Flower of the week

It's just a humble creeper - but boy can it creep!

I only remember buying two hoya plants (genus Asclepiad) in all the years I've lived here. But as the creepers grew, I would stick pieces here and there - usually in hanging pots.

I don't know what it is about these tough little guys with their leathery leaves that always fascinates me. I've never seen a bird feeding from the flowers, though I suppose insects must.

But once a year - in late Spring - they flower. And it's always such a pleasure to see where these appear.

'Wax flowers' is the common name - and as soon as you handle one of the multi-headed blooms you can see where the name comes from. The waxy flowerheads don't smell, they fall to pieces as soon as you pluck them so are no good for picking. But...

...appearing as they may do anywhere along the creeper's roaming stems, they're always a delight to behold, even if I know that after flowering is finished I'll have to disentangle some of the plants from places where they have no business going - e.g. under the gutters!












Let's hear it for tough wiry survivors.

No flowers yet on this one, even though it has colonised much of the pergola that it shares with a number of other plants and with frangipani (plumeria) just now coming into leaf.