How often to water wax plant

The interval

A wax plant is watered about every 10 days in the growing season and about every 18 days in winter, once the compost has dried most of the way through. Growing season means the warm, bright months from spring to early autumn, roughly March to September in the northern hemisphere and September to March in the southern. Winter is the cold, short-day part of your own year. The Royal Horticultural Society asks for regular, moderate watering while it grows and says it should be kept cooler and drier in winter, when it goes semi-dormant, waiting until the compost is fairly dry but never letting it dry out completely.

Judge it by weight and by touch. The leaves are thick and waxy water stores, so a hoya forgives a late watering far better than an early one. Push a finger into the compost and feel for dryness well below the surface, then lift the pot, which is clearly light when it is ready.

Soak and dry means pouring slowly onto the compost until water runs from the drainage holes, letting it drain completely and putting it back. Use water at room temperature, because NC State Extension warns that cold water can shock this plant. Humidity is medium for this plant, and the RHS suggests damp gravel if the air is dry, with the water kept just below the surface of the stones.

Too much water is the danger. The RHS links wilting and die-back of stems with overwatering, says damp conditions in winter can rot the roots and kill the plant, and warns that a plant with root rot rarely recovers, so take cuttings at once. NC State Extension adds that soggy mixes attract fungus gnats. Too little water, or too much, makes the leaves drop.

What is particular to this plant is that watering swings cost it its flowers. The RHS says hoyas may drop their buds if the compost is too dry or too wet, or if light changes, and that a plant should never be moved once buds form. Keep the watering steady while buds show, and leave the short woody spurs the flowers grow from, because it flowers from them again the next year.

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