Pictures of my distressed hoya as promised.Thanks to my local live-in computer guru kid.

Not a Hindu rope (Hoya compacta) - more likely a carnosa. Yellowing leaves usually means OVERwatering, but wrinkled leaves usually meab UNDERwatering. But I have a feeling your Hoya isn't taking up water - eventually, old leaves would drop and healthier leaves become dehydrated. So it means the roots are probably in trouble. I gotta be honest - looking at your photos, I have a feeling you're not going to save the plant. You could try taking cuttings, but you're going to need some healthy stems to make that work. It would be worth a try. With brittle stems, it's not very likely they'll root, but maybe you've got some healthy stems somewhere on the plant??

Don't feel too bad. I have a feeling that in reality, the problem was the years of being in a pot with no drainage holes. Yes, it did well for your mother, but she had devloped a system for watering it that worked under those conditions. When you got the plant, you were probably watering it in a fashion that would be more consistent with a plant that has drainage holes, which started it's decline. You MAY have been able to save it if you had repotted it as soon as you got it, but I'm betting even then, there was a good chance you would have lost it anyway. I've inherited plants from people who grew under those conditions and have never been able to save one of those plants. I suspect that like a plant grown in water, the kind of roots developed are a bit different to accommodate the lack of drainage. When you change it, the plant has to readapt and apparently it's just not that easy...

If you can't get any cuttings going, I'm sure you can get some cuttings from other Hoya enthusiasts.

Denise in Omaha

Thanks Denise I'll try that. Going to give it a week or so & see if it takes in the new pot 1st. Just purchased some root starter just in case.

Hi grif,
Just a thought but with all those marbles in the top that could very well stop the air getting into the soil which in turn would suffocate your plant.hope this helps Karen...

Sorry, but I'm w/ Denise on these, don't think this will turn out to be salvageable.

There's some long time drainage problem here, these stems are all dying & likely their pot is too large. Rooting hormone is unlikely to save it & the pebbles on top (which I think are generally a bad idea) are irrelevant when the plant has declined this far. So sorry to be a bummer.