Hello.
I live in St. Paul, MN and am trying to grow a wall of passion vines over a large window on my south-facing sun porch. I have coccinea, cintrina, subpeltata and Purple Haze. They're doing well in spite of the -20 F weather! However, they've lost a lot of lower leaves lately. Can I prune them back this spring so they fill out the trellis'? If so, how hard can I prune them, and will pruning them make them more "bushy"? Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you!
Can I prune my passion vines this spring?
Roselaine,
That link didn't work for me. Was that supposed to be an article? I would like to see it if I am able to.
Erick, I have just let mine run wild except where I have taken cuttings. Each time I cut a vine back to take some cuttings, that vine has responded with bushier growth so I think you are safe cutting back to make your vines thicker and more "bushy." I have also heard that Passifloras flower on new growth, but I have yet to confirm that; so, if that is true, cutting back would produce lots of new growth and lots of new flowers too. I would cut them back now so that you don't cut off potential flowers in the spring.
http://www.passiflora.org/ ok. then, try this one!
Roselaine,
Well, the link to the Passiflora Society worked, but I searched and searched and could find no information about pruning there. They have links to where you can purchase Passifloras and links to "General Information," but none about pruning as far as I could see.
these links give pointers on pruning passiflora's:
http://www.passionflow.co.uk/tenpassiflora.htm , http://www.bbg.org/gar2/topics/sustainable/handbooks/pruningtrees/6.html , http://www.rainyside.com/features/plant_gallery/vines/PassifloraXalatocaerulea.html , http://www.recipegoldmine.com/gardengary/gg80.html
Passion fruit facts http://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/passionfruit.html , http://www.indoorjungle.net/passiflora.html
Thank you very much, Clare, for the most helpful advice and thank you everyone for the links. How nice that there are so many kind people out there willing to help out a novice. I'm more enthusiatic than ever now to work with my passion vines!
Roselaine,
If you have punctuation directly after the hyperlink without a space it gets added to the end of your link.
You had a ".....hope" right after the link you posted, so it got appended to the end of the web address. That's why your link didn't work.
Tim who was a passiflora expert told me and I have found it to be true that passifloras only bloom on new growth. So what I do thanks to Tim is cut back only some branches and that way I get new growth while still have blooms on the other whild I wait for the pruned branches to grow. If you rotate like this you should always have blooms!
Erick, you are quite welcome. Passifloras are wonderful vines, aren't they?
Thanks for the links MaVieRose and Roselaine:-)
eje, you are quite right about the punctuation affecting the link. I just learned to omit my period after pasting the URL.
Thanks, Dale (and Tim) for this great advice.
I've done a lot of reading and a lot of asking but one sentence in one of Roses' links has halped me more than anything...from an expert..."Even if you get a lot right your plants will still lose leaves & drop buds. My plants, both indoors & out tend to look a mess for half the year & spectacular for the other half." Glory! Glory! I'm doing it right!
Rose...those were just fantastic links...THANKS!!!!!!!!
u're all very welcome. it is always a pleasure to give a helping hand :).
Clare, the origonal link was written with extra charatures....try this
http://www.recipegoldmine.com/gardengary/gg80.html
RikerBear
Thank you, RikerBear. That link worked great and was very helpful:-)