The Beautiful Houseplant That Can Give Your Home A Lovely Chocolate Scent

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As a plant lover, you'll find plenty of reasons to grow hoya climbing vines as houseplants — whether it's their beautifully varied foliage, sublimely gorgeous flowers, twining vines, or ease of propagation. You can get all-natural scents into your home by growing different kinds of hoya — including chocolate. One type of hoya that will infuse your space with a pleasant, cocoa-like scent is Hoya carnosa 'Krinkle 8,' a plant that is just as lovely to gaze upon as it is to smell.

This attractive cultivar was derived from a mutation of H. carnosa 'Exotica' in the 1960s, and has remained a loved house plant ever since. With semi-succulent, wrinkled leaves that feature distinctive depressions on their upper sides, the green foliage of 'Krinkle 8' is held on sturdy, twining vines. These long-lived houseplants bear large clusters of star-shaped, pink flowers that have a chocolatey scent. To fill your space with the intriguing aroma of 'Krinkle 8' blooms, you'll first want to know how to grow and care for hoya climbing vines.

If you want to grow lovely, chocolate-scented 'Krinkle 8' blooms at home, you'll first need to establish a good basic hoya care routine. Place these hoyas near windows where they will get plenty of bright, indirect light, with no more than six hours of direct sunlight. If you don't have enough light, you may need a grow light to help the plant along. Also, grow these epiphytic plants in a chunky mix with plenty of drainage, and let the soil dry out completely before you water again. And keeping plants potted in small pots so that their roots are snug is an important part of knowing when to repot your hoya plant, which will help these houseplants bloom.

In addition to these foundations of good hoya care, there are a few other things houseplant gardeners should be aware of when hoping to grow these gorgeous, chocolate-scented flowers at home. These plants will need to mature for two or three years before they produce blooms, so be patient if the plant is not yet of age. If the 'Krinkle 8' plant has bloomed previously, take care not to cut off the bloom spur, which produces flowers year after year. If the plant is in the best possible conditions and there are still no blooms, there is one more trick to try. Some indoor gardeners coax blooms from their hoyas using an orchid mist-type fertilizer, such as Miracle-Gro Ready to Use Orchid Plant Food Mist. If you want to give this approach a try, be sure to follow product directions.