If you’d like to add a new low-maintenance plant to your at-home greenery collection, a hoya plant might be the perfect pick. Hoya plant care is relatively simple and you don’t need a green thumb to successfully grow one of these beauties.
A popular vining houseplant in the 1970s, hoyas are tropical plants that are sometimes called “wax plants” due to their thick, waxy green foliage. Many hoya plants produce blooms, too — delicate porcelain-like flowers that emit a strong, sweet perfume. Some people even find the fragrance to be overpowering indoors, so they transfer the hoya plants outside while flowering in the warmer months.
What Are Hoya Plants?
Within the hoya family, you’ll find a wide variety of leaf shapes, ranging from heart-shaped to almond-shaped to oval. If a hoya plant is flowering, you can typically recognize the distinctive flowers, which grow in a ball-shaped cluster, kind of like what you see with hydrangeas. Each cluster can hold up to 40 individual star-shaped flowers, all bunched together in a pretty bloom.
These slow-growing plants produce waxy or fuzzy leaves and woody stems. They can be trained to grow as a vine or to spill over the side of a container. If you have furry friends at home, the hoya would be a good pick, as it’s considered safe for pets and humans alike.
Many people enjoy transferring their hoya plant to a hanging basket, either placed inside or on a deck, where the long strands of greenery can flourish. Hoyas will cling to a nearby small trellis, but because they grow slower than most plants, you don’t need to worry about them totally taking over the area.
How Do You Care For Hoya Plants?
Hoya plant care is fairly straightforward and starts with keeping the plant in bright, indirect light for no more than 2 to 6 hours per day. A sunny window, facing east or west, that receives natural light in the morning or late afternoon would be a good spot.
Good drainage is key to keeping a hoya happy, so be sure not to let the plant sit in water. When watering during the spring and summer months, saturate the top third of the soil, roughly once per week, when the soil is dry to the touch. Water approximately every two weeks in the fall and winter seasons.
Additional hoya plant care entails fostering the ideal temperature, as these are still tropical plants. Aim for between 70-75 degrees Fahrenheit during the day and 60-65 degrees at night. Some hoyas enjoy humidity, so you can mist the plant a couple of times per week, but skip this step when it’s in bloom.
When it’s finished blooming, you can leave the flower stalk because it might produce new flowers. If you remove the flower stalk, it’ll need to regrow, which can delay blooming and expel extra energy.
You can pick up a hoya at your local garden center or houseplant store. You can also find these plants on Etsy and other online retailers.
Will you be adding a cute hoya plant to your home?
This story originally appeared on Simplemost. Checkout Simplemost for additional stories.
