Tropicals & Tender Perennials: 3 favorite Hoyas, 0 by markroy68

markroy68 wrote:
I started a similar thread last year when we did the David Liddle order, and encouraged everyone to list three of their best performing Hoyas to give other folks an idea of what to order from David. Shall we do it again?

Mine are:

1- Hoya australis ssp. australis 'Brookfield'- David lists this as the best of his australis cultivars and I agree. The new growth is purple-bronze, the older leaves are a rich dark green. It grows like a weed, but has relatively short internodes for such a vigorous plant. It's covered in waves of pristine white flowers from October through January (for me in SF) that smell like cherries and ginger. Never seems to get any pests or diseases, either.

2- Hoya albiflora- I haven't seen the flowers yet (large, white, and perfumed), but the plant itself is beautiful. A rampant grower with giant, fuzzy green leaves with a fine shape. The stems are also large and fuzzy, a pleasure to pet. This one has outgrown every other Hoya I have. You have to admire it's determination. This plant will get very large though.

3-Hoya mindorensis- this plant has so many things going for it- fairly short internodes, plump succulent leaves, vigorous growth and a wide range of colors from all white to true red, magenta, dark smokey purple, and one with a reddish corona and orange mottlings on the white corolla. I already asked David about the last two, which you can see on the MSN site under "David Liddles" pictures, labeled Poring1 and Poring2, and he said that the two clones of mindorensis listed in the current catalog (after mindorensis ssp. superba) are these two clones. They don't have much of a smell, though, like none at all.

It occurs to me that last year everybody cheated and included at least four plants, so-

4- H. fraterna (pictured)- big shiney dark green leaves, good grower, easy bloomer, gorgeous flowers, but little scent (Ann S. says they smell of over-ripe peaches)