Hoya Rebecca
The first hoya I bought when I moved to Cambridge to begin grad school at MIT
June 13, 2026
One of the reasons hoyas are my favorite type of plant is their blooms. My hoya rebecca is blooming so beautifully today that I just can’t help but share my journey with her
Beyond flowers, hoyas are relatively easy to care for, which is a big bonus. The third reason is that within the hoya genus, there is an insane number of species with lots of diverse leaf sizes, shapes, colors, textures—and of course, equally diverse flowers! Getting some hoyas to bloom is somewhat difficult, and the hoya rebecca is actually known to be somewhat easier than other species to achieve nice, consistent blooms. However, it actually took about a year and a half for me to get a first peduncle,
The beginning
I first moved to Cambridge in late August, 2023, to begin my Master’s degree at MIT. As soon as I moved, I immediately began scouring Facebook marketplace to add some hoyas to my collection. As you can see in the first photo, I didn’t even have all of my furniture before I bought her!
She grew relatively quickly in the next months, and just about 8 months later, I gave her a trellis to help support the beautiful foliage.
First hint of flowers
In May 2025, right as I was finishing my Master’s degree, I noticed a very tiny little nub—a peduncle! I was really excited and surprised, and it felt very symbolic since this hoya has been with me from the very start of the degree, and her beginning to bloom right as I graduated from MIT felt very fateful!
Unfortunately, I don’t really know if this ever bloomed, since I went away on a trip in mid-July and when my friend watered my plants, they did not see any flowers. By the time I came back in August, the peduncle was empty again.
Makeover + Moving
Despite the peduncle (probably) not having produced any flowers that summer, hoya rebecca sure did grow a ton. I was moving apartments within Cambridge in late August 2025, and in preparation, I did a lot of cleaning, cutting, repotting, and re-trellising of my plants, including hoya rebecca. Below you can see just how long the vines had gotten over the two years, and how pretty she looks on the bigger trellis!
Buds, again, heartbreak, again
After the move, there were new buds forming on the peduncle, and I was so excited!
However, these buds died off shortly after I took that photo. It was quite sad and I wasn’t really sure why it was happening. I also was traveling quite a bit around this time, and so I don’t have any photos of this plant in November or December 2025.
Later on, I read a bit online and learned that this phenomenon was called “bud blast,” which is essentially where a hoya will abort the buds before they open into flowers. It’s most often caused when the hoya is inconsistently watered (or due to other environmental stress factors like low humidity and cold). In retrospect, this makes a lot of sense, since all my plants were a little under-watered during this period of travel. Not enough to kill them, but perhaps enough to prevent them from flowering.
The next photo I have of this plant is when it randomly got knocked onto the ground in January, 2026 at like 2am. I don’t believe in ghosts, but I really have no other explanation for how it suddenly fell off the windowsill. Thankfully the peduncles survived and the plant was not damaged, but again, they blasted before flowering :(
Over the rest of the winter and spring, hoya rebecca kept making buds and blasting them, again and again. Again, it was probably due to inconsistent watering when I was traveling and also being up against a cold window over the whole winter and low humidity.
Finally, flowers!
In April 2026, we finally got a first successful bloom! It wasn’t the prettiest/healthiest one, but it was extremely exciting, and I was of course a very proud plant mama! The rebecca flowers are so delicate and smell so so good.
Since April, my hoya rebecca hasn’t really stopped flowering! The blooms only last a few days once they open, and they have been making my room smell pretty wonderful in the evenings.
Colors
A cool observation is that the flowers are often light or deep pink in color, but sometimes white. I’m pretty sure this is due to sun-stressing, which is when a hoya’s leaves turn darker red or purple when receiving more strong, direct sunlight. It’s considered harmless, and looks really pretty! I noticed that the buds receiving more direct sunlight in my window turn pink and produce pink flowers, whereas the buds on the other side of the plant or are covered more by the leaves are more white. Super cool!
Since it’s summer in Cambridge, it’s gotten very hot, and I installed a window AC unit in my room. In the day or two before+after installing it, I had to move my hoya rebecca to a different spot further away from the window for a few days, after which it produced white flowers. I find them very beautiful as well.
Plant maintenance
One other factor I didn’t mention yet in this blog post is that my plant collection has been affected by a pest infestation over the last few months (namely, spider mites). This isn’t the first time I’ve dealt with pests, and I’ll eventually write another blog post specifically about this, but it’s important to mention. I think that the spider mites, while they didn’t affect my hoya rebecca as much as some of my other plants, it’s pretty likely that the bud blasting was in part due to this as well.
In an attempt to try and prevent the spider mites from spreading futher, I gave my whole plant collection, including hoya rebecca, a good washing recently. I typically do this in the shower for efficiency reasons, but since hoya rebecca had two blooms open, I was afraid they’d get damaged. So, I gave this lil queen the special treatment she deserved, which was a very delicate solo shower in my sink. Oh, the lengths I’ll go to for my plants…
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