This came out really nice.
Caerulea From Seed
You did thay from seed??? WOW!!!
That's a beauty!!
How long was it from seed-stage to bloom? It's LOVELY - thanks so much for sharing!
Sept till now. Would have been sooner with warmer weather.
Very pretty!
Beautiful!! I am SO envious! I started P. caerulea seeds in February and they still haven't germinated! I've done really well w/everything else I've started from seed, but Passi's sure try my patience. Congrats, Monterey- you have the right touch :-)
blessings,
Carolyn
Major envy here! I have no luck growing them from seed or cutting, so I finally broke down and bought 3 baby seedlings from Mellinger's plant liquidation sale - 1 died last week and the other 2 P Caerulea Alba and P Pfordii look great. I just planted them out today - wish me luck! I'm a nervous wreck. (It won't snow in June, right????)
Sequee
Buy some Rapid Rooter's and try making cuttings again. I've always had pretty good luck with cuttings using other cubes but I've never had 100% sucess until stumbling across these babies. Ive been experimenting like mad with them ever since and I've yet to find a cutting that won't root in it. Best of all is all the passie's rooted in 2 weeks!
http://www.genhydro.com/genhydro_US/rapidrooter2.html
You have to use a humidity dome for the 1st 2 weeks too but its well worth it. I even tried rooting cuttings I took of my verigated ficus tree that weren't 1/2 the diameter of a toothpic and they rooted 5 for 5. Now I have 10 for 10 rooted cuts of hibiscus and I'm 30 for 30 on passiflora's. Give them a shot and you'll be amazed at how easy it can be.
I tried twice this past winter; I bought two packets of seeds. The first batch I think I killed following advice to winter-sow them in mid-February.... The second batch has produced three seedlings. One I gave away to a dear friend. The other two are hanging on. I put them outside for a couple of days, just during the day, but it was fairly windy and I guess a bit too cool, as I lost a couple of leaves from both, but they're still hanging on - inside though until its warmer all the time. I germinated them in peat in a mini-greenhouse near a window-no artificial lights. I likely would have had better results with gro-lights and a warmer evironment.
Mine have been on a humidity bed, under gro-lites in a sunny, south-facing window - still no luck! I undestand they are a bit erratic, so perhaps they will still show their little faces one of these days???
I have been using a rooting compound for cuttings, but I will have to check what kind when I get home. I've been a miserable failure - having tried Brugs, Clethra Alnifolia, Kumquats and Passis to no avail. I have had lmited luck with a Confederate Rose. I'm going to plant her rooted self outside this evening - do wish me luck!
Geez, P{assis and Brugs - what do they think? We're patient or something??? HA!
Just checked my rooting compound, it's Shultz.
ceedub
Anytime I take a seedling or any plant for that matter from long periods of indoor conditions to outdoors, they need to be slowly acclimated. Never put them in direct sunlight as the leaves will either sun bleach really hard or fall off all together. I place mine in the shade for a few days and continue moving them to more and more light over that week long period. Even then I get some sun bleaching but they will be replaced by new leaves soon.
I had to do it twice this year with all of my plants, cuttings and seedlings as we had a few very late freezes. Man it was horrible moving all of these plants so many times. hundreds of seedlings and cutting all the way up to huge brugs, ficus and hibiscus tree's. Some are still recovering and look sad after all that work and stress.
I hope that helps a little in the future.
JD
sequee
I quit waiting on passiflora seedlings and only deal with cuttings now. Same with the brugs. But I find I end up with better plants more often than not going this route. You get the exact "clone" from the cutting that was removed from a proven plant that you know is what you want. Seeds very so much, especially with hybrids. the odds of getting exactly the same plant from seed is pretty poor unless it's a very stabil gene line. Another greatthing about cuttings is you don't have to wait for it to bloom like you do with seedlings. many seedlings will take a couple years before blooming where cuttings bloom fast providing that the parent plant was mature.
I sure wished everyone had better luck with cuttings. I'm not sure why that is, I think some people over complicate things IMO. I've never used rooting powders, I've always used rooting gels. And since using Rapid Rooters this summer, I've the best result's ever. The tray of cuttings I'm working on now are 50/50 of some with rooting gel hormone and the others w/o to see if it has something to do with hormones.
I'll keep everyone posted to see if this makes a difference.
Goodluck friends, JD
I guess it passes the bee test!
Oh, what a wonderful shot! Good job!
Has anyone else noticed that the bee seen 99% of the time on passiflora's in that odd looking bumble bee? I rarely see any other bug on the flowers, always that 1 bubblebee that is very different from the most common and really fat bumblebee. They are always totally caked with pollen to the point of almost not being able to fly. They also seem totally oblivious to my being around them, so much so that I can actually touch them and they rarely move. My wife is deatly afraid of bee's so I began touching this 1 a few years ago as a joke and no my family calls them my pets!LOL If you aren't too spooked, try touching the back side of 1 when they are on a bloom, they act like they don't even notice. Even when I have shook 1 up by moving a plant or whatever, they never come after me. I'm in a wheelchair and running away isn't an option so I just sit still and mess with them. They are amazing lil bee's. The differ from the normal, fatter bumble bee as they have a shiny shell like spot on their back where the common bumble bee is all fuzzy and much fatter. They make much more noise when flying too compared to these on P. Flowers. I have a pic of 1 here too, lemme look and see if I can find it.
JD
That's fascinating JD, but you won't find me petting no durn bee...lol...
Thanks again JD for the advice earlier on, my seedlings are recovered and I have them outside in the shade during the nice warm days we've been having this week. I'll introduce them to a little sun on the weekend. They've even grown new leaves where the others fell off. Something tells me they're going to be very hearty plants once they get going.
They are carpenter bees. They make a little nest and the males are golden. You are right they are the major pollenators of passion vines. In South America where they grow vines for fruit production they bring in decaying logs for them. This is the male on a Lavender Lady.-Rich
Bee-utiful! You sure at good with camera! Another great shot!
What camera did you use to take that wonderful shot of the Bee and the Passi?
Canon 300D, Canon 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro lens
Nice!
Rich, VERY cool info on the Carpender Bees. I knew they were different but I had no idea how different they really are. Thanks for the background on those. They sure are "tame" for bees, no aggression what so ever. They act like they're stoned out of their gourds when flying around the flowers anchored by piles of pollen. How in the world did you come up with that knowledge about them? You must watch way too much Animal planet, Discovery and like programming, I too am filled with tons of little tidbits of information like that. Just not nearly as vast as you are.LOL Now I have to figure out where they nest and what there habits are other than overdosing on Passiflora pollen.
Thanks again. JD
Rich.
I've done a little researching on the bees now and I found on garden web that these bees are quite the problem in California as far as fence and deck damage. I can't believe that damage these guys are capable of and now I gotta find out where they live! And, I still have yet to get a strait answer on if they can sting or not. Do you know if they sting?
I was reading so many reports of these guys literally eating decks and fences into nothing and make termites look like wimps when it comes to eating away at wood. Fascinating, and I never would of known about them had I not gotten into passion flowers as I've yet to see them on any other flowers...Not yet anyhow. Our world is full of incredible life forms, I'm still shocked that I've never heard of these until now.
Thanks again!JD
Males have no stinger. Females do but don't sting much as to deck damage I don't see any it is upainted wood or unstained or non-pressurised. To me they pollenate my plants give me a treat and keep to themselves. Google answers all the questions just type in what you need to know. Set you pages for 30-50 answers and it all comes up.-Rich
Thanks Rich.
Yeah I agree with you, they're doing me favors too IMO. I no longer have to hand pollenate like I did when I very 1st got my 1st passionflower. On year 2, I had these bees around everyday. I imagine they live in a woodpile out back or in a dead tree somewhere. I love them and I've never seen anything like it. You should see the nieghbors and family absolutely freak out when I pet them. The bees are so busy, they don't even realize I'm there IMO as I've never been stung by 1. They just make me look more and more like the nature boy I try to be...In harmony with all the critters around, growing plants from tiny twig like cuttings, we have birds and other wildlife that no one else can attract and now I keep petting bees that just freaks everyone out...If people only paid enough attn. to what goes on around here, none of this would be magical or mysterious. Meanwhile, I'll just continue milking it for all its worth and keep on smiling.
Thanks again, JD
This is in 3 days! These fruit are the size a pigeon egg, big pigeon egg.The flower bud is 2in long these will be big. I am making passion fruit jelly. I have a Nancy Garrison, but I did not expect this.Thanks Carpenter bees!The passes the test shot is this picture 2 days later , an hour ago! I knew that Caerulea got fruit not like this though. I will have new pics in the next days and document the process. I have another seed that I had planted come up, know there will be 2.
