So, about this hoya green light thing. I got sucked into it a while back. Read somewhere online, probably some forum deep dive at 2 AM, that using green light could trigger Hoyas to bloom, especially the stubborn ones. You know how it is, you get a Hoya, you wait forever for flowers, you start getting desperate.
I figured, why not try it? Seemed like a specific trick, maybe that missing piece. So, I went and bought one of those LED grow lights that had a specific green light setting. Wasn’t even that expensive, which should have been a warning sign, I guess. I picked out a couple of my Hoyas that had been freeloading for years, just growing leaves and vines without a single peduncle in sight. A Hoya carnosa that was huge but flower-shy, and a smaller, supposedly easier one, a Hoya lacunosa.
Setting Up the Experiment
I cleared a shelf in the back room. Set up the light on a timer, pointed right at those two plants. I started with like, 10 hours a day of just the green light. Felt kinda silly, bathing these plants in this weird green glow. Looked like something out of a cheap sci-fi movie in that corner.
- Checked them every day. Like, literally peering at the stems for any sign of a peduncle.
- Adjusted the timer after a few weeks. Maybe more light? Maybe less? Tried 12 hours, then back to 8.
- Watered them, fed them lightly, basically treated them like royalty under their special green spotlight.
Weeks turned into a couple of months. And what happened? Absolutely nothing. Zip. Nada. The leaves looked fine, maybe even a bit greener, but who cares about leaves when you’re promised flowers? No blooms. Not even a hint of a peduncle starting. The carnosa just kept putting out longer vines, and the lacunosa just sat there. It was pretty disappointing, honestly.
The Real Story Behind It
Now, why was I so invested in this weird green light thing? Why spend months staring at plants under an alien glow? It wasn’t really just about the Hoyas.
This was right after I got unexpectedly let go from my job. The company called it ‘restructuring’, which is just a fancy word for “you’re out”. It came out of nowhere. One day I’m working on a project, the next I’m packing my desk. Sent me into a real tailspin. Suddenly had all this time, but felt completely useless. Like I couldn’t achieve anything.
So, I latched onto this Hoya thing. Making those stubborn plants bloom felt like something I could actually control, something I could maybe succeed at when everything else felt like a failure. That green light wasn’t just a light; it was like, my little project, my hope to prove I could still make something happen. Seeing it fail, even though it was just plants, felt like another kick while I was down. It sounds stupid now, but at the time, it really stung.
Looking back, the whole green light experiment was a bust. Maybe it works for some specific Hoyas, maybe it needs a different setup, who knows. Or maybe it’s just another internet myth. What I do know is that focusing so hard on those plants under that weird light was just my way of coping, trying to find some control in a situation where I had none. Eventually, I just put the regular grow lights back on. The Hoyas are still alive, still freeloading. And I found a new job, doing something completely different. Turns out, real life needed sorting out more than my Hoya flowering schedule.
