Skip to content
Grow In Backyard
Container Gardening

Purple Passion Plant Care: Keeping the Velvet Purple

Gynura aurantiaca loses its purple fuzz in low light and turns plain green. Bright indirect light keeps it velvet, and the flowers should be cut off.

By Salma 4 min read Save to Pinterest — opens Pinterest in a new tab
On this page

The purple on a purple passion plant is not a fixed feature of the plant. It is a response to light. Put Gynura aurantiaca in a dim corner and the new leaves come through plain green and fuzzy — the plant is fine, and the reason you bought it has gone.

Why light controls the colour

The velvet is trichomes — fine hairs covering the leaf — and the purple is anthocyanin pigment within them.

Anthocyanins are produced partly as a light screen, protecting leaf tissue from excess radiation. In bright conditions the plant invests in them heavily; in dim conditions there is nothing to screen, so it does not bother.

Two consequences worth knowing:

  1. Only new growth responds. Move a green-grown plant into brighter light and the leaves it already has stay green. The colour arrives on the leaves that come next
  2. Older leaves fading is normal. Anthocyanin breaks down with leaf age, so the lower, oldest leaves greening off is not a care failure
Position against colour
PositionColour
Beside an east or west windowDeep velvet purple
A few feet from a south windowStrong purple
Direct midday sun through glassPurple, but risk of scorch on the hairs
Middle of a bright roomWeak purple on new leaves
Dim corner or north roomPlain green and fuzzy

The flowers: cut them off

This is the piece of advice that surprises people, and nearly everyone who has grown the plant agrees with it.

The flowers are small orange daisies, and they smell strongly unpleasant — the usual comparisons are rotting matter or cat urine. In a room it is not subtle.

Worse, flowering pushes the plant into decline. Having flowered, it tends to go leggy, sparse and tired, and it does not really come back.

So pinch the buds out as they form. If curiosity wins, let one open and remove the rest.

Water from below, not over the top

Those dense leaf hairs hold water against the leaf surface instead of letting it run off, which causes brown spotting and, in a cool room, rot.

Water into a saucer and let the pot take it up, or pour carefully at the soil surface. Never mist this plant, and do not wipe the leaves — the hairs are the feature and they damage easily.

Watering, feeding, temperature

Water when the top inch of compost is dry — roughly every five to seven days in growth, less in winter. It wants evenly moist, not wet and not bone dry. Drain fully; never leave it standing.

Feed at half strength every three or four weeks through spring and summer only.

Temperature 60–75 °F. It dislikes cold draughts and anything below about 55 °F. Average room humidity is fine, and since misting is off the table, a pebble tray is the way to raise it if your air is very dry.

It is meant to be replaced

This is the part that reframes the whole plant. Gynura aurantiaca is naturally short-lived. Even grown perfectly it goes leggy and sparse after a year or two, and after flowering it declines faster.

Fighting that is not the right strategy. Propagating is:

  • Take a 4–6 inch tip cutting below a node, any time in the growing season
  • Strip the lowest leaves, put it in water or straight into moist compost
  • Roots in one to two weeks — it is one of the easiest houseplants to root
  • Three cuttings in one pot gives a full plant much faster than one

Pinch the tips of the new plant regularly to keep it bushy, and start its replacement before it needs one. Treated as a rolling succession of young plants rather than a specimen to preserve, it is an easy and genuinely striking thing to grow.

Common questions

Why is my purple passion plant turning green?

Too little light. The purple comes from anthocyanin pigments in fine hairs on the leaf surface, and the plant only produces them generously in bright conditions — in low light the new growth comes through plain green and fuzzy rather than velvet purple. Moving it to bright indirect light restores the colour on new leaves, though leaves that already came through green will stay green. The purple also fades naturally on older leaves as they age, which is normal.

How much light does a purple passion plant need?

Bright indirect light, as much as it can get without direct midday sun burning the hairy leaves. Right beside an east or west window is close to ideal, or a few feet back from a south-facing one. This is the single most important thing in its care, because light controls the colour that is the entire reason for growing it. A plant in a dim corner survives and turns green.

Should you let a purple passion plant flower?

Most growers cut the buds off, for two reasons. The orange flowers have a genuinely unpleasant smell that many people compare to rotting or to cat urine, and flowering also triggers the plant to decline afterwards, becoming leggy and sparse. Pinching the buds out as they form keeps the plant in good condition for longer. If you want to see them, let one bud open and remove the rest.

How often should you water a purple passion plant?

When the top inch of compost has dried, usually every five to seven days in growth and less in winter. Water from below into a saucer or carefully at the soil surface rather than over the foliage, because the dense leaf hairs hold water against the leaf and that leads to spotting and rot. Always drain fully and never leave it standing in water.

How do you propagate a purple passion plant?

From stem cuttings, which root very easily. Take a four to six inch tip cutting below a node, strip the lowest leaves, and put it in water or straight into moist compost — roots appear in one to two weeks. This matters more than with most houseplants because the plant is naturally short-lived and declines after flowering, so the usual practice is to raise replacements from cuttings every year or two rather than trying to rejuvenate an old plant.

Why is my purple passion plant leggy?

Either too little light, which stretches the stems searching for it, or age and flowering, after which the plant naturally goes sparse. Pinch the growing tips regularly to force branching, and move it somewhere brighter. If it is already bare-stemmed and past its best, the realistic answer is to take tip cuttings and start a fresh plant, since this species is short-lived by nature and rarely looks good again once it has gone over.

Backyard Weekly

Know what to plant, week by week

Join the weekly email for seasonal jobs, fixes for what is going wrong, and gear worth buying.

Not ready to subscribe? The planting calendar is free and needs no email.

By subscribing you agree to our privacy policy. Grow In Backyard will never sell your address.

Keep reading