Bringing Back The HOYA

For many of us, hoyas are those plants our grandmothers had growing on the 'stoep; or in a pot that hung from the dining room celling in a macrame pot hanger

- Tinnus Oberholzer

The genus Hoya contains between 200 and 300 different species. In addition, there are also lots of hybrids and cultivars of certain species, making it an incredibly diverse group of plants. Hoya plants go by numerous different names: waxflower, wax plant, wax creeper, wax vine, porcelain flower and Mary’s tears, to name just a few.

These plants have a home range that stretches from India in the west to China in the east, and reaches downward through Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia, through all the Southeast Asian islands, and even extends to the northern parts of Australia. Because of this wide distribution range, which includes many different habitats, these plants have varying growing requirements, which we need to keep in mind when we want to keep them here in South Africa.

In general, most of the hoyas can be described as tropical, while certain species are subtropical. The subtropical species are the easiest to grow in our climate, as the tropical ones need high temperatures coupled with high humidity throughout the year to perform at their best.

The growth habits of the different species vary greatly, but most can be classified as twining climbers that in some cases produce roots along the twining stems to adhere to the bark of trees or rocks the plants are climbing on. Some hoya species form more of a scraggly bush. Many of the species will grow in the soil or in leaf litter and then climb up a tree, or as an epiphyte on the tree. There are a few species of hoya that are almost leafless, others have extremely tiny leaves, while the leaves of a species such as the aptly named Hoya macrophylla