Day 187: Stop the presses! Breaking news! Hoya ilagiorum has finally held onto buds long enough for them to mature into flowers, and what a show it is! Several times now, this plant has attempted to set buds, only to drop them before they were a millimeter in diameter. Some hoyas can be very fussy to bring into bloom. In fact, I have several which have never flowered, ironically including the old standby, H. carnosa. Something about my "care and feeding" regimen doesn't suit it, although H. fitchii blooms regularly and profusely right beside it. I was worried that ilagiorum was going to be problematic when the buds failed to mature. In fact, this umbel took me entirely by surprise when one day recently when I noticed its cluster of pentagons, still tightly closed. Hoping for the best, I've watched it closely for the last ten days, nervously watering it when the soil went dry. I figured if anything would make the buds drop, watering would do the job, but it held them. Monday , they burst into full-blown stars. I don't know what I did to make the difference, but I'm hoping for a repeat performance somewhere down the line.
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