I used to hate this plant and avoid coming in contact whenever I see this species. I'm not being prejudice about the fact that this one is actually poisonous.
(Of course, I have few collection of poisonous plants in my garden)
Rather the fact that they were all too common grown everywhere along the street-sides, shopping malls, restaurants and every turn you take you see this plant sitting there but terribly neglected.
One might find all kinds of debris (rubbish) in between the leaves and in the planter box. (plastic wrappers, cigarette butts, food wrappers, etc) The saddest part is their owners care-less about them and these plants grow leggy and often infested with mealy bugs or scale insects to add more injury.
It did took awhile when a friend of mine passed me this red one. Ever since after that, the white spotted one joined into the collection (rescued and nursed back from an abandoned planter-box) Then the Silver Queen rescued from the dump-site and so they all are now living together in a collection of a happy family.
I bought the last one (pic last below) for RM8.00 with many shoots which I had planted in separately as it is so compact tight that they were struggling.
One thing I can say about this plant is that they are quite hardy for a shaded plant. They do so well with their leopard skin - spotted colours of red and white. I would totally recommend them for gardeners but they are expensive. The new cultivars that has more reds on them are now priced RM20+ which I think is a rip-off.
I noticed that coloured cultivars seemed to be less hardier compared to the green cousins. And they do tend to die easily and grow ever so slowly - I guess it must be the inter-breeding that had weaken the agility of the plant that they are sensitive and require some TLC. (Tender Loving Care)
I have seen this sweet pink one (picture below) planted in a lovely designer flowerpot in a showroom and one can guess that it stayed there extremely beautiful giving a strong contrast with the blue flowerpot.
I'm pretty sure they can do best being as an indoor plant provided they get good bright indoor light.
