The gorgeous trailing Hoya is a firm houseplant favourite and is our June 2019 Luxury pet-friendly plant of the month. If you’re an existing subscriber, one of these will be winging its way to you during the first week of June. If you aren’t yet a subscriber, you can sign up here.
The plants we’ve gotten hold of for you are actually the variegated tricolour variation of this plant, because we think anything with pink leaves is just a bit special.
Native habitat
Asia, Pacific Islands and Australia.
Light and position in the home
Lots of bright, indirect light for this beauty, please! They will tolerate less, but in order to encourage flowers, they need brighter light.
Flowers and foliage
Hoya flowers are pretty spectacular when they happen, and can be wonderfully fragrant, but you have to treat them as a bonus and not as the norm: enjoy this plant for the beautiful, trailing (pink and) green leaves.
Watering
Hoyas are very sensitive to overwatering, so be sure only to water them when the top of the soil is completely dry.
Temperature
The optimal temperature for this plant is 16-29 degrees Celcius.
Did you know?
The hoyas we’ve tracked down for you are actually the ‘tricolour’ variegated type of hoya carnosa. As such, some of the leaves feature a gorgeous pink hue, which will become more pronounced with higher levels of bright light. This is quite an unusual variety of hoya, and is different from the one in the picture above, which is just a regular (but quite beautiful) hoya.
Hoyas are also known as wax plants.
Pet friendly
This plant is non-toxic to cats and non-toxic to dogs, according to the ASPCA.
