Greg, I meant if there were just a limited number of good vines left to remove them and re-start them, cutting the rest back completely. It's been my experience that a plant works hard to "revive" damaged parts and you can lose a plant by letting bad damage die back naturally. I suspect this has something to do with the limitations we put on them when we grow them in pots... Whatever the reason, I find a damaged plant has a better chance of surviving with a severe pruning. Not only surviving, I might add, but eventually flourishing better than before. I actually found this out by accident. At the risk of telling the same story over and over and boring the long-time readers... I've had German Shepherd dogs for many years. If you've never had one, you probably aren't familiar with their overly-enthusiastic tail-wagging, the signal of the "happy dance" when Mom or Dad comes home. The "dance" has resulted in many, many - uh - "pruned" plants. I used to get really upset until I realized that those "pruned by the dance" seemed to look awsome after they recovered. Thus began my no-fear attitude towards pruning. Yes, you'll have a crappy looking plant for awhile, but in the end, you'll be rewarded... As for flowers, patience is the key. If you do have to prune it clear back, I would start (for a year or so...) with a general fertilizer that will encourage foliage (like Miracle Grow...) Once you've got some good foliage, then in spring and summer, use a bloom booster fertilizer. Plenty of sun (that is, indirect sun in your neck of the woods!), fresh air, warmth... that should do it! Sorry to hear your damage is so extensive. I think we've ALL learned this lesson the hard way! Denise in Omaha

Hey, echinaceamania--gee. Those must have been healthy cuttings. I just tried my 1st cutting from my plant. It was about 6" long, with leaves at the top, placed in a small vial of water. With the whole thing set on top of the 'fridge, so it'd get some constant heat. and all that placed in a plastic bag, to retain moisture. I misted the cutting every couple of days. Results: total failure. Top leaves dried out to "crinkly" consistency. Stem, produced zero roots. Lucky you. I'll try your method with another cutting and see what happens. Did you weight the cutting down so it was under the water? Within the next few days I'm going take cuttings from everything that even looks like it might work, put it in some rooting compound and then into a perlite mix. --I'm wondering if I should just forget it and try to find (I think the name is) August Beauty (or something like that) on eBay and start over. --It's a bit funny. I went to a large greenhouse/nursery here and asked about gardenias. They had one. It was essentially a bare twig. My dying ones were 100% better than the one they had in their greenhouse. If these new cuttings don't take, I'll have no choice, but to try to order some new ones. How come I can grow an orange tree, orchids, star jasmine, Madagascar jasmine, Plumeria, inside, here in Utah, but no luck with the gardenias? Oh well, I guess that's just the nature of the plant. --wish I had soil and moisture as my uncle, back home in Louisiana, where he has gardenias as foundation plants. They are always in bloom and gorgeous.

Negative experiences in regard to potting-up, where an undisturbed root ball is placed into a bigger pot with more soil around it, vs. doing a repotting, as described below, can give rise to old wives' tales about plants not liking to be repotted/disturbed. Potting-up a root-bound plant that has roots surrounding the outside root ball often lead to this negative experience because those roots had adapted to accessing oxygen around the outside of the root ball and surrounding them with more dense, soggy-but-airless potting soil will likely lead to suffocation. The reason bonsai masters are able to keep potted entities alive for hundreds of years is because they care for the roots by trimming them and changing the soil. A plant grows from the roots-up, so if the roots are not healthy, gorgeous foliage will decline &/or no flowers can form. When you unpot a plant and find a pancake of roots at the bottom, chopping that off will give roots a chance to grow normally again for a while and will make removing the old soil easier. Roots need oxygen & moisture at the same time to function. Just air = shriveling. Just moisture = suffocation & rotting. Either will cause root death and dessicated foliage because the roots have been unable to deliver moisture. Having to let soil dry, as if ones' tropical jungle plant was a cactus, is an unnecessarily stressful coping mechanism for non-desert dwelling plants in soil without enough oxygen for the roots to stay healthy when it is moist and can lead to premature loss of older leaves and in extreme cases, dry shriveled roots/dead plant. The ability of roots to be able to function properly depends greatly on the soil structure/texture, which can change over time. Potting soil tends to be very dense, mostly peat, with very little air in it. Any kind of organic ingredients decompose into smaller bits over time, and roots fill air spaces over time as they grow through soil. Replacing soil periodically is usually necessary to keep plants healthy because of these reasons. A more porous, chunky, airy soil (like cactus/palm, if one is buying bagged,) can have more air in it even when it is moist because there is space between the particles. When there are tiny particles of any kind in a pot, such as peat, sand, silt, clay, they filter into all of the tiny spaces in a pot, eliminating the air. "Overwatering" is the label and manifestation when roots have suffocated and/or rotted, combo of both. Over time, organic bits decompose into smaller bits, so even the "best" soil, if it has organic components, will need to be replaced when this happens. The speed at which this happens depends on many variables, but on average, about 1-3 years.

To catrin123: This is what you must do to save your Hoya: Take cuttings as many as you can, leave around 5 inc stem with at least 5 leaves to the mother plant. Each cuting should have at least 7 leaves, take off 2 lower leaves so that you can put that part in a clear cup of water, preferably sligh warm to the touch). The cup and the water should be clean. Place all cuttings you save in the cup ( if too crowded make more cups). Place the cups in a warm and pretty bright but not sunny area inside your house, a windowsill that receives good light but not direct sun. The cuttings WILL live in the water and root in it after one month! Could be earlier. Rinse the cup and Change water when the water looks cloudy. Keep the cuttings there until they roots profusely then pot them with soil ( never over pot a hoya, mix 3parts potting soil, 1 part perlite). Keep the plants indoor until the weather gets to 80-90 F then you can take them outdoor in the shade. GRADUALLY move to more light areas but not sunny until they receive dapple sunlight but never get direct sun. i believe the mother plant needs more light and less water. Remember Hoya dies quickly because of too much water not too little. please keep me updated