Heya friends.
I wanted to post some notes/observations about how and what some of my Passiflora's have been doing since I was given the cuttings of them early last spring.
First off, I have only 3 passiflora's that were able to thrive in the ground and 100% sunshine all day. P. Lavender Lady seems to bloom and thrive no matter where I put her. Full sun, partial shade and everything in between. She thrives in any condition I've thrown at her. Is that par according to everyone elses?
P. Belotti also thrived in full sun when planted directly in the ground. I was very amazed to watch it all winter long after I dug it up and potted it and placed it inside a greenhouse at the local Highschool. That baby has bloomed non stop all last summer, all winter and is still blooming like mad today despite being seriosly rootbound. Does everyone else have the same results?
P. Incarnata is the last 1 that also thrives in varying light conditions and is the only 1 I have that can live through our harsh winters only to pop back up every spring bigger and better.
Now for the few Passiflora's that seem to be much more picky and would not bloom for me in full sun. I put some P. Blue Bouquet,,P. Caerulea(Constance Elliot), P. Amethyst or Amethystina along a few trellis placed in full sun right by the Lavender lady and Belotti that thrived. Well those 3 wouldn't bloom for me in direct sunlight but if I potted them on the deck where they could get late afternoon and evening shade, they bloomed all summer. The Blue Bouquet took off in fall until we had a frost.
So has anyone else noticed that these last 3 I mentioned can't handle the full brunt of the sun? Or was it possibly a soil related ordeal or what? I'm going to do some more placement expiramenting this summer and see what happens.
I'll be taking many more cuttings over the weekend and I prune and repot these babies. So, if anyone has some Passiflora's I didn't mention, I would love to trade cuttings for most anything. I'll have more well rooted cuttings in a couple weeks ready to ship if anyone is interested. Please let me know as I'm dying to expand my collection as much as possible!
Thanks all and have a wonderful weekend!
JD
Passiflora observationsand small mysteries maybe.
Hi JD!!
I don't have much experience w/grown Passi's yet as I'm still waiting on my P. incarnata and caerulea seeds to germinate (they are taking their sweet old time I might add!!). But I did break down and buy a P. incense as I just HAD to have at least one Passi started this Spring!! I have it currently in just morning sun as our afternoon sun is hotter than the dickens. I'll keep you posted as to if it forms buds, but this Is a 1st year plant and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will bloom. It has some lovely new growth on it already (just have had it for 2 weeks) so I am looking forward to it's taking off. I plan to keep it potted and bring it inside for the cold weather. I really really want more Passi's, so if you don't have P incense yet I'd be happy to start a cutting for you later this year and swap for P incarnata or caerulea (or any other blue or purple flowered), in case my seeds never sprout.
best regards,
Carolyn
Carolyn, I live in zone 8b in Louisiana. I have grown incense and incarnata for many years. They will go dormant in winter weather in the ground or in a pot. I never dig them for the greenhouse, just mulch well. You can do the same with caerulea , except that caerulea will probably keep some green leaves all winter and will be the earliest to flower for you.
Here is a picture of my 5 yr old caerulea. These were taken this past April.
JLD, My pf get sun until about 3pm. The extreme heat we are having is stressing my younger plants. The established ones are just fine. Lavender ldy, Dakota Ransom, and caerulea are blooming like champs. Indigo Dream is full of buds and opening a few flowers for the first time in 4 yrs!!
For me , it is heat and humidity, not light, that really wilt many plants in my yard.
Gosh, Flicker- what a prolific bloomer!! I can't believe all those buds! Photos like that make me want to grow bunches of Passi's! Many thanks for the info on the P. incense. We are having 100+ temps here early, so I don't want to stick my lil P. incense in full sun as I'm sure it would get stressed. I am soooo looking forward to having several varieties by the end of this year. JD sent me a bunch of P. incarnata seeds so I am hoping some of them decide they want to grow THIS year . If they ever sprout I plan to keep them in a pot for the first couple of years as I am worried about their ability to spread in this zone and in this very sandy soil. I have a lovely set of outside stairs w/railings leading from the upper part of my house down into my backyard that are begging to be adorned by P. incarnata :-)
thanks so much,
Carolyn
I don't know about incarnata for you, where you are. There are foetidas that are native to texas that would fare better. The problem with them is the flowers stay open only until about 10:00am. Actually, if you want lots of flowers almost year round Lavender Lady and Dakota Ransom are amazing. They do reflex but are very attractive.
Here is Dakota Ransom.
flicker, that is the most amazing and beautiful P. Caerulea I've ever seen! I never get a chance to grow one that size here do to shorter summers. I've never seen anything like that baby. You say P.foetidas is native to Texas? I didn't know there was another native passionflower and I thought I knew a lot about them. I gotta get my hands on one of them asap. Flicker, have any of the seeds I sent you germinated? If you don't get one to start soon, I'll make sure you have 1 in time to get established before winter at your place I'm not sure what the heck is going on with all those incarnata seeds I sent. I thought everyone would be knee deep in seedlings by now. I feel very bad about that and am very disapointed. I promise to get better/fresher seeds out to everyone if they still don't get a keeper out of the seeds I sent. I just don't understand why they won't germinate. I made sure the seeds came from 2 seperate pieces of fruit thinking that would help assure everyone got viable seeds.
I have some more passie's to pot up over the next 2 days so I'll take many cuttings while I'm at it. Hopefully someone will have some cuttings I dont have to trade!?! Please let me know if your interested.
Thanks all.
JD
JD, did you wish me to start a P. incense cutting for you this summer (has to be later as I just bought it and it's young) as I mentioned in a previous post? Be happy to, especially if I could get a P. incarnata and/or P Lavender Lady start from you if my incarnata seeds never germinate. I'm on my 2nd try now (1st try is still in a damp coffee filter in a baggie as well some in a light soil mix). I noticed when I soaked the P incarnata seeds that about half floated- I have heard people say those may be unviable seeds? Is there any truth to that? anyway, don't feel bad!! Not your fault if they do not germinate. It's always a gamble w/seeds.
Flicker your flowers are just lovely!! Was that Lavender Lady before the Dakota ransom? Gorgeous!! I just love purple/lavender flowers. I'll bet your yard is just lovely :-)
Carolyn
Amethyst and Lavendar Lady are almost identical plants. Amethystina does not look like them and it is very tender.
Passiflora seeds are not easy to start in all cases. I don't think you sent me any seeds. I only request seeds that are easy to start and that wouldn't have been pf!
I have one foetida-Love in the Mist-that makes marble sized red fruit. I just let these fall and get lots of plants the next spring. However, foetida flowers bloom early and close by about 10:00am! It is a good size vine. I prefer something that keeps flowers open all day if I am using the space.
The caerulea in the preveious picture is in my raised box garden. The top half of the 3 ft tall box was filled by using the lasagna method. I highly recommend it.
CJ, I'd love to swap cuts with you! If you'dlike to take the hassle out of rooting cuts of any kind of plant, try "Rapid Rooter's".
http://www.genhydro.com/genhydro_US/rapidrooter2.html
I've been rooting cuttings for several years and had pretty good luck but nothing like what I got with these rapid rooter starter cubes. I had 10 for 10 passies root in 2 weeks and several other very hard to root plants. These are the coolest thing since sliced bread IMO and they will root anything.
You'll need a plastic humidity dome to sit on top of the rooting trays. I can't get hardly anything to root w/o the domes. Well that's not true but not nearly as fast or fool proof.
http://www.granitehydro.com/aids/proptrays.htm#clonex
The tall plastic domes in this link work great and you can find them at most any hydroponics store.
I was able to root ficus twigs, hibiscus and many others when I experimented with my 1st tray this sping. I'm going to try using these cubes for air layering on my Jap. Acer Maple this weekend. They're too expensive to buy.
Here is a bloom of 1 of my Lavender Ladies
P. Belotti is quickly becoming 1 of my favorites due to how much it blooms. I dug this one out of the ground last fall and it never quit blooming even though I potted it rootbound for winter storage. It's blooms are almost twice the size of all my other passiflora's too. Almost 5inches across. here is a pic I took last night.
I took a few pictures of rapid rooters with cutting at various stages. Here is 1 passiflora at 2 1/2 weeks. The plant part is blurry but the roots and cube can be seen.
When I take a cutting, its never longer than 6 inches and I try to have 1 node in the cube with 2 nodes above and a leaf at each node. On these cuttings you can see the darker/old growth and the light green new growth. These are maybe 4 weeks old, 5 weeks top.
Here is a pic of the others taken at the same time. There are a couple that don't have much new growth but they have a well established root system. You can just now see roots that have grown to the drainage holes in the bottoms of the new cups/pots they're in.
This is another ready to pot up at 2-3 weeks. It has 3 littl new leaves on it too.
And this is a picture of the rapid rooter tray with a humidity dome purchased seperately. Just imagine, you can get 50 rooted cuttings in a space this small in less than 1 month.
I thought I would try rooting other plants that have always been hard to root in the past or had taken forever to root. This is a tropical hibiscus cutting at approx. 3 1/2 weeks
I pruned off some verigated ficus suckers 1/2 the diameter of a toothpic just for kicks. I figured these would be almost impossible to root, they rooted as fast as the passifloras much to my suprise.
Can anyone think of other plants that are very difficult to root that I should try with these? I'm wanting to see what limitations there maybe for these. So far, everything I've stuck in them has rooted...Knock on wood. Hopefully you guys will give them a shot and we can spread out our collections of passifloras and other plants to each other.
Let me know what you think.
JD
Wow, JD, those are some VERY healthy looking cuttings! And your flower pix are incredible. Many thanks for all the pix. I'll see if I can find a retail place for those rapid rooters, they look awesome. I use plastic soda bottles that I cut for my humidity domes :-) Less expensive!
I'm looking forward to swapping some cuttings w/you. Hopefully in another month my P incense will have grown enough to not mind having a cutting taken and I'll have some of thoese rapid rooters. Did my coral vine seeds germinate for you? I have several of those started so I can include one of those as well as they are a lovely perennial vine w/wonderful little pink flowers.
blessings,
Carolyn
Carolyn
P. Incense has been eluding me as I think I still have 1 of that vine but don't recall ever seeing it bloom. I'd love another cutting of that 1, proven genetics via cuttings are another awesome reason for us making our own rather than depending on getting a keeper from seed. I've had soo many awesome plants that produce seedlings that don't resemble the parent plant at all so "cloning" via cuttings is the only way to go with many plants IMO. When I was taught to root cuttings, cloning was always the terminology used for a rooted cutting, a clone. It actually is a clone and the best part about it is if the cut is taken from a mature adult, you can have a bloming plant in no time. My belotti cuts bloomed before the vines were 1 ft. long as the parent plant was blooming when the cutting was taken. I'm really bummed out that I've yet to see a P. Edulis bloom here. I was given a seedling that germinated in Jan. of 04' and grew in my garden all summer to be enormous but it never bloomed and I didn't get it indoors before a freeze killed it. I was so upset to have had such a huge, healthy plant and nursed it all that time to just loose it due to bad planning on my part. Oh well, if I can talk more of our friends into buying these rapid rooter's, we will all be able to trade genetics so much faster and easier than ever. Another 1 of the best reason for using these cubes(or any cubes for rooting) is that when the cut does root, you have a cube full of roots to handle and hold that is very hardy compared to a cutting in vermiculite or perlite etc.. These cubes make handling cuttings much easier and much easier to ship too IMO. I can;t wait to see how much we all can expand our genetics collections. I'm going to start another tray of 50 cuts over the next few days. I don't have as many P. Blue Bouquets as I'd like to have around the yard and I'm sure others will want what cuts I don't need. Now if I could get zostroph and others with awesomely huge passion flower collections to join in...Man we'd all have countless varieties for pennies on the dollar, I sure hope everyne else will join in on this with us. Lord knows I've been dropping hints and sharing results far and wide.
Well I better quit rambling and get to planting etc.. I still have so many plants, cuts and seedlings desperately needing to be potted or planted.
I look forward to swapping with you ASAP!
JD
JD, I love your vision of sharing and helping to spread the beautiful Passionflowers. I'll do my best !! I bought some rapid rooter cubes and am looking forward to putting them to good use :-)
blessings,
Carolyn
here's a pix of my lil P. incense- I bought it just a couple of weeks ago. You can really see the new growth on it. I hope it grows into a nice huge plant w/lots of blossoms!!
Carolyn
Excellent Carolyn. Something you may want to try in an effort to make your single vine branch out, pinch the tip of the vine when it gets to the top of your trellis. That will promote a "Y" at the very tip where you pinched it and encourage the vine to produce more vines from the lower leaf nodes. It will do that naturally in time but it can help them fill out quicker. Just a thought.
I got to looking at all my passion flowers I had stored at the Highschool over winter and 1 is labeled P. Incense. I don't recall ever seeing it bloom last summer. I sure hope it is incense.
I just found 3 more P. Incarnata's breaking the ground finally. Man those are the fastest growing vines I've ever seen. They can grow a few inches daily and I'm not exaggerating at all, I've never seen anything quite like it.