Golden Acre Home & Garden Centre's Plant Library

Other Names:  Basket Vine

Description:

This attractive plant gets its name from its cylindrical blooms that resemble tubes of lipstick; fuchsia-red blooms are featured on this upright but also trailing cultivar; great for bright indoor areas with filtered light

Features & Attributes

Purple Star Lipstick Plant has red tubular flowers with fuchsia overtones at the ends of the stems from mid winter to late fall, which are interesting on close inspection. Its oval leaves emerge light green, turning dark green in colour throughout the year.

This is an herbaceous evergreen houseplant with a trailing habit of growth, eventually spilling over the edges of hanging baskets and containers. This plant may benefit from an occasional pruning to look its best.

Planting & Growing

When grown indoors, Purple Star Lipstick Plant can be expected to grow to be about 12 inches tall at maturity, with a spread of 24 inches. It grows at a medium rate, and under ideal conditions can be expected to live for approximately 10 years. This houseplant performs well in both bright or indirect sunlight and strong artificial light, and can therefore be situated in almost any well-lit room or location. It does best in average to evenly moist soil, but will not tolerate standing water. The surface of the soil shouldn't be allowed to dry out completely, and so you should expect to water this plant once and possibly even twice each week. Be aware that your particular watering schedule may vary depending on its location in the room, the pot size, plant size and other conditions; if in doubt, ask one of our experts in the store for advice. It will benefit from a regular feeding with a general-purpose fertilizer with every second or third watering. It is not particular as to soil type or pH; an average potting soil should work just fine.

There are many factors that will affect the ultimate height, spread and overall performance of a plant when grown indoors; among them, the size of the pot it's growing in, the amount of light it receives, watering frequency, the pruning regimen and repotting schedule. Use the information described here as a guideline only; individual performance can and will vary. Please contact the store to speak with one of our experts if you are interested in further details concerning recommendations on pot size, watering, pruning, repotting, etc.

-- THIS IS A HOUSEPLANT AND IS NOT MEANT TO SURVIVE THE WINTER OUTDOORS IN OUR CLIMATE --