Hi Elizabeth,

Hopefully there are members on here who have had luck with Calycina, but not me! I've had this plant for a little less than a year, and it has done nothing but drop leaves. There has been very little growth (if any), and some leaves just get yellow and fall off. So I'm FAR from having this hoya bloom! Anyway, maybe you'll get some information from Calycina owners that have had better results.

Gabi

You should be able to find lacunosa at any Home Depot...

I don't have calycina but I have two similar hoyas, australis and albiflora. If the scent is anything like albiflora, you are in for a treat.

We cannot mention names of growers on this site, I think that's considered a no-no, but you should be able to find someone to send you a few pubicalyx cuttings.

I think (?) you can mention growers. Logees, Bob Smoley, and David Liddle have been mentioned many times on this forum. Elizabeth, I think all those sellers just sell cuttings, but I'm not sure. There is also a Hawaiian grower who sells great hoyas, in small plant size (unfortunately, we can't mention her...if I did, it wouldn't go through on the post). If you want to know who it is, just email me privately.

As for finding Lacunosa at "any" HD, unfortunately that's not the case. I've been to many HD's, and I haven't seen Lacunosa at all of them (I've actually seen less of those than other EA hoyas). You might be able to talk to the greenhouse department at your local HD or other big box store, and request that they order some Lacunosas.

hmmm...Gabi, once I mentioned a certain grower in Hawaii and got a "spam block" on my message...why are some ok to mention and not others?

For some reason you see lacunosa on and off, and it can't depend on where you live because they all come from Florida...I am not sure why that is. Usually by the time I come across one, it is half dead from over watering. You just have to keep looking. And take cuttings right away, they have a history of dying as soon as you walk in your front door with them. Mine died but the one I started from cuttings in the potting mix I whip up is doing great and bloomed almost as soon as it rooted. I tried asking the greenhouse people at HD to get some other hoyas in and they said they had no control over ordering, it is all done thru the corporate office of Home Depot...but at garden centers who sell small orders of EA, they can "request" certain varieties and you MIGHT get them. Someone told me last year that EA was going to start selling plants retail thru their website, not sure if that is happening yet though. I find you have better luck with their plants if you get them fresh, before the store over and under waters them.

I don't know about Bob Smoley, but I think Liddle just sells cuttings - Logees sells very small rooted plants.

Hi Ines,

On my last post, I wrote about the hawaiian grower:
"There is also a Hawaiian grower who sells great hoyas, in small plant size (unfortunately, we can't mention her...if I did, it wouldn't go through on the post). If you want to know who it is, just email me privately."

That's why it spam blocked you. GW considers mention of their name spam...I guess they tried to advertise on here or something. As to why it's ok to mention the others, I'm assuming they never tried to advertise on here (I would think mentioning Liddle and Bob Smoley is similar to mentioning Home Depot, Lowe's, even Ebay sellers).

As for HD, I was told the same thing. I asked if they can order more hoyas if I request the name, and they said they can't. So far, out of about 5 different HD's I've gone to, only 1 had Lacunosa (in poor condition of course). I mostly see Brevialata at HD. Also, I've asked local nurseries to order certain hoyas, and they also said no. One nursery by me sells only Carnosa and Kentiana, and ALWAYS has them, but they will not order any other hoyas for some reason. I'm hoping my persistence will get them to cave in :-)

That Calycina bloom looks so much like pix of Australis bloom, interesting yet confusing!

The grower controversy is that one can mention specific growers by name except the one in Hawaii (there had been some too-heated discussions & controversy shortly after Hoya Forum started, I believe she in particular, as well as mention of that grower were banned from here), at least that's what I remember.

As to HD,the local one here at West 23rd Street in Chelsea, will take specific plant orders if one can give the exact name name. I had gone to EA's site to see what each Hoya looks like to me as opposed to what they're calling it (I copied down their whole list, if folks want it, LMK & I'll make it a separate thread). I'm trying to have them special order a replacement 'Speckled' Lacunosa for me (which they call 'mini wax leaf'). I remembered that they guarantee their plants for 1 yr., & while I lost the receipt, it's still in its original pot w/ their UPC code which I realized they'd recognize; so they told me they'd replace it for me. I hope to hear on Friday, I'd even asked that they get 2 & I'd buy the 2nd one (to split up & mail to those interested parties, remember?).

thats interesting cause I have never seen brevialata in my area, mostly kentiana, carnosas, DS 70 and occasionally linearis. When I lived at the shore I saw alot of curtisii.

My most phenonmenal HD find was a full 8" basket of H. nummularioides from a grower in Florida that they used to get plants from up until last spring, but he went out of busniness. It was labeled "Hoya Rose" and not in very good shape, so I got it for $3.00. I cut back all the dead and dying parts, repotted and put it under a tree outside and it is gorgeous today, bloomed for the first time last fall. What a bargain, especially because it is my favorite hoya - there was some growing around the bottom of another plant in one of the lobbys of the Trump Marina in Atlantic City and a few cuttings fell off (cough,cough) so I took them home and they rooted in water, but died when I planted them. Now I am looking for the nummularioides with the yellow coronas.

There was a contest on HoyasRUs where Chris shows a pic of one leaf and if you guess it, you get cuttings from that plant- I won vitellinoides cuttings last year in a similar contest...last years pic was of a multiflora leaf, but I don't like that hoya so Chris offered me a few other choices...anyway, no one guessed this one and she announced the answer last night and it was calycina.

I am aware of the Hawaiian grower and like her stuff, but the shipping charge is hard for me to swallow.

I was talking to a hoya contact the other day and he said he was almost being driven out of his greenhouse by the combined smell of his calycina and lacunosa. So you could guess from that that it's high on the fragrant side.

What annoys me is that quite a few of the hoya collectors of the late 1800s were British, and yet finding hoyas here is almost like looking in a desert for them. Even hoyas like lacunosa I had to trade for. Lucky for me there's Ebay, otherwise I'd have nothing!

Hills, believe me, it ain't much better here! With the exception of Exotic Angel's limited selection, which you still have to search for, and the occasional flower show, I have gotten most of mine thru trading or generous growers. Years ago, maybe 10 to 20, you would come across a less common variety here and there at garden centers, but now most of them don't even bother to sell tropicals anymore - when stores like Home Depot moved in with their low prices, they knocked the small owner garden shops out of the loop, it wasn't worth it for them to sell tropicals unless they competed with the box store prices, and I don't think they could. The ones that have hung in there are so few and far between. I live in the northeast, one of the most crowded parts of the US, and I would still have to drive almost an hour to get to the closest "interesting" tropical plant seller.

Ines, where is the tropical plant seller that you visit? Do they sell many varieties of hoya?
I had no clue that there were even nurseries that specialized in tropical plants.
Thanks,
Gabi

I have a Hoya calicina 'stargazer'. It is highly fragrant in comparison to the Carnosa and Bella(the ones I know). The stargazer is a new hybrid, that supposedly blooms many times a year. Till now I had blooms once but I think I am getting more soon as I see some new growth on the peduncles.(I have it for 3 month now). I hope this was helpful.

Hi Phallover,

Where did you buy it!!!

Elizabeth

Hi Elizabeth,
I currently live in Helsinki Finland and that's where I got it. I'm not sure about the availability of this hoya in the US. But here is a link about stargazer if you are interested in reading about it.

Michel

Here is a link that might be useful: Hoya Stargazer

I have had the Calycina for a couple of years now (cost the large sum of 13 Euros - roughly 13 Dollars) for a plant that is about 4ft high on a bamboo trellis. It has flowered both springs for me and the scent is almost overwhelming - mine is outside on the terrace. In the house it would be too much! Hoyas are difficult to find here in Spain but there is an increasing number of people interested in growing these plants. I am lucky in that in my area there are a large number of garden centres that cater for the foreign (resident) population and import a lot of unusual plants. I have found all my 'mature' plants locally - Carnosa (normal,and two sorts of variegations), Compacta (normal and variegated), Kentiana, Shepherdii (another 4Ft plant!), Linnearis, Bella, DS?, and the most expensive were the Shepherdii and Calycina at the same price. I also have a lot of small plants from cuttings I bought from Paul Shirley.