Well I could easily be wrong but it DOES look like Gynura aurantiaca to me -- just an extremely light-starved one. In any event, Oakleyok, yes you can indeed put the plant outside for the summer. Most "houseplants", IME, seem to benefit from summering outdoors. As others have mentioned the most important thing is hardening them off -- exactly as you would do for veggies and other plants started indoors from seed. Of course, as one is hardening off the plants, you must keep in mind how much light is suitable for a particular plant. Plants that in nature grow under intense hot direct sun are never going to be happy even outside if all they get is heavy shade. And plants that are understory plants, are unlikely to adapt to recieving intense hot sun. Gynura aurantiacas(Purple Passion plants) form their purple hairs in response to what the plant determines is high light levels. The hairs protect the leaves from getting burned (in essence, the plant is providing itself with its own shade). In very low light conditions, not only will the purple coloring be lost, but so will most to all of the hairs as well. It has been a lot of years since I last had one (gave mine away to make room for an orchid) but as I recall, once hardened off properly they will do well with a great deal of direct sun.

Billy, lol..dirty socks. Can you imagine a field of these plants in bloom? Yuck. Of what I remember, their flowers were nothing to get excited about, though it is nice when plants bloom, even if they stink. Guess it's like the Starfish cactus..what do they call it? Carrion flowers?? Supposed to smell like rotten meat, but the flowers are very pretty. I've talked to people who hate the smell of all flowers, including Jasmine or citrus. My father hated the scent of flowers..before he passed away, he said he didn't want flowers at his wake. My mother had this printed in the ob, but people still bought flowers.. Jen, don't forget to pinch first two leaves occassionally..you don't want it growing spindly. My PP was bought at the grocery store when they had a 2.00 plant sale..I bought that among some others..the thing is it only has one long stem..I'm thinking of taking cuttings, rooting then adding w/mom. but I'll wait until next spring before attempting this..it takes forever to get plants to root this time of year..Good luck w/your PP..Toni

The fertilizer sounds good if it's their 24-8-16 blend instead of the 20-20-20. My guess is that you're probably dealing with the cyclic death & regeneration of a fraction of the roots that occurs whenever you water. When using heavy, peat-based soils, you're pretty much stuck with having to suffer the ill effects of that layer of saturated soil that occurs at the bottom of the pot. The fine roots, those responsible for the lion's share of the work, begin to die very soon (within hours) of the soil becoming saturated. The longer the soil is saturated, the larger the diameter of the roots killed. The plant then puts nearly all of it's energy into regenerating roots to support the existing top. Only when roots have regenerated to the point they can sustain the top does the plant chemically rearrange its priorities so it can focus on top growth. I would try using a wick through the drain hole. Water over the sink & allow the wick to hang below the pot until it stops dripping. Tilting the pot at a steep angle after watering generously will significantly reduce the amount of water in the saturated layer at the bottom. It IS important to water copiously when you do water (not in small sips), otherwise you'll also be dealing with the ill effects of accumulating salts. FWIW - pruning a plant doesn't correct spindly growth. Pruning w/o making sure light is adequate and supplying N at appropriate levels still leaves you with the same spindly stems - just more of them. 'Spindly' is a by-product of light levels, N supply, and to some degree the type of N supplied, with nitrate forms of N getting the nod as a helpful guard against 'spindly' over ammoniacal forms of N such as found in fertilizers utilizing urea as their N source. Foliage-Pro 9-3-6 gets most of its N from nitrate sources, so it really does help to keep plants stout & compact by keeping those internodes tight. Al

Definitely a Plectranthus 'Mona Lavender', which is a hybrid species created by Ball Growers and plant patented. It is no where near hardy to 25F, and will only take light frosts outdoors here in northern California before being killed to the ground. It only blooms under short day conditions, and typically starts blooming late September or so into November/December here in my garden. I have never heard this called purple passion plant before. There are lots of other interesting Plectranthus species out there, including species such as P. neochilus which is practically everblooming as a ground cover, but also smells like skunks, or the larger growing and minty foliaged P. zuluensis, which has pale lavender flowers all year round in our mediterranean climate. P. ecklonii is very similar in flower to P. 'Mona Lavender', yet larger in all aspects, and only blooms in fall also. They are all great landscape plants for mild climate gardens, but less usefull where it freezes, as most Plectranthus species only bloom once in the fall, and none are very hardy. Several other species are commonly grown as house plants and known as Creeping Charlie, and are also grown outdoors here in coastal California.