These are a few pictures of one of my elderly Hoyas -- this one being a 37 year old Hoya Carnosa. I replanted and repotted this plant a little over 5 years ago... from today's date of 9-5-13. Before the repotting, I had this plant growing on a medium sized loop trellis. Needless to say, over the course of a decade the plant was an orderly tangled jungle. I decided to try something I had been considering for years... untangle the plant and trellis it using a medium size tomato cage. And, this worked out FANTASTICALLY!
The plant now has an open air center and lots of wire to grow around... with my assistance. I must say, the Hoya loves this new support paradigm.
It took me many hours of painstaking care to repot the plant, then untangle the plant and finally... slowly and carefully... place the plant on its new wire frame home without popping off its leaves.
I lost two leaves from the top of the vines.
Be very careful if you attempt to do this yourself. You can DESTROY your Hoya by popping off many of its leaves! Also, you can break the vines because the combined weight of the leaves can be VERY heavy! And, if you have flowering stems on the plant... well, you KNOW you don't want to hurt those!
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Here are a couple of pictures of another of my ancient Hoyas -- 40 years old. I repotted this plant, along with the bottom plant, about 5 years ago, too. Over the course of a weekend, I spend about ten hours repotting and trellising these Hoyas on the wire frame of tomato cages.
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This is my oldest Hoya! Some of the bottom leaves on this plant, in the picture of the soil level in the pot, are over 35 years old. My son is 21 years old, by comparison.
I consider myself to be a repotting expert! My services are for hire... and if you have these superb plants, and you are having trouble with them, shoot me an e-mail and I'll tell you what I can do for you.
Good luck and enjoy your Hoyas!
RLJ
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