Lipstick Plant Care & Propagation Instructions

Lipstick Plant is one of the most beautiful flowers, with its beautiful color and leafy branches. Here are tips for caring for and propagating Lipstick Plant.

Lipstick Plant Info

• Lipstick Plant is one of the best ornamental hanging plants with beautiful flowers and leaves. (Find more best indoor hanging plants here.)
• The Lipstick Plant is used as a potted Plant, and is one of the smallest and most beautiful flower in the world.
• One of the most popular household plants to use in your office or home, Lipstick Plant is a vine. The branches and leaves droop and look particularly beautiful.

Scientific Name	Aeschynanthus Radicans
Common Name	Lipstick Plant, lipstick vine, basket vine
Plant Type	Perennial
Lighting Requirements	Bright light but not direct light
Soil Care	Neutral, alkaline well-drained soil
Bloom Time	Autumn, Winter, Spring
Flower Color	Red
Native Areas	Asia

Lipstick Plant Bloom

Lipstick Plant is best known for its bright flowers, but one cannot see them bloom for a long time because of improper care measures. lipstick plant blooms from November to June, but in some places it only lasts until February. In a word, the flowering period is between November and June, which will differ because of the environmental differences. The flowering time of Lipstick Plant is affected by climate, temperature, humidity, and light.
Taking a long time to bloom, Lipstick Plant blooms in summer and autumn. Ensure that the supply of liquid fertilizer is sufficient, and apply sufficient amounts of matured organic fertilizer to the Plant. If the air is relatively dry, water should be sprayed on the leaf to increase the humidity of the leaf and the surrounding environment.
If there is a slight bud loss during flowering, it is a normal phenomenon, if there are more bud loss, it is a problem in conservation. General Lipstick Plant is fertilizing before flowering, arrived bud period does not need fertilizing, if be in bud period apply heavy fertilizer, can bring about large-area fall bud.

Lipstick Plant Leaves

When growing Lipstick Plant, root problems caused by too much water or dries with too little water can lead to a leaf problem, such as massive leaf loss, or death.
So the most important thing is to water them properly, not too much or too little, according to the Lipstick Plant's growth. If it is found that the root fertilizer causes the leaf to fall after flowering, it is necessary to treat the root, first cut off the rotten root, and then re-pot maintenance, and then pay attention to watering.
Hot weather can also cause a Lipstick Plant to bloom and lose its leaves. This is mostly when the temperature is too low.
In the Lipstick Plant, you need to grow in a warm climate, even in winter. If the temperature drops below five degrees Celsius, frostbite can occur. If a Lipstick Plant gets frostbitten, the damage can be severe, sometimes causing a massive loss of leaves.
In winter, Lipstick Plant can't take too low temperature, so keep it indoors in a sunny spot at a temperature of five degrees Celsius.

Lipstick Plant Seeds

The Lipstick Plant has seeds. When it blooms, it bears fruit. The fruit has many seeds in it. Do not prune after flowering; allow the fruit to grow to get the seeds. Grow them from healthy, plump seeds, or propagate them from cuttings.

Lipstick Plant Images

Lipstick Plant Care

The best soil to grow Lipstick Plant is loose, well-drained and fertile sandy loam. Cultivation place must be cool and ventilated, sunshine about 50-70%, avoid strong light directly. The optimum temperature is about 15-25℃. The plants like half overcast environment. If the light is too strong or insufficient, the leaf is easy to become light green or yellowish-green, or even withered and dead. Direct sunlight, dry air, are the easiest to cause scorch. Avoid continuous high temperature and humidity, poor drainage and ventilation.

Lipstick Plant Light

Lipstick Plant prefers to grow in semi-shade, taking in adequate light at all times of the year, except in midsummer, when the light is at noon. Raise the temperature of your Lipstick Plant if the shade turns red when caring for the plants, which is caused by too low temperature or too much light. If the temperature is too low for a long time, it is easy to cause the shedding of leaves and the drying of branches.

Lipstick Plant Watering

From March to September, the Lipstick Plant grows in hot temperatures and needs a lot of water, so it needs to be watered or sprayed frequently to increase humidity. In summer, open Windows ventilation as often as possible. After fall, gradually reduce the amount of watering to improve the plant's cold resistance.

Lipstick Plant Soil

The Lipstick Plant prefers acidic soil, so use a pot of Lipstick Plant that is mildly acidic. Mix peat, sand, or vermiculite. Appropriate amounts of calcium phosphate can be added to the soil. Or choose leaf rot soil and coarse sand in accordance with the ratio of 8:2 to mix, and then add a small amount of decomposed animal feces or compound fertilizer for cultivation.

Lipstick Plant Humidity

Keep your Lipstick Plant wet, but not too wet, especially if your Plant is not properly ventilated, where roots rot or leaves fall, spray on the leaves. Keep the humidity in the air at 80%.

Lipstick Plant Temperature

The growth temperature of Lipstick Plant is 18-30℃, and the optimum temperature is around 25℃, which has poor cold resistance. The overwintering temperature is above 12℃. In winter, potted plants should be maintained in time and cold wind should be avoided.

Pruning Lipstick Plant

Take off the heart of a Lipstick Plant when it is growing well and promote branching. After the winter flowering period, it should be timely cut off flower stump, which can save nutrients, promote new branches, so that its more pregnant buds bloom.

Lipstick Plant Fertilizer

Apply Lipstick Plant with softened liquid fertilizer every two weeks, not thick.
Add proper amount of animal hoof horn and bone as base fertilizer when upper basin, which can make Lipstick Plant grow well. In the apoplectic growth of the Lipstick Plant, apply decrepit organic fertilizer once every 15 to 20 days, and after summer, apply phosphorus and potassium fertilizer, such as 0.1% of potassium dihydrogen phosphate

Lipstick Plant Propagation

Propagate Lipstick Plant In Water

When propagating Lipstick Plant in water, we need to prepare a container in advance, using potassium permanganate to sterilize the container.
Next, we need to choose suitable lipstick plant cuttings for propagation, choose strong branches, interception length in about 15cm. After cutting, take out the leaf on the branch to retain only the leaf on the top, and make corresponding disinfection treatment to its wound.
Next, we need to insert the processed Lipstick Plant cuttings into the prepared container, insert depth in about 1/3 of the branches, and fix the branches. It can also be added to the right amount of root powder, so that the roots of the cuttings are faster.
One of the most important things when propagating the Lipstick Plant in water is to take care of the Plant by changing the water frequently, taking advantage of light and ventilation, so that it can grow in perfect conditions.
When caring, it is necessary to control the temperature of the environment. The temperature of the environment is about 20℃, so as to cool down in summer and keep warm in winter.
Hydroponic Lipstick Plant must change water once a week in spring and autumn, twice a week in summer, and once every two weeks in winter.

Lipstick Plant Cutting Propagation

One of the most common methods of propagation of Lipstick plants is by cutting, which can be done in spring and autumn. Select strong branches, 78~10 cm in length, cut sections, put the branches in the shade to dry, or coated with grass and wood ash disinfection. Then the branches are inserted in loose sand, or with fine snake sawdust 50%, true pearl 20% and coarse sand 30% of the cultivation soil, inserted after watering, ensure enough humidity, ensure 50%~60% of the light every day, 30~40 days after the root can be planted into seedlings, after the root growth of Lipstick plant is vigorous, the transplant to pot.
When caring for the Lipstick plant, if the temperature is lower than 15℃, it should be moved to a warm and sheltered room in time, otherwise the leaves turn yellow.
Cutting soil should choose loose fertile sandy soil, drainage is good. Potting soil is better with slightly acidic, or choose peat soil, sand, vermiculite made into culture soil, add a small amount of superphosphate. Note that the cultivation of soil is critical to the success of cuttings.

Lipstick Plant Problems

Is Lipstick Plant Toxic

Lipstick Plant is not toxic. Although its flowers are very showy, they are not poisonous. The rest of the body, roots, stems, leaves and seeds, are not toxic either. We don't know if Lipstick Plant is safe to eat, though it's non-toxic. Although there are no known cases of poisoning by eating Lipstick Plant, do not take Lipstick Plant lightly. The lipstick plant is non-toxic to dogs, cats and horses.

Lipstick Plant Not Blooming

• Improper application of water and fertilizer

Failure to blossom or debud occurs when water is improperly applied in the Lipstick Plant.
In the process of growth of the Lipstick Plant, excessive water and fertilizer, or excessive nutrition, will cause the Plant to overgrow, and the flower will not grow properly, so that the flower bud will not blossom, or will bloom less, and will easily lose its bud. Too little water and fertilizer can cause the Lipstick Plant to fail to bloom. Secondly, when nitrogen fertilizer is applied too much, and lack of phosphate fertilizer, it is also easy not to bloom; When the air is relatively dry, it is easy to lose buds.
Therefore, when you grow Lipstick Plant, you need to manage water and fertilizer properly and use a variety of fertilizers.

• Improper lighting temperature

The right light and temperature in Lipstick Plant can also affect the bloom.
Lipstick Plant prefers warm and bright conditions, and in short bursts of light, the Plant will grow too fast, reducing the number of blooms. Temperature is also an important factor, need to keep in a reasonable range, even if the winter is not cold, the temperature can not be too high, too high temperature makes its early germination growth, the next year's flowering nutrients are not enough, will not blossom.
So when you're growing Lipstick Plant, don't be too covert, and keep the temperature just right.

• The soil is not suitable

Lipstick Plant prefers mildly acidic or neutral soil and is afraid of alkaline soil. If the soil salt content is high, it will affect its flowering, serious can cause plant death.
Lipstick plants are poorly pruned, with branches so numerous and jumbled that they consume nutrients and produce few or no blossoms.
Lipstick Plant not bloom may caused by pests and diseases. So, while you're in Lipstick Plant's maintenance, it's important to prune and prevent pests and diseases.