Hi, I’m Tia.
Starting off my first blog with a little back story of how my passion for this genus came to be. Before we get to that part we must first revisit how I got into houseplants altogether! I gave birth to my daughter when I was 23 and my family and I decided it was in our best interest for me to become a stay at home mom full time. Being that young and suddenly finding myself losing a sense of identity as a result of motherhood made me pretty depressed. The sleepless nights of newborn cries and endless days eventually caught up to me and I knew I needed something to help me regain my sense of self. One day my husband packed our daughter up to go spend time with our mom and Pop Pop so I can have the apartment to myself. Naturally I decided to go shop at the Garden Center at Lowe’s and went absolutely ham with anything I thought looked pretty. Our place had really nice floor to ceiling windows so the abundance of natural lighting was screaming for me to make a plant shelf corner. From there I started binging on some Harli G and the obsession with indoor greenery began😂. This was 3 years before I actually got into Hoyas though, I wasn’t focused on one specific genus and houseplants had only begun to gain traction in the interior designs aspect so the selection of what I had to get my hands on were limited.
Fast forward 3 years later to 2020, oh 2020. An absolute whirlwind of a year, but it was quite a pivotal year for me, in literally every single aspect of my life. 900 hours of Animal Crossing, a very emotional election later, my 25 year old self decided I needed to focus my time and energy on something more meaningful(besides my daughter of course). Flipping through my usual plant content creators (which at the time were not that many) I came across 2 people that really sparked my interest in Hoyas. The first being Torill Nyhuus, may she rest in peace, and the video of her Hoya tour on Summer Rayne Oakes channel. Oh my gosh, like oh my gosh. I was absolutely awestrucked. The amount of Hoyas in her tiny apartment in Sweden was pure insanity, nothing has ever made me want to be more insane in my life. And the fact that she was growing them all indoors inspired me to start my own collection of Hoyas indoors. From there I dugged up any video I could find about Hoyas on YouTube, which brings me to the 2nd person that really solidified my obsession with this genus and that was Alessya from Lessya’s Leaves (I miss her so much 😭). I became utterly invested and obsessed with her channel, shrieking every time I saw a new video uploaded. Thinking about those moments just gives me a boost of serotonin, she practically became the 4th family member in our house(my son was not born yet) with the amount of times I had her on our TV. I drooled at her collection and her Sarawak, omg her Sarawak. What a time to be alive, when Sarawak was the “it” Hoya and what every collector wanted to get their hands on, but that will be another story for a different blog LOL.
Anyways, that is essentially how my love of Hoyas came to be. A little bit of this and that with a dash of Covid. I hope you guys enjoyed my first blog and I can’t wait to dive into the nitty gritty of all things Hoyas 💚. Below are some pictures of my first Hoya set ups.
