I thought I knew what it was, even though there was no name tag, just a bar code. So, I took it to the cashier and asked. She scanned the bar code with her phone and said, “Hoya nu-mu-oh-I’m-going-to-butcher-this”.
Hoya nummularioides, just what I thought it was. I didn’t have one, so now I did. It was different from most everything else in my collection, no variegation, slightly fuzzy, cool. They were supposed to be easy, and I like easy. It came home with me. I transferred him to bark/sphag/net pot on the grow shelves and waited.
I waited a while. I’m still not entirely sure what he didn’t like, the bark, the moisture, whatever. He didn’t die but he didn’t thrive, and I want thrive. If what you’re doing isn’t working, do something else, so I moved him to pon-ish and a self-watering pot. I even took a back-up cutting, just in case.
But that seemed to do the trick. Whether it was the airier mix, the drier mix, the nutrient solution, or a combination, he started putting out new growth and new leaves. Which is close enough to thriving for me. Next step, blooms.
I’ll keep you posted.
