Pachystachys lutea, also known as lollipop plant or golden shrimp plant, is a great houseplant to add to your everblooming collection. It makes quite a showy bush with lush leaves. You can keep it small and in shape by pruning, or grow it out to a large specimen at 3 feet in a pot, more if planted in a greenhouse.
This plant is a relative of the shrimp plant Justicia brandegeana, and just like it, has colorful, attractive bracts. It’s the bracts that are really the interesting aspect of the plant. The actual flowers emerge from the bracts and are small, white, and tubular.
The lollipop plant is not a fussy plant, and does not require high light level to flower. It’s a very rewarding and reliable plant with lush tropical foliage. It’s easy to grow indoors and can be maintained at a medium or a larger size. 
Requirements:
Watering needs:
Pachystachys lutea is not as drought tolerant as the regular shrimp plant, and does tend to soak up quite a bit of water during the warm months. Overall it has average watering needs. I would recommend letting the soil somewhat dry out between watering, especially during the winter months. If you accidentally dry out the plant, make sure you soak it in water and then drain the excess water well to ensure the soil is thoroughly moist.
Light:
East/west or south windows are the best for this plant. Couple of hours of direct sunlight are ideal to keep the plant happy. They do tend to get leggy as they age, so a good light source and some pruning are essential to have a neat plant. I do take this plant out in the summer, and slowly acclimate it to higher light levels without any trouble.
Humidity:
Pachystachys lutea likes higher humidity, and does like its leaves sprayed occasionally. Lower humidity levels will be tolerated, however the plant will be more susceptible to whiteflies, aphids and spider mites.
Soil Type and Fertilizer:
Regular potting mix with a bit of extra per-lite to keep the soil from compacting to much. Pachystachys lutea is not very needy. A regular fertilized and occasional blooming fertilizer applied during the growing season (spring to fall) will keep the plant looking its best.
Propagation:
Pachystachys lutea is very easy to propagate through cuttings.
Other Care Tips and Personal Observations:
This is a great plant to have. It will brighten the dull winter months with its stricking yellow candle-like flowers. The flowers (by that I mean the bracts) are pretty large and showy. The lollipop plant makes a wonderful bush and can even be trained into a tree. Pruning it is very important (it flowers from the tips of the branches therefore you want a well branched plant), and form my experience this plant can take quite a hard pruning, returning to blooming in no time.
Clerodendrum ugandense, also called Rotheca myricoides, and commonly known as Blue Butterfly Bush, is a wonderful plant to have at home. It’s not a fussy, high requirement plant, and it’s very rewarding to have. The flowers sport two hues of blue and truly resemble butterflies, especially the way they flock around the plant.
Clerodendrum ugandense doesn’t seem to have any special preference about the soil type. I grow mine in generic potting mix with extra sand/per-lite added to it and a bit of peat moss. It’s a moderate feeder, and requires regular fertilizing from spring to fall. A generic fertilizer should be fine. As usual I would suggest fertilizing with more diluted than the recommended solution.
Euphorbia milii is a very easy plant to grow, that thrives on neglect and puts out a colorful display of bracts around the unnoticeable flowers. The crown of thorns, generally blooms heavy in the winter and intermittently throughout the year. However when you have a large specimen plant it’s more or less a continuous bloomer. Interestingly enough light during the night time can disrupt the flowering cycle of this plant according to Tropica Nursery.
The plant tolerates well being re-potted lower than the original level it was in its old pot. Euphorbia milli can get leggy and the higher the light, the better the plant growth and flowering habit.
Episcia ‘Suomi’ is a little gem of a plant. It is a bit of a fussy episcia, but once you match it’s requirements it will rapidly grow out and flower profusely. It’s a very free flowering plant, and with the right condition, especially if grown under lights, will flower year round.
Epscia ‘Suomi’ loves to be watered. If you manage to keep the soil evenly moist, the air humid enough and the temperature warm, you can grow it outside of a terrarium as well. I’ve had some success growing it with a hygrolon strip through the soil, making sure the soil is kept constantly and evenly moist, and planted with some other high humility plants in the same pot to keep the humidity around Suomi high.
This espicia is a low light plant. If the light is too low, however, the leaves will get longer, and the plant will produce long stolons that plant themselves at a considerable distance from the main rosette. If the light is too high the leaves will be small and start curling up at the edges. I grow mine in a closed environment next to a west facing window where it doesn’t really get direct light (because it’s to the side of the window) but plenty of very bright indirect light. This plant flowers and grows profusely. I’ve grown this episcia with equal success on a north facing window and well grown up terrarium facing east. I have several episcias ‘suomi’ growing in multiple glass bowl set ups, where the plant adds its dark foliage and lovely yellow flowers to those mini-gardens.
This low light miniature is a terrarium plant to be admired. I will recommend growing it in a terrarium and propagating it, before trying anything else. Light level is also very important. It will grow at very low light levels, but you will not get much flowers out of the plant in that case. Bright indirect light, or artificial light is ideal. Episcia ‘Suomi’ can take some early morning or late evening light, but it will die if the light is too strong. It takes a bit of playing with the light levels to get the perfect amount, where it’s not enough to damage the foliage, but plenty to induce tons of flowers. Once you match its needs, this plant becomes a piece of cake to take care of, and its rapid growth and easiness of propagation will give you plenty of material to share, or experiment with.
Passiflora citrina is a cute passiflora vine. It’s relatively small, and though you can really grow it out (it’s a rapid grower), you can easily maintain it small and compact. The leaves have an interesting shape to them and have yellow stripes.
won’t be very noticeable.
In my experience Passiflora citrina prefers part shade over full sun. You can grow it on east/south or west window inside, but if taking it outside for the summer, it will prefer part shade. This plant will flower with lower light level as well, but it will not do well on a north window.
As a rapid growing vine, this plant requires support. Feel free to cut back loose growth and wrap the plant and shape it however you like.
Medium light, part shade to shade will work for this plant. Kohleria will flower even on a north facing window, but it can get quite leggy and in need of support if not enough light is provided.
Very easy to propagate. Kohlerias grow shootings readily, some more so than others. Kohleria ‘Tropical Night’ is no exception, though it doesn’t sprout offshoots as vigorously as some other kohlerias. You can always root cuttings, even a leaf, though it’s a lot easier and quicker to use an offshoot or a rhizome. Here is a picture of a offshoot that is flowering.
Pinching off the top, and cutting back some old growth will help you kohleria look fuller and even flower more. If growth is leggy you might try increasing the light a bit more and maybe staking the stems for support.
pleasure to grow at home. It looks very strange with it’s furry tubular flowers. I’ve always had a soft spot for kohlerias, and only a few so far haven’t been easy and constant bloomers for me. I love this hybrid’s contrasting leaves and overall dense and compact growth in my experience, though I’ve seen some ‘Tropical Night’ cultivars grow quite tall.