Kelly/Pug: The E.millii in the pic is a hand me down from my mom. I received it about 3 years ago. It was getting too big for her to move it around and too tall for most of her sunny spots in her house. She gave me a cutting which I have grown to about 18 inches and also coaxed it into branching. It is also known as Crown of Thorns or Christ Rose. Some believe this is what could of been used as the "Crown of thorns". This plant is native to Madagascar as was imported to the Middle East a very long time ago. They thrive in Thailand and many hybrids have been developed there. Some of the hybrids have more flower than leaves. The flowers are truly cyanthia and are a little tacky/sticky(I do not know what purpose in nature, maybe help in pollination). I have 19 varieties at this time. The first one is a group photo. Hard to see the details. The other 3 are my newest COT additions. One of the actually has reddish green leaves. And E.millii siegfriedii which is one of my older cot that has leaves which are completely red on the bottom and green on the top of the leave. My large one is most likely a E.millii splendens. Denise from Omaha grows a lot of these as well and I am pretty sure has a blog setup where she mentions these plants. Out of Africa is a good place to find some of the cot varieties. I am currently on the look out for a variegated COT. There is a cultivar named 'Fireworks' which is currently for sale on ebay that I may pick up. I think I will start a mini lemon tree too. When i go south for vacation the end of next month I will be sure to pick up something that I do not see around here often. All this talk is making me want to visit a nursery. Also one of my favorite plants Dorstenia Lavrani. Their is a male and a female form. The female form with age looks similar to a mini grove of palms. This plant is super easy to grow and care for. The flowers look like mini stars that explode to eject their seeds. -David

News Flash! Hoya can be easy to start from a leaf!!!! Ok, I know you have heard that they will root but never grow, and that was exactly my own experience too. I had a plant from my deceased mother that was withering away and dying, when the last leaf fell off I was very distraught. All the more so because the leaf looked so shiny dark green and healthy. So, wanting to keep my mom's beloved plant (and grandmother's before her), I put the leaf stem in root tone and then in a glass of water. To my delight in just a couple of weeks it had clearly begun sending out roots, but as the weeks went by, the roots grew to nearly fill the glass, but no growth. I determined that it must need some soil, so I went ahead and potted it. But after MANY weeks, still no growth even after some fertilizing. As I was lamenting to my daughter the lack of growth and the eventual inevitable loss of my heritage plant, she said "I have a friend who is always starting plants from leaves and she snips the top 1/3 of the leaf off to get them to grow". Well, although I felt a great deal of trepidation about it, since it had been more than a year since I started it in water, I decided to try it. I cut the end of the leaf off and watched it closely. The leaf did not wither and did seal off nicely so I was relieved. After about a month I noticed a bud on the stem portion and low and behold now a year later I have a burgeoning Hoya plant! Notice the cut leaf at the bottom!

Hiya Sue, Welcome back & thanks for the superb pix (as usual). This is a pretty cool looking set of blooms. Am I the only one bothered by this plant's name? If the plant has square leaves, why is it named rotundifolia (which off the Latin means round leafed)? Talk about confusing & contradictory.

I don't think I have ever been to a nursery where they know much at all about them or their care, except some do know that there are are hoyas and are aware of a couple of varieties. LOL There is one nursery near here that actually used to get in several different species at times, but they were only labeled Hoya plant and a few generic suggestions on care. They had compacta, lacunosa, kerrii, both kinds of variegated carnosas, pubicalyx Pink Silver, and carnosa Krinkle 8. When I would ask the ordering lady if & when they were getting them in, I would ask for a certain one and she didn't have a clue, so when I would see one, I went to her with the name and told her she should start labeling it that way. About a year later I was in there and sure enough she had them all labeled with the names I gave her. I was so happy I had done something to help hoyas and the people who like them. Then when I went back this year, the lady was gone, the only hoya I saw was one lowly looking carnosa Krimson Queen, and the label said, "Hoya Plant". LOL...it's hopeless. I do also find it puzzeling that such a lovely species that is easy to propagate and raise is not showing up in amongst all the pothos and other common plants all over the stores. Heck, you even see ORCHIDS everywhere now. But finding a variety of hoya hanging in any store or nursery is still as rare as finding gold while hiking the hills.