Hi MsGreenFinger and welcome to the forum.

Your question is not at all stupid, but I'm afraid I only have bad news for you.

This is a very sore spot amongst Hoya growers. The single-leaf pots of Hoya kerrii, like the one you have, are a pretty mean marketing gimick, because, while most Hoya leaves will put out roots when stuck into the soil, they will never put out a new vine, unless some of the tissue from the node (the little bump where the leaf comes out of the vine) is attached to the leaf. Usually when you pick a leaf off a Hoya, or when it falls off on its own, it doesn't bring any node with it. So 99/100 the leaf just stays alive and nothing else ever happens. If new growth did emerge, it would come from under the soil, springing from the end of the petiole. You don't have to throw your little leaf out - you can keep trying - but just know your odds are very slim.

There are many people here with a soft spot for people like you who want to grow a kerrii and got the short end of the stick. I bet if you put a trade request in the exchange forum, someone might have some extra kerrii to trade with you and you can grow a proper Hoya plant.

Just be forewarned, kerrii is pretty big and willful. :)

This really is bad news :(
The leaf has the petiole and a little bump on the end but I don't think it's the node...
This was the only Hoya I could put my hand on in this country. Maybe I'll try the exchange forum.
Thank you

MsGreenFinger,
Don't give up on it yet. Because kerryii is such a willful plant, it may throw a shoot of new growth off, but it will probably take a year or so. No guarantees, mind you, but it could happen. In the meantime, it is very cute and would look cute like an indoor bonsai. I kind of like them, especially for Valentine's Day

*Update*

So the other day just went to water my Hoya leaf and....

Yay!!! I'm so happy for your "little hoya that could"! I see those all the time and they're so cute. I'd read all the negative press on them so always felt sad to know they'd never make plants (sadly, my favorite nursery has dozens of these!). So nice to see the one that beat the odds. Congrats!

You only had to keep that leaf alive for what? 8 months?

I wonder if the mother leaf will die back when the vine gets established?

Thank you :)

I just couldn't resist buying it knowing it's a hoya. Never thought Ikea would sell a single-leaf decoration destined to die. They usually have nice specimen plants. But this little fella made it and I am so glad :) In the meantime I acquired a cutting from an old kerrii bush, it has rooted but hasn't done anything else. It seems to be slightly different with more fleshy, greyish-green leaves.

laticauda,

A bit more than 8 months but I'm not impatient about plants. I'll keep you updated. This is an interesting experiment for me (also growing all kinds of plants in semi-hydro).

I just need plants that communicate better. I'm liable to forget about a leaf during that 8 months. Nobody is perfect. :)

Seriously though, those leaves look like a hard shell coated cookie like the half black and half white ones made known by Seinfeld and that show with Carrie Bradshaw. (I know the name of the show but I can't type *that* name on the internet! *blush*)

Also...I say that about the leaf, but I have two polyneura leaves that I cut off the vine wrong with the entire "node." The leaves were kinda yellow to begin with I think, so I'm not too hopeful I guess.

Congrats, Ms. GF! I've wondered, with all the "bad press" about these
kerrii novelty gifts, if maybe at some point the cutting takers might
just snip a bit of the stem in an effort to make plants that will
actually grow. I've done this with plants - I have a plant with one
ugly leaf, but I don't want to waste plant material, so I'll cut it in a
way that I can put the stem under the soil, the single ugly leaf sits
above the soil. It will root, and eventually, a little vine will poke
up from the soil. Once the vine grows and puts on new leaves, I can cut
off the old, homely leaf and voila - a new plant from an old, homely
leaf I would have just removed and tossed!

Denise in Omaha

Denise, I have never tried really to propagate my variegated kerrii (other than sticking leaves that fell off when moving it inside to outside in soil, and then just tossing them out later when they started to look bad), but I think I would like to try. My kerrii has grown a lot this summer on the porch (FINALLY after years of just hanging on) so it can probably spare a few leaves and nodes. Since we know the novelty leaf-in-a-pot method really isn't the best way to do that, what would be the BEST way to propagate kerrii? It is a little bit of a different plant that my other hoyas, whose vines are a little more pliable. My kerrii has vines of STEEL, stiff and resistant to molding in any way but their own.

Stonetree, I used a 2 foot long planter to plant my diversifolia cuttings in, two nodes per cutting that way.

It's living with a recovering monstera (also grown from stem cuttings, but these don't have any leaves at all, so it's basically making pups/offshoots and then the parent vine is going to die. It's sad, but at least the plant will make it). Anyway, the Hoya stems lay on top of/slightly depressed into the potting mix with mulch over top of the stems. That's the fastest one to take root/put on new growth, of the different methods I tried .

Thanks, I will try something like that. I have these long square "pins" (the kind that hold vines to peat poles) that I sometimes use when rooting succulents, like string of pearls, that might work to hold down the kerrii's VERY stiff stem so the nodes say in contact with the growing medium.

I use q-tips bent in half. Depending on how thick and how curved the stem is, it's normally just the right size to go in and kind of lock in place with the widened of the q-tips and the torque pressure applies outwards from the q-tips wishing to avoid the very bent/creased way you've stuck in in the ground. I recommend trying to get them to go in perpendicular to the vine so when they "relax", they are deep enough to have something substantial to "grab" onto. And it's biodegradable. And if you have organic cotton buds even better. I use the cardboard ones, but I suppose the plastic ones may work, if they are long enough for the plant you are trying to stake down.

Kerrii is one that roots easily. If you don't want to take up a lot of room with a long or wide pot, you can get a deep pot. If it's plastic, you can even add some rocks to the bottom to give it more stability, then put your growing medium on top, then clip the cutting to the side of the pot so it stays stable while it's rooting. I use this method for obovata as well, because it is equally as stiff-vined.

Denise in Omaha

Is it better to propagate larger portions of the mother plant or a 2-3 node section is easier? I start everything in small size because this way I can keep more plants LOL

I love those little green heart-cookies.

It's a good thing I don't have one of these, we may find out just how toxic/nontoxic they really are.

I need to start looking for kerrii cuttings. Their leaves are pretty thick, lots of energy stored there so they could make it even in extreme dry summer heat as we have here, in SoCal. :)

Let me know if you have any type of kerrii cuttings please.

hi, sorry to barge in like this. i have a single leaf hoya kerii, and it just overnight a big black spot appeared infront of the leaf and then it start spreading.

anyone has idea what is happening?

thanks in advance!

Sorry to say but it seems like she's dying. Rotting. The leaf might not have roots after all, so watering it started the rot. Those o e-leaf hoyas have small chances of rooting.