Plant Doctor Archive

Hoya won't flower

I HAVE a big-leafed hoya, years old, hanging in my back porch where it gets filtered sun. I water and feed it regularly. It looks healthy, but it has never flowered. What can I do to encourage it to flower?

IT SOUNDS like your hoya is the climbing Hoya carnosa, which can take years to flower, but once it does will probably flower each year from the same spur (flowering shoot), as well as from new spurs. You'll probably just have to be patient, but in an attempt to encourage it to flower, I'd stress it a little. Let it get pot-bound and hold back on the fertiliser - but not so much that the leaves go pale. Ideally, use a fertiliser that is relatively low in nitrogen and high in potassium.

Reproduced with permission from the former Weekend Gardener magazine. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of the RNZIH.