40 Seeds Per pack - Psychotria Elata / "Hooker's Lips"

Original Price: $12.99 + Shipping Fee

Season Sale Price: $0.00

Welcome to The Secret Garden Shop! As part of our "A Year To Be Green" program, we are giving out stocks of our best selling seeds pack for FREE! Just pay the small international shipping fee. This is our way of encouraging people to start their own gardens right at their own homes!

Psychotria elata is a tropical tree found in the rain forests of Central and South American countries. The plant has become internet-famous because of its flowers or rather the shape of the red bracts (modified leaves) before the flowers mature. From these bracts tiny white, stare-shaped flowers emerge. Sadly, deforestation is wiping this species off the Earth.

Hot Lips grows where the soil is rich and humid from leaf litter, moist and sheltered from the most powerful sun rays by upper story trees. Interior growers turn to plants from around the world to add exotic touches to the home. Hot Lips plant fits the bill but requires a tropical environment. For this reason, it is mostly a collector’s plant for much of the United States.

Growing Hot Lips plants requires a heated greenhouse or solarium, high humidity and shelter from harsh solar rays. Growing Hot Lips plant means mimicking the understory tropical environment for which it is suited. Most potting soil will not have both the excellent drainage and moisture retentiveness necessary to raise these plants. Add a bit of vermiculite and peat moss before potting up the plant. Place it in an area with temperatures of at least 70ºF (21ºC), humidity of at least 60% and indirect bright lighting