Hi Purple,

As I remember it from college, it hangs when the branches get long enough (6-8").

It's hard to maintain w/ a strong color purple (Purple in op, ha), from what I recall, it needs lots of light to keep its purple, that's how you'll know if it's getting too little.

Thanks for the response! Of course I have succumbed to the urge to repot this yesterday, hopefully it likes fertile soil. It was in some really weird chunky (peat?) instead of the usual stuff I find in bought plants' pots. At least there wasn't any perlite! (wink!) And very few roots, I'd call this barely rooted cuttings instead of a plant. I was hesitant to disturb these few fragile roots much but removed as much of the old stuff as I could without breaking anything, I think, although that's probably not a big deal. Hard to say with a plant that usually dies so quickly.

I can't find any google images of a Gynura with sunburn but if I know myself at all and this plant can burn, I'll probably have one to share soon. Just know too little light = death.

I have a pretty nice medium sized one hanging in my west facing window. It has alot of purple on it but it seems like the older bottom leaves loses some of the purple. I've always like this plant but all the ones I seem to find in stores always have these tiny white bugs on it's leaves, so obviously it get's attacked easily by insects. I was happy to find one without these bugs finally and the blooms it gets smells TERRIBLE!!!! I wish I could show a picture but my lovely daughter stole the batteries out of my camera....

But so far, it seems like an easy plant to take care of, I watch VERY carefully for these bugs, I'm not sure what they are, they're not scales or mealy bugs, maybe mites, but they have no web...not sure what they are....

Thanks for the response!

Yes, that's what has happened to most of these that I've had before. Mites sounds likely to me because these are hairy like African violets that also get mites. I don't remember much about the bugs, just that they seemed to kill the plants pretty quickly each time. But in retrospect I'm pretty sure the plants were not getting enough light and hopefully the bugs were able to attack because of the plants' weakened condition.

Good to hear about the west window. That's a lot of light.

Good luck to both of our plants!

This plant seems to be doing well an has grown quite a bit. I think it may be getting ready to make flowers. Overall:

These are flower buds, right?

Uh oh, you may want to nip those flower buds out before they open! Stinky, bug attracting and mine wentvall haywire once the flowers opened.

I'm anxious to smell these notoriously stinky flowers. After which they may be removed if the plant has to come inside while they are on.

Attracting bugs is not a problem to me outside, assuming you mean flies, and something I do on purpose with rotten fruit sometimes. I like to watch the anoles catch and eat flies.

Um, haywire describes a lot of conditions. What happened?

Purple, very pretty PP. How did it do over summer?

Yep, your PP has buds...when flowers start to fade they remind me of cotton. lol.

When I worked at HD, we got a bunch of PP's..all were flowering. Someone mentioned they're stinky, but I couldn't detect much of an odor.
Possibly since the flowers were fading..

I feel mealy is more of a problem than mites. (Moreso the past 15-yrs,) The last time I brought home PP, in-between center leaves were hidden mealy..Had I noticed, PP wouldn't have come home w/me.
Since PP was under 1.00, it went in the trash..

A year or so later, I ordered a variegated PP...sure enough, loaded w/Mealy.

Purple, are you asking if hanging looks better than upright?

After PP gets 'x' size, it looks fantastic hanging. Adults cascade naturally, so PP looks good on a tall pedestal, in very bright light.

Purple, the smell is kinda like socks! Or certain cheeses, so designded to attract flies I guess. By haywire I mean straggly, out of shape (many plants do this, coleus is possibly another), and got covered in the white skins of aphids. It had to go!

By the way, the plants name, at least in england, is purple passion vine . That kinda gives a clue to its natural habit I suppose. Would love to come across it in the wild, so long as it wasnt flowering, unless I had a cold...

Definitely cheese smelling, i kinna like it tho :S

I think they are pretty too...eye of the beholder I spose.

Morning sun or a bright spot inside works better for me

Oh i love the plant, dont get me wrong, and I want another . My daughter would love it!

Ya, I was asking if these eventually hang down but it sounds like that's been answered. Stem seems awfully stiff, hard to imagine that.

Toni, I'd say it's done great, a lot bigger than when I got it, now the buds. It's in full sun, after a few weeks of adjusting. Haven't seen anything that looked like sunburn on it.

My description of the smell is that of sweaty, nasty gym shoes just removed from the sweaty, nasty feet of an unwashed teenage male of the human persuasion....stored in a locker all year long and then thrown into a gym bag at the end of the school year and left to be discovered by Mom two days before the beginning of the new school year. THAT'S what the flowers smell like.

My description of the smell is that of sweaty, nasty gym shoes just removed from the sweaty, nasty feet of an unwashed teenage male of the human persuasion....stored in a locker all year long and then thrown into a gym bag at the end of the school year and left to be discovered by Mom two days before the beginning of the new school year. THAT'S what the flowers smell like.

Lol good description Rhizo!

If that's not something to look forward to, I don't know what IS! Woohoo!

From the side.

These flowers have gotten to the stinky phase. These 2 flowers are enough to make one wonder "what stinks in here" until I remembered what it should be, yep it is. It's not bothering anyone really, yet...

Whole plant. Oops, there's 3.

Over the past 2 months, the flowers have finished and this plant looks quite different. The flowering tips pruned themselves off (similar to Hypoestes) and all of the older leaves looked so bad, I took them off one stem prematurely although they were on their way to the floor soon. No whiteflies or other pests that I can see.

So it looks like refoliating sticks now. Is this normal for this plant or is it struggling? I don't think my mix was very good the day I repotted this, it's not the only plant that's not progressing as expected that was repotted in the same time frame, but this one is the only one whose survival seems uncertain to me. It's hard to give this plant enough light inside, it's always mushing itself against the window (which would be very cold when it's cold outside, single pane.)

I never expected it to stay alive this long anyway, and getting a "bonus round" is cool!

In the pic above, this refoliating stem (the one I defoliated) is the one at bottom right.

Hi Purple,

First, congrats on getting your PP to flower. Even though they have a strange smell, they're interesting. Cute.

IMO. PP is one of the prettiest purple-leaf plants around..Ever notice when sun shines on foliage, fuzzy hairs high-light? Purple color deepens?

Many moons ago, 'lived in an appt so plants remained indoors year round,' I had a PP that, like you mentioned, reached the floor.

It lived many years, insect-free. The 3rd floor appartment had windows facing all four directions, so light wasn't a problem.
During summer, PP hung before NE windows...winter, SW windows.
To be honest, there were times PP tips grew spindly...they were simply trimmed off. No biggie..come spring, new growth sprouted. Besides, rooting PP in water was no more difficult than breathing air.

My PP lived many years. Well, it did until ex and I seperated. Don't want to go in details, but he killed it..among other plants.

It was years before I decided to buy another..In fact, we were living here.
I purchased a variegated PP, 'not as pretty,' and standard.
Not two weeks went by when I noticed both had Mealy. Mealy is one insect I cannot rid/kill.
Mealy were living on top, inner crown. They did quite a bit of leaf damage, so instead of risking other plants' lives, they were tossed.
A year or so went by and I bought another..Same problem: Mealy Bugs. It too went in the trash.

So, although PP's are my favorite purple plant, I give up. Can't fight or better yet, win the Mealy battle. :)

Please keep us posted..I'd like to see a 21st century PP grow to the floor. :) Toni

Great to hear your (sadly cut short) success story, thanks! To the floor. Man, even if I set the pot on the floor, that could be a while! Maybe if I lay the pot on its' side... Heck I can't even get it back to the size it was when I got it. Hahaha! Crossing my fingers for great things from the new growth coming at the nodes. It's really bursting at every node.

Seriously though, that's another thing I'm still curious about though, to the floor. At no point has any part of this plant shown any sign of being anything but a very stiffly upright entity. The stems could be woody and would not be more inflexible. Hopefully I'll just see how soon, as it happens.

Well, a long, strange trip it's been, trying to grow gigantic Gynura. For anyone wondering how sensitive to cold this plant might be, I'll say it got frost 3 mornings (at only about 37 degrees,) a couple weeks after being put in the ground for summer and is now dead. The stems still looked alive at ground level for about a month, but no more leaves grew, and I can't even see where it was now.

So, starting over. Got a new one a couple months ago, promptly sunburned almost all of its' existing foliage, which shriveled and removed itself before I got a chance to do it manually. Figured I'd killed another one. I would have soon removed all of the original leaves, but not all at once like that.

Fast-forward 6 weeks or so to now, and wow! It's at the stage the other one was just before it got frozen, ready to pop out a new branch from every node. The new leaves like all of the sun, so far, but the new-old leaves are losing their purple. But this has me wondering if it's possible for all of the leaves to be really purple all of the time, or if, like Syngonium with pink new leaves, if the leaves just lose their color with age? Is the purple only on the hairs? I can't even tell. Do the hairs gradually fall off? What do you think?

I need to decide if it's going to hang or have a regular pot, or take refuge in the ground for summer, and get it out of this tiny pot'o'peat soon.

Let's see (and hear about) your Gynura! I'd love to have a huge plant with tons of really purple leaves.