Hoya aldrichii is such a well-known and beloved hoya house plant. Everything about this plant, from its round flower clusters to its thick, oval leaves, screams sophistication.
Some special tricks and tips will help you grow this plant to its maximum potential. Find out what those secret tips are in this complete guide.
What Is Hoya Aldrichii?
Hoya aldrichii is one of the easiest to grow hoya varieties. It is a fast-growing climbing plant with thick, oval, and pointed leaves. Like all hoyas, it produces flowers arranged in cute ball-like clusters. This plant is also called the Christmas Island Waxvine.
Hoya Aldrichii Care
Your aldrichii houseplant needs only partial light to grow. To know all about this beautiful plant’s requirements, propagation, and even problems, keep reading as we have written them all for you below.
– Light Requirements
A hoya plant needs only indirect or partial light to grow. Direct light falling on it, especially in hot weather, will cause damaged leaves from sunburn. This makes it a plant that grows better indoors than outdoors. Please place it in a room, washroom, or kitchen with a bright window.
A southern-facing window receives quite harsh brown light. Even with curtains, the light from this window can be pretty detrimental. Place it at a distance of three feet from this window. This window lightens up the room adequately enough that the plant can be kept anywhere in it.
The eastern or western-facing windows only receive direct light for a few hours daily. During those hours, you can easily cover them up using curtains. In the wintertime, the plant will tolerate brighter light a little bit better. Even within a windowless room, you can install a couple of artificial grow lights to keep your Hoya growing.
– Water Requirements
Aldrichii, like all Hoyas, like their soil to be kept moist without being overwatered. During hotter days, you will have to water it almost once or twice weekly because the soil dries faster. For beginners, we recommend always checking the dry topsoil before each watering. You can do this by putting your finger or a skewer into the first two inches.
Instead of tap water, distilled water will be more useful for the plant. If used at all, tap water should be filtered and allowed to stay exposed overnight to get rid of the chlorine in it.
Direct the distilled water towards the soil while sparring the rest of the plant. Keep on watering until the whole soil is soaked and the water begins to flow out of the underside drainage hole. Give 10 to 15 minutes for the extra water to drain into a collection tray. Then remove this tray from under the pot. Leaving it under the pot any longer will only cause overwatering in the roots.
To know if your Hoya needs water, you should check the top two inches of the soil. If they are dry, then the soil needs water. Most of our gardeners stick their fingers in the soil up to the knuckle to get a feel of how dry the soil is.
For those who need to be sure, invest in a moisture meter. It is an electronic gadget, the tip of which is inserted in the top two inches. A screen tells you a score regarding the soil’s moisture levels.
A guide comes with this gadget that tells you how dry the soil is. A third option is to use a popsicle stick or a wooden skewer. Insert them in the soil and then take them out to look at them. If they come back with dry soil crumbs, immediately tabke this as a cue to water.
Take a bucket that can accommodate your hoya pot. After putting the pot in the bucket, fill the bucket with water. The water should come up to only half the height of the pot. Keep a constant eye on the topsoil while the pot is in the bucket. Know that your soil has been watered when the topsoil begins to glisten with moisture. You can also feel this by touch. Lift the pot and allow extra water to drain into a saucer.
– Soil Requirements
This Hoya needs soil that is a perfect mixture of moisture retention and moisture drainage. Any ordinary potting soil or garden soil will not work for them. You will have to make some effort and make your perfect soil mixture. Don’t worry; it is extremely straightforward.
Order a hoya potting mixture online and use this as a starting medium. Add perlite to this mix first of all. Perlite loosens up soil particles and also contributes to water retention. Next, add a couple of large chunks of bark to it as it creates space and prevents perlite from coming to the surface.
To add some nutritional value to your soil, you can mix a small amount of compost. Cover the soil’s surface with good quality mulch; after mixing all the ingredients thoroughly, it’s best to put it in a clay or terracotta pot. Cover the bottom of the pot with a layer of gravel first, and only then add in the soil.
The soil dries less quickly when the weather is cold, or the sunlight is weak. Consequently, you will have to decrease watering hoya accordingly. You should bottom water your Hoya if its soil has dried through. This is a very effective method to revive a plant that has been neglected for a while.
– Temperature Requirements
Your Aldrichii hoyas need 60 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit temperature all year round. Above 80 degrees, this plant begins to suffer. It loses its water quickly, gets dehydrated, and above 95 degrees, it even burns off. You will see their leaves have turned brown and papery.
In common households, lower temperatures are a bigger problem relatively. If your plant is kept under a vent or air conditioning, the cold air drafts will severely affect it. Similarly, a plant kept outdoors during frosty wintertime will also kill below 50 degrees. You will find your plant dropping its leaves all of a sudden.
You can keep this plant in the patio or yard safely during summer. Even during winters, if you live in regions where the winter doesn’t frost, you can keep growing it outdoors. However, below 50 degrees, you need to move it indoors to a warmer room.
– Humidity Requirements
A hoya likes the air around it to be quite humid. Humidity as high as around 50 to 70 percent makes it the happiest. Some regions in the US are naturally this humid for a large part of the day. If you live in such a region, you will not have to do much in this regard.
Keeping a hygrometer at home will give you an accurate idea of how moist the air is. Outside the house, strong winds can dry the plant a lot. Inside the house, air conditioning and radiators also dry the air. Naturally, a dry hoya will become dehydrated and develop brown edges.
There are a lot of ways you can improve the humidity by yourself. The number one method is by misting it once or twice a week. Use only filtered or distilled water because tap water has chemicals that will precipitate on the leaves. Just don’t mist the plant a lot or late at night because this water will have trouble evaporating.
– Fertilizing Requirements
To grow the best hoya bloom, fertilize your plant regularly. Start feeding every month from the beginning of spring till the beginning of fall.
A regular but well-balanced liquid fertilizer would be the most suitable when the plant is not about to bloom. Near flowering season, switch to a phosphorus-rich feed. Phosphorus works like magic for flowering plants.
– Pruning
This is a houseplant that doesn’t need frequent pruning and cutting. However, do keep an eye out for any yellowing or discolored leaves, pinch it off the plant using your hand. If a stem seems to be dying and not producing any foliage, it should be pruned off too. For this, you can use small-sized gardening pruners.
Deadheading is the phenomenon where you cut off the flowers at the end of the flowering season. You don’t wait for them to fall by themselves. Believe it or not, this helps produce more flowers.
Propagation
Seed propagation is such a classic method of propagating any plant. It would be best if you put in some effort to procure the best quality of seeds you can find.
It would be best to have a shallow tray with raised corners for this method. Use sphagnum moss as the medium for growing these seeds. First, put the moss in a bucket of water for a full 15 minutes. Let it soak as much water as it can. After 15 minutes, take it out of the water and squeeze hard. Let all the extra water flow out so that moss remains only moist but not runny.
You must spread the moss in an even layer over the tray and then start placing your seeds one by one into it. Bury these seeds only one-quarter of an inch into the moss. There needs to be at least one inch between each seed. It is important that you cover the tray with a transparent plastic bag to let some sun in and put the tray someplace indirectly bright and warm too.
After every two weeks, take the tray out of its bag and check if the seeds have germinated. If the moss has been moistened, you need to mist it again and then put the tray back in the bag.
By six weeks, most of the seeds that can germinate will have sprouted new leaves. Take the tray out of its bag but wait two to three weeks before transplanting each plantlet in its container.
Problems
Fortunately, hoyas are not very demanding plants, to begin with. Occasionally they might suffer from problems such as root rot, pests, or leaf fall. Learn how to solve these problems like a hoya professional below.
– Root Rot
Root rot is the worst nightmare when growing a hoya. This plant is extremely sensitive to overwatering. If there is a problem with its drainage or you have been watering it a lot, its roots will get soggy and rotten. Soil fungi easily attack these roots, and the infection soon spreads to the whole plant.
You might notice the first sign of root rot will be hoya leaves that will be swollen and wilted. Soon, yellow and brown spots develop on the stems and leaves alike.
These moist spots increase in size and turn black pretty quickly. Another common sign of hoya root rot is the smell. Your plant will smell rotten and diseased. Unless you take meditative action right away, all the leaves will fall. Sometimes it takes less than a month for the infected plant to die altogether.
– Pests
The most common pests for hoya house plants are those that like sucking on the plant. These include mealybugs, spider mites, scales, and aphids. Most of these bugs are very small and like to cluster under the leaf sheaths where they lay their eggs.
You can catch a pest infestation right away if you are observant enough. Small, yellow leaf spots appear over the upper sides of the foliage. They also begin to wilt and droop. The plant will look very sick.
You will have to remove most of these pests manually to get rid of them. You will have to pick them off by hand or use a pressurized stream of water to dislodge them. Then, to kill their eggs and larvae, you can spray the whole plant with a mild insecticide spray every week.
– Rapid Leaf Fall
Sometimes your plant will start dropping all its leaves one by one. This alarming situation often occurs during the cold winter months. The plant gets inadvertently exposed to the cold and becomes cold-shocked.
This shock can also occur during summer. The same thing will occur if this plant receives cold drafts from an air conditioner, even during summer. This leaf drop is to conserve energy enough for survival.
Immediately move the plant to a consistently warm spot. At any rate, move the plant away from cold air drafts. Place your plant in the same room where you live. This room will surely be heated properly through a radiator or heater.
FAQ
– How Can You Treat Root Rot in Hoya Aldrichii?
Before treating root rot, it is important to determine if the infected Hoya can be saved or not. As a general rule, if more than one-third of the plant has been affected by rot, it cannot be salvaged. You must discard it properly by burning it or burying it deep in the soil.
Take the plant out of its soil with extreme caution. The roots are already too weak to withstand any more trauma. Lay a large piece of absorbent paper on the floor. Place your water-logged plant on it.
Keep changing the paper as it continues to absorb water from the plant. Once it has dried, spray the plant with a potent antifungal agent. The best one in the market these days is undoubtedly the liquid copper antifungal spray. Focus on the roots especially.
All the plant parts that are completely black need to be pruned off. Use sharp pruners for this task and then place them in bleach for the next 30 minutes. This will ensure that your pruners get disinfected properly. Take a new container and fill it halfway with new, sterilized soil. Carefully place the plant’s roots in this soil, then fill in the rest of the container.
Take care of your plant like a baby for the next four weeks. Once a week, repeat spraying with the insecticide. In one to two months, your plant will begin recovering.
– Can Hoya Aldrichii Get Propagated by Air Layering?
Yes, as air layering is a very exciting way to propagate a hoya plant. In this method, you will propagate a new plant from a stem still attached to the plant. Begin by choosing a middle-aged stem, which means neither too old nor too young.
Select a five to six inches segment of this stem between two leaf nodes. Make a vertical incision on this segment from one end to the next. This segment should be shallow as you don’t want the cut to pass through.
Take a moderate quantity of sphagnum moss and place it in a water bucket. After 15 minutes, take it out and squeeze it to let all the extra water out. What you must do is wrap moss all around your chosen segment and cover it over with a suitable size of aluminum foil. You will need gardening ropes to tie the foil all around.
Leave this stem alone for the next four weeks. After that, unwrap the ropes and the foil and see if new roots have started growing or not. Rewrap the whole thing again regardless if new roots have grown or not.
After four weeks, your roots will have grown enough that you can cut your six inches of stem off. Plant the stem in a new pot with the roots inside the soil. Remember that it is key to take extra care of this plant for the first few weeks so that it doesn’t stress and the propagation becomes a success.
– How Can I Propagate Hoya Aldrichii by Stem Cutting?
Stem cutting is no doubt the best method of propagating a hoya. It is simple, straightforward, and easy for first-time propagators to get the hang of. You must begin by preparing yourself by sharpening and cleaning your cutting instruments.
The relatively smaller-sized stems of Hoya, will work the best. However, you must keep in mind that your tools must be sterilized, in order to do this, have your instrument dipped in a bucket of 70 percent isopropyl alcohol or household bleach for 10 to 15 minutes. Don’t forget to wash them afterward with water.
Begin with waiting till early spring to take a cutting from the plant. The stem you take the cutting from should not be blooming at the moment, and this will help in the propagation process. Cut off six to eight inches of this stem by making a sharp and clean cut at 45 degrees.
Wrap your cutting in a paper handkerchief for two days so that it becomes dry thoroughly. Nonetheless, you can tell that your cutting has dried if it has formed calluses at the cut end. Put a little amount of rooting hormone to this end. We recommend using its powdered form instead of a gel or liquid form.
Prepare the right soil for Hoya and moisten it evenly. Make a hole in its center and insert your cutting more than halfway into it. Have it wrapped up in a plastic bag for the first two to three weeks.
The leaves will sprout in approximately two weeks. Keep your cutting in a bright and warm place inside the house.
Conclusion
You sure know a ton more about aldrichii hoyas than most people by now.
- This hoya can get sunburnt in direct light, so only give it a partial indirect one.
- Don’t water it unless you are sure that the top two inches of the soil are dry. You can test the soil’s drought by different ways.
- Always plant this Hoya in a specially mixed potting mix improved by adding bark and perlite.
- There are three ways by which you can further propagate this plant. These include seed propagation, air layering, and stem cutting. Wait till early to late springtime to carry out the propagation method of your choice.
Now that you know about all the aldrichii care needs in exquisite detail, it is time to put words to action. Buy yourself a nice baby aldrichii plant and see it grow in front of your eyes.
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