A-hoya!

Last year, I told you the story of one of my house plants. It was a clipping from one of Mom's - a huge viney thing that we'd always called the Barbados plant, though we figured that wasn't it's real name. When I showed it to you, clever Dee said "That looks like a Hoya."

I looked up Hoyas and mostly agreed with her. Except that all the Hoyas on the interwebs had flowers. Our "Barbados" plant, to my knowledge, never flowered. But I asked Mom anyway, and showed her what I'd discovered. "The leaves look similar ..... but it's never flowered. And I've had it for more than 30 years. It can't be a Hoya."

The conversation ended there and neither of us thought much more about it.

Fast forward to last weekend. After painting, I was relaxing on their back porch with Mom and Dad (where the mystery plant spends every summer) and Dad commented on it's size. (It's in a pot so big it takes two of us to lift it to move it.) We joked about its origins and I mentioned again that it might possibly be a Hoya. Mom once again pointed out that it's never, EVER flowered.

Then on Thursday afternoon, I'm working away and Mom pops up on Skype. She sends me a picture....

... and says "I sat down to play ball with the girls and had a wtf moment. I thought they were plastic."

After our conversation on the weekend, she thought Dad was playing a joke on her, and stuck in some dollar store flowers. But nope... the Hoya is also known as a "waxflower".

It's hard to see, but there are actually two bloom clusters on her giant plant. We're guessing the high humidity of this summer helped it to finally bloom.

Meanwhile, my little Hoya...

... has also been enjoying summer outside. No blooms for me.... but plenty of new leaves and there's also a new vine.

And another thanks to Dee! You nailed it!