Jen,
Thank you for sharing that lovely story. My start in the hort world was at 5 with a coleus cutting from a school trip to a local green house and then 5 cent seed packs from the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, way back in the 60's.

Your story touched my heart and brought back wonderful memories. Thanks again, and keep that Hoya going!
Chaz

Jenn,
my love of plants started much the same way. My mother was Native American and grew a variety of plants for medicinal purposes as well as vegetables, watermelons, fruit trees and flowers. When she died I was 12, and most of the funerary offerings that we received were potted plants, not cut flowers. In her honor, my sister and I planted them all in the garden (we lived in a 9B South Texas climate so it wasn't hard) and tended them as a memorial garden. Then I went through my party phase in high school and college, and plants were forgotten for a bit, but after I "grew up" and we moved to Southern California when I was 22, I started collecting tropical plants in earnest. We brought things back from trips to Hawaii, and there were many cool Japanese nurseries in West LA that had very neat stuff. I had an elderly neighbor from Mexico City who taught me to make jelly from the guava tree that grew on the property line between our houses. Then we came to Florida many years ago, and all these years later I have a collection of tropical plants that is so large and so diverse it has to be grown in a dedicated tropical greenhouse.

I tend to go through plant "phases" where I will be interested in adding to specific parts of my collection...sometimes its aroids, for the longest time it was heliconias, anthuriums, sometimes unusual gingers, then orchids, plumeria, crotons, etc...at the moment I am interested in hoyas and other naturally occuring epiphytes like epiphytic ferns (Huperzia and Lycopodium), dischidia, dischdopsis, epipremnums, shinglers, etc.

My mom has been dead now for over 35 years but the love of nature and plants she gave to me still lives on. I have had the good fortune to be "tutored" in my plant endeavors by a number of horticulturists and knowledgeable growers over the years and am always willing to try new growing techniques and culture methods.

I look forward to seeing you on the forum.

Hi there, and welcome!

My mother has two Hoya Carnosas at home that she made from cuttings around the 1960s. The original plant, in Switzerland, was heaven only knows how old. My memories from when I grew up were of the plant blooming every year, and me going round every flower to dab the bit of nectar onto my finger and eat it! One year one of them flowered round the time of the yearly village Horticultural Show and I persuaded my mother to enter it into the flowering plant class. It won first prize.
At some point both plants got infested with scale and mealy bugs. I took four leaves from a healthy part of the plant, placed them in some soil and left them in my mother's greenhouse. At least one rooted and produced a new shoot, which is the plant I have today. My mother's plants got so badly infested that they're half the plants they used to be (a couple of years ago I had to cut them back and try and clean them as best I could) and they're still in a sorry state of affair. I can't get home often enough to try and get rid of the mealybug infestation that's taken over my mother's house and made me sad every time I see those now decrepid hoyas. Mine, on the other hand, has gone from strength to strength and is now on its second year of buds after about 10 years of ownership. I started on the slippery slope of hoya collecting a couple of years ago when I made the mistake of looking up hoyas on the internet. Now I have about 25 different ones...

Welcome Jenn :-)

What a touching story...so glad you shared it. I only hope one day someone will be that amazed/interested in my hoyas...first I have to get them to look as breathtaking as your grandfather's seems to have been! Looking forward to learning lots from you, and seeing your hoya collection grow...and grow...and grow....

Gabi

Yes, a wonderful story!

I, too, have a plant from cuttings from my grandmother's hoya, and I now have, as well (thanks to my brother who is not the least bit plant savyy, but he kept it!) her original plant....it is estimated to be at least 75 years old, if not older....no one is aware of when she obtained it or from where. It could have come here from Germany with her mother!
I truly treasure it and will continue to share it with others....everyone in our family has a plant started from one of it's cuttings.

Hi Jenn
Welcome to the forum. I loved your story. I'm looking forward to seeing your posts on this forum.
Eileen

Welcome, Jenn! Your grandfather is probably beaming from heaven that you told the story of his influencing your passion and career!

It was a Hoya carnosa (a 'Krimson Queen') that got me hooked on growing. I got it for Valentine's Day at 17 from my then-boyfriend (who eventually became my husband, then my ex-husband...) His mother grew all kinds of weird and wonderful plants on her windowsill - I later learned they were succulents. I got all kinds of starts from her, including Aloe vera var. chinensis, the common Mother of Thousands Kalanchoe and some Sanseverias. When we got our first apartment, I filled the window sills with plants. Over the years, I learned that succulents were my forte and by the time me and my second husband moved into this house 20 years ago, I had enough plants to pretty much fill all of the 20-some windows in the house, so a few years ago I got a little GH off my kitchen, a dream I never thought I'd actually get to live!

It's a fun and relaxing hobby and I still often think of my ex-MIL and and thankful that her interest rubbed off on me!

Denise in Omaha

Denise-
I suppose that means you could say that men will come and go, but a hoya is forever!

This plant is about to move across the country with me again in July. It's going to WA.

Great discussionÂ

Iris, I love the description of your grandfatherÂs greenhouse, and the hoya entwining everything within its grasp. My hoya is a cutting taken from my grandmotherÂs old plant as well.

My hoya story is as followsÂ
After my grandmother died, her house was not often visited. It was in the deep in the woods of rural Wisconsin, on the banks of the Wisconsin river. A very magical place. She had lived there alone for over 20 years. It was my favorite place and she was my favorite person in the world to visit, and I continued to go there long after she died.

Some time after my grandmother passed away, I visited her house to find to my surprise that two of her plants were still there, alive despite what must have been very infrequent watering (family members occasionally stayed at the house and did things to keep the house in good shape). One was a Rhipsalis, the other a Hoya. Both were too large for me to take home to my small apartment, so I took some cuttings. I have both cuttings to this day, the hoya blooms every year. In retrospect, I suppose it was fitting that some portion of those old plants escaped the solitude of that old house by way of cuttings, since my grandmother was known in her old age for carrying a pair of scissors in her purse with which she "liberated" (from the nursery or wherever) samples of plants that caught her fancy.

treehaus,
I know a few "liberaters" myself, LOL. I liberate seeds on the ground from palm trees and trees like Delonix regia when I am in So FL but I don't have the nerve to actually take cuttings without permission. I gladly give cuttings to people who visit my greenhouse though, if its from plants I can spare them from

I try only to 'liberate' with permission... although I will admit to having snuck a seed pod from a botanical garden once. Karma, however, had it's revenge and nothing germinated.
C'est la vie.