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I bought the plant about 2 years ago and am taking good care of it, it's big, but has never set blooms. Any idea's on how I can get it to get blossoms?
Wow! That is a very well grown hoya! It looks plenty large enough to bloom and it looks like it's in good light in front of the window. You wouldn't want to give it direct sunlight or it will burn the foliage. I bet if you give it a shot of bloom booster fertilizer you will see flowers before long! Have you fertilized it at all in the two years you've had it? Have you cut it back at all? If you've pinched or pruned it at all, you could very well have snipped off the little bloom spurs.
I feed my hoyas with a diluted solution of a bloom booster orchid fertilizer, 15-30-15. I use one called Better Grow Bloom Booster but Miracle Grow makes a bloom booster also. You should be able to find bloom booster plant food at Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Lowes etc. Look for a plant food with a high middle number, which promote blooms.
Thanks for the information. At first I just let it grow and made a wire "ring" to get it to circle. Yes it has grown so large maybe I "fed" it too much? It gets fed every three weeks or so. So far I haven't had any problems with over watering, since I water it only every 10 days or even less, but still no blossoms. Oh well, I wont give up yet.
But, are you feeding it with a fertilizer that has a high middle number? If the plant food doesn't have a high middle number, it is only promoting root and foliage growth, you need a plant food with a high middle number for blooms.
I have had difficulty with getting my Hoya Carnosa Variegata to bloom also. These plants seem to be extremely finicky with there light requirements, but it is also important to know that they do like a rest period. I would try to I.D. the specific hoya it is so you can find out what time of the year it blooms. My Aunt had a huge Hoya Carnosa, I took some cuttings from it and it bloomed almost year round, but I still stopped fertilizing it during the winter months, as it was mainly a summer bloomer. It was excellent advise to not prune it or to prune very carefully. If you remove any spurs you have lost your flowers.
Hoyas can suffer from too much fertilising. They are best STARVED! and kept just wettish. Most fertilisers make them grow too lush so that they produce fewer flowering spurs.
Above all, chck and look after the flowering spurs because they flower from the same spur EVERY YEAR. Be very aware of this so you never prune them off.
Good Hoyas can be grown on the fertilizer from one rotting banana skin!
If you grow a well fertilised Hoya as a cutting, it may look green and healthy but the initial fertilizer boost can stop flowering from up to 2 years! Best Hoyas are bought from old house sales when they have sat in a window and neglected for years by their original owner!
It is true that too much fertilizer can be a bad thing, and to be honest, I grew carnosas and pubicalyx for years, never fertilized, and they bloomed like crazy. I think the most important thing is light levels. If you introduce them gradually, they will not burn, but alot of direct light will turn them yellowish. You will get fllowers, though, once the stems are long enough.
Since I like pretty foliage too, the best thing is to just give them as much indirect bright light as possible.
