Pug...I have this happen all of the time, and I've noticed that they never grow leaves. I always separate them...time-consumming, but they do "leaf" out once they're untwined. Your twined vines look like they'd be relatively easy to untwine...simply untwine one at a time. Best wishes, Patrick

I am not nearly as experienced a grower as Patrick, so maybe you should take his advice, but I just wanted to say that I see this behavior pretty frequently in my Hoyas (and in cuttings that I've received from multiple vendors) and that at least diversifolia does produce leaves at the affected nodes. Here's a picture of it today. It's not a very good one b/c it was taken w/my iPhone (b/c it's Friday and I'm lazzzzzy) but you can perhaps see the two tiny leaves forming mid-photo. ^_^

I think they're just the climbing twining sort and if they have nothing else to twist around they'll twist around themselves. Because this diversifolia certainly started out with the vines growing in a V formation and then the two vines reoriented to twine around each other after they were about 5" long.

My DS-70 is forever twining around itself (or anything else within reach) and I am constantly trying to keep the vines unwrapped. So this information will be interesting and maybe help me decide which way to let it grow.
Beverly

I have several larger Hoyas that do this when they reach the top of their trellis. I have a species from Sabah Borneo that does this often and its thin vines become so heavy that they often break. I try to untwine the vines but once they start this behavior they are not easily persuaded to stop. I have also noticed that leaves are slow to form if they do at all on some that are allowed to grow this way.

Has anyone else noticed just how quickly some Hoyas grow if left to twine around a support? I am convinced that if we all had greenhouses and could allow or plants more room to roam that there would be seeing far more flower photos posted. Some plants seem to just explode with growth once they find a nice sturdy support to climb and for some reason it never seems to be the bamboo trellis I provide.

Mike

I had two plants next to each other, h. carnosa and h publicalyx, the vines ended up twining like that. I just unrapped them from each other and both plants are fine. the carnosa is putting out leaves, but the pub is taking its sweet time. I don't think that there is any harm in letting them twist around each other and then untwisting them.

Thanks you guys! I appreciate the input and advise. I might go ahead and unwind them and see what happens (if leaves form or not) it will be interesting to see. On my larger hanging baskets that grow quickly I usually don't care if they twist around like that since there's really no reason to unwind them, I just let it be. The others I prefer to see if leaves will grow on the leafless vines.

What about when you purchase vines wound on a stake. Should you seperate them to grow on trellis or just leave on stake and grow on trellis from growth at top?

It all depends on personal preference, Jan. If you would rather just use the trellis and not have the stake part of the equation, gently unwind the vine and train it how you want on the trellis.