, though. I find it an endlessly interesting and inspirational topic. Here are some interesting photos I did find.

One
Two
Three
Four

Lightning96 you can look through my Flickr account, I added some of my older photos to the Hoya set. It's funny just how sparse the racks look in those photos, boy have the Hoyas grown!

Mike

Here is a link that might be useful: My Photostream

Yay!! Yeah, those are the photos I was talking about. Your lovely clean bright organized pictures always give me faith that I will work out my space issues as my plants grow. I love that photo where you've rigged up a wire basket to your shelf for the picta to hang off of. That and Denise's accessories link gave me all kinds of ideas. Some day you'll have to post some pictures of your enamelware collection in play, because I dig enamelware too, and have always been curious what you're doing with it.

I also really like Quinn's setup pictures because she keeps gesneriads, like me, thus deals with the same funky tall plants/short plants mix. She's always got some crazy/creative ideas about how to play the cards she's dealt.

thanks for linking your photostream here, Mike!
it is really neat that you took photos of your hoyas' leaves. often when i'm looking at photos it's the leaves i'm most interested in, especially since flowers seem a long way off for a newbie like me. I love admiring others' hoyas --- like you greedyghost, I find others' pics of their plants to be 'endlessly inspirational', as you put it! thanks everyone! i'm going to go check out the photostream a little more now, maybe i'll do it while i'm putting my daughter down for a nap --- do you think she'll notice? ;)