Don't Let Winter Wreck Your Hoya Plants! Keep Them Thriving With These Tips

If there is any plant that benefits most from being indoors for the wintertime, it's hoyas. Regardless of which of the 550 different types of hoya you find yourself growing, leaving them outdoors in the winter is a recipe for disaster. Hoyas are excellent year-round houseplants as they offer up luscious flowers and beautiful green vines that don't actually overtake your space. Still, there are a few care tips you should be aware of that will keep your hoya plants thriving throughout the winter.

The primary things you need to be focused on in the winter are your hoya's requirements for light and temperature. These plants do not like harsh, direct light, but instead prefer bright indirect light. This makes it ideal to place nearby south, west, or east facing windows in your house, as these are the ones that get the most sun.Temperature is another huge factor to a hoya's happiness. They like warmth, and in the outdoors thrive in the warmest of USDA hardiness zones at or above Zone 9. 

If you live in lower zones, hoyas are indoors only plants that cannot be in an environment that dips below 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Stable temperatures are vital for indoor plant care during the winter. Keep hoyas away from cold windows and anywhere in your home known to have a draft. These two steps are critical to get right, but will mean absolutely nothing if you don't provide hoyas with the thing they like most of all: humidity.

Despite hoyas having a reputation as being among the most low maintenance of all house plants, they still have unique quirks that make them just a tiny bit fussy. The biggest is the seeming contradiction of hoyas loving humidity, but not liking to be watered too much. Since their growth naturally slows in the fall and winter, the hoyas are not going to need as much water as they would in the summertime. As such, you should only water your hoyas sporadically throughout the season, keeping the soil just moist enough to not dry out completely. Over-watered hoyas will lose their flowers.

However, hoyas love humidity. Remember, these are tropical plants in the wild, so they will do well with humid environments. Since indoor winter air tends to be on the dry side thanks to the fact that we have the heat on, be in the habit of misting your plants with room temperature water. An even better solution would be to invest in a humidifier for the room. This will keep a consistent humidity level that you can set for your hoyas. The amount of moisture the humidifier provides will be just enough to keep your plants happy, without making things too uncomfortable for you. Follow these tips, and you'll have happy hoyas all winter long.