The Sweetheart Plant

For years, on the day before Valentine’s Day, I observed guys running into the grocery store to buy the almost obligatory red roses and a box of waxy chocolates. I guess roses and cheap chocolates are better than nothing, but if your true love is a plant lover, there is a very special and unique plant that symbolizes love!

Hoya Kerrii, often called the sweetheart or Valentine plant, is a plump green fleshy succulent in the perfect shape of a heart! The sweetheart plant is a very slow grower. In the right environment it may eventually grow as a vine. Most plants are sold as one heart shaped leaf. Not all plants will grow into a vine producing additional heart shaped leaves. Unless the leaf has the part of the original stem, it will never grow new leaves. There is no way of knowing when you buy the plant and if you do have a section of the original stem, it will take a long time, sometimes years for the plant to add additional leaves.

Hoya Kerrii likes lots of sun and enjoys the light of a southern or eastern window. They grow well under grow lights. Water only after the soil dries out and be careful not to over water. Since they originate from the tropics, they enjoy high humidity, but will tolerate the dryer atmosphere of the average home. They don’t need much fertilizer, maybe once or twice a year.

If you are lucky to have them grow and eventually form a vine, Hoya’s produce unique looking, sweet smelling blooms, that resemble pink and white clusters of star-like flowers.

Photo by Severin Candrian