Hoya Multiflora 'Shooting Star'
Hoya Multiflora 'Shooting Star'
Hoya multiflora
❦ ❧ ❦
Difficulty — BeginnerA hoya that prefers fireworks to patience. Where most of her cousins make a grower wait years for a single bloom, the Multiflora bursts into clusters of swept-back, pale-gold flowers — each one a tiny shooting star caught mid-flight — and does so young, often, and with great enthusiasm. She grows more upright and shrubby than trailing, with slender matte leaves, and asks remarkably little for the show she puts on.
Notes on Cultivation
☀Light
Bright, indirect light keeps her blooming freely. She tolerates a touch more shade than the waxier hoyas, but flowers are a reward for good light, so give her a bright window.
❦Water
Let the top inch or two dry between waterings. Her leaves store a little water of their own, so she would far rather be a shade too dry than too wet.
☁Humidity
Average household humidity suits her well. She is among the easier hoyas on this count and frets little over dry air.
✵Temperature
Keep her between 65 and 80 Fahrenheit and away from the cold. A little steady warmth encourages those generous flushes of bloom.
❧Soil
A light, airy, free-draining mix — an aroid or orchid-style blend of bark and perlite — keeps her roots content. Hoyas resent dense, sodden soil above all else.
❀Fertilizing
Feed lightly through spring and summer; a bloom-friendly fertiliser at half strength encourages her shooting stars. Ease off in winter.
✿Propagation
A stem cutting with a node or two roots well in a clear cup of moist Fluval Stratum — our signature method. Read the full field method.
Field Observations
Resist the urge to deadhead — she blooms again and again from the same little spurs, so removing them costs you future flowers. A faint, pleasant scent often accompanies the blooms come evening.
Botanists have shuffled her in and out of the genus over the years, and you may see her listed as Centrostemma. To growers, happily, she is simply a very generous hoya.
— faithfully recorded by Mr. Phileas Plant
