Hoya, plant, and plant health experts, can you help? If you have an idea of what might be going on with my hoya, please let me know!

Most of my hoya appears to be doing okay, but part of it isn't. The leaves are turning a fibrous, papery texture. Some leaves exhibit what looks like mold or a disease and others are just dry and papery. The soil has not dried out on this cultivar some I got it a couple of months ago, nor has it been wet. I've actually been very good about keeping it consistently moist without overwatering.

@threegardeners - could you fix the typo in my Title so it says "Hoya", please?

Fixed :)
Hoyas actually prefer to totally dry out between watering. Think almost dust. Looks like over watering damage to me.

It does look over watered. Take out all dead/brown leaves and let it dry out, maybe 8-10 days without water. I pick up 2 hoya polyneura at Lowes for $.75 each and i have not re-potted or water and seems to be doing okay.

Okay, thanks, LeeAnne and cb! It sounds like I definitely need to let it dry out more, then. Do you know what the deal is with the leaves and the strange, varied colors and spots on them are? Is that mold? Decay from root rot somehow?...

The spots on the healthy leaves look like residue from water. The other, dead leaves are a sign of over watering which in a Hoya can cause root rot. Just cut out the bad parts and cut back the water a lot and the rest of the plant should be fine.

Hi DnD, it does seem like overwatering..or at times during this season, the plant will just shed naturally the older ones, and will keep what it can maintain till better ambient conditions return. But as mentioned already, hoyas with succulent leaves, give them intervals in watering.

Thank you, both of you. I'll make a mental note to not water until late January (I watered it this morning because I thought the papery leaves meant it was drying out. )

Hi DND,
The above members are correct that it is over watering. I have the same Hoya cultivar that you have and it is dormant during winter. Mine is growing in an East window. They don't like full sun, especially summer. I keep mine on the dry side during winter. When new growth or faster growth, then I water more but allowing top soil to dry first. Mine sometimes bloom in the Fall, but it is a Summer blooming plant. The scent is heavenly. BTW they like an acid soil.

It is not a hard plant to grow if you understand their needs. I used to have more cultivars when I lived in a house with large windows. The name is H. carnosa variegata.

Trim your plant back hard---to healthy leaves to lessen stress on the plant while it recovers. Also remove any dead leaves.

Pippi, thank you for the reminder about dormancy. Many of my plants are putting out new growth right now for some reason and my hoya was, too, for awhile, but the young leaves have stopped growing and I guess I didn't think much of it in the last week or two.

I think I will also do a soil test soon, too, to make sure. If it isn't acid enough, do you think adding some coffee grounds to the top would be okay for a hoya? Or are they too sensitive for that method of acidification of the soil?

DND- how did your plant do when you watered less? To me, that looks like powdery mildew/fungus because of the brown spots. I have the same plant and it seems pretty happy, but was started to develop the same thing on some lower leaves. So I've removed them and sprayed it with horticulture oil. So far so good.

I should mention why I thought of fungus. I see water spots on the leaves. If you spray the leaves and they don't dry quick enough, they can develop powdery mildew.

I'm not quite certain, I've had to pluck more dead leaves from it, but it isn't on the scale of what happened before. The plant is still bushy enough to look like a decent houseplant, so I think watering less has helped. I also placed it near some seedlings I'm growing indoors right now, so it's occasionally getting fanned, meaning more moving air than normal, and I think that's helping remove any excess moisture.

Well I'm glad it's going in the right direction! I have 5 hoyas now, and I think I'm addicted. Between all five plants, they each act differently, it's almost like 5 completely different species.

I think that's probably the difficulty in having, too. I read on a hoya site about different hoyas' different needs and I found it interesting and daunting at the same time. I have a inch of different houseplants and it's tough to remember what needs what. I'm working on labels for them, but there are so many other things that take up my time that I'm not sure when I'll get to it.

I should buy two more hoyas, so I have seven total. Like the seven dwarves: Crabby, Picky, Unruly, Diva, Difficult, Intolerant and Ornery.

Now that's hilarious!!

Thanks Tiffany- you made my day!!

with Tiffany and so have many others. Wow! Look how many acorns you collected. Oh BTW, folks, I believe that today may be the last day to buy raffle tickets, if you haven't done so already. I need to post some more photos, or something truly informative and/or hilarious, so that I can collect some acorns for the raffle. I need some acorns.

I don't want to win anything, so I sent a few your way, Miss Deborah. Good luck!