passion flower

Is there anyone here who grows or has grown passion flower vines? This is my second year with a plant I bought from Edible Landscaping, passiflora incarnata. I saw the plant growing wild when I was a child. I don't think I knew anyone who grew it in their garden. But when I saw it again at a native plant appreciation get-together, nostalgia kicked in and I had to have it.

Now I'm having 2nd thoughts. The bloom is amazing but I haven't had maypops yet. Maybe my fault. It has been terribly dry here and I haven't given it any extra water because it's been growing like gangbusters anyway. The foliage has an unpleasant smell (I don't remember that part) I have to keep it close to the walkway so that I can keep an eye on it. Otherwise it will send up new shoots outside its designated space. DOWN BOY! DON'T CLIMB THE AZALEAS!

That is pretty! I can't grow them without a greenhouse, wish I could!

Chris

Very pretty...I was told some of them have a plesant scent....hmmm....??

Oh, I wonder if this could be a smell that people experience differently--like a horse chestnut.

LOL, I'm sure it is...I'll have to find that thread...wish me luck!!

Just FYI, these are very easy to grow from seed. You need to nick the seed but they sprout very easily.

Have you grown passion flower Hart? What is your experience with it? I'm afraid I might have brought a coyote home, put a collar on it, named it Rover, and expected it to act like a dog.

Wow, I found the plant files with lots of advice, and other peoples experiences with this plant. Chantell, yes, some people say it smells good. I think there may be variations in the plants even within the same species if there is a lot of seed grown material. I think I might do what someone in the plant files section advised and dig it up plant it in a large pot and sink the pot in the ground. I'll let you know how that works out. I know I'll fighting the roots left in the ground for a long time though. Sigh...

Diane - seeds? OMG! :(
Dayli - yes please do let me know how that works out for you!

I gre passion flower, the variety you're growing, years and years ago. Started them from seeds I got at Park. I grew them in pots though. The info on the seed packet was that they were tender and I didn't know they were hardy. I took them inside in winter.

They were really easy plants, easy to grow from seeds and I never noticed any unpleasant smell. In fact, I don't recall any scent at all.

Dayli, many of my plants were chosen for nostalgic reasons too. I suppose that I have thought of my deceased mother more this summer than at any other past time. I was just thinking yesterday about her knowledge of plants. I didn't know it at the time, but her love of beauty was rubbing off on me. I just had to mature enough to appreciate it. Thanks Mom.

Ruby

Hart, did your plants grown in pots produce fruit?

My mother didn't take up gardening till I was grown and gone, Ruby, but some of my favorite plants are divisions of hers. Gardening gives us moments of solitude and at the same time helps attach us to other people.

Ruby,
That's so sweet!! I know I, too, have "happy thoughts" every time my grandmother's Christmas cactus blooms for me!! Makes me feel close to her still...even though she's been gone for 12 years now.

Yes, they got fruit. I don't recall if it was the first year or not. This was maybe 25 years ago.

I'm going through similar thoughts as you Dayli!
I started my passion flower vine from seed maybe 4 years
ago. It sends out new shoots 6-8 from the original planting
site. I just mow them down or pull them (depending if they
are in the grass or in a flower bed). I keep thinking of using
roundup to knock it off. Its growing against my barn and
is a pretty green blanket with pretty flowers. But it does
scare me.

Tam

Thanks for the look into the future Tammy. I thought that I could keep it on a trellis that parallels a 3-foot wide walkway but it has no trouble tunneling under the walk and frolicking in the azaleas on the other side. I thought my northern Va climate would slow it down some. Guess not, if its that expansive in Pa. This is a good lesson for me. Don't plant something until you talk to someone who has grown it before. Easy to say--hard to do!

I better ask now. I have planted a magnolia virginiana, sweet bay magnolia, in a space that is right for a small tree. I have read that this tree, while it can grow to 60ft in the south will be only about 25ft here in the northern part of its range, where it loses its leaves in the winter. Is this correct? I'd better find out while it is still small enough to move.

I planted a vine this year in early spring, it is all over the 8ft-ish arbor now. I had three or four fruit, all but one fell off. The last one was huge and almost ripe until I checked it today and a WORM had dug into it! Ugh! The inside smelled so good and exotic. Maybe next year I'll get more. I see wild vines bursting with fruit on the side of the highway here in Norfolk, VA and that gives me hope.

Dayli - I planted a baby Magnolia Virginiana maybe 5 years ago and the
deer have keep it mowed down. It's probably about 1' tall at the best. Sorry
no help on this one!

Tam

The Va Tech fact sheet for that tree says not over 20 feet.

http://www.fw.vt.edu/dendro/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=334

I know, I know, hart, but I'd feel better if they hadn't used that weasel word "typically."

Finally got some pictures of my Passion Vine. Here's a picture so show you its size. There's a trellis
holding it up, though you can't see it at all now. (There's a trumpet vine at the outer corner of the barn too)

Here's a picture from June 1 with that same trellis completely uncovered - those passion vines
pop up in early/mid June out of nowhere and grow FAST.

Tammy, how beautiful, all that stone, and the terrain, and the view of the weeping willow!

Back to the passion flower vine--this morning I went out and cut it right down to the ground. I had to do it. All the rain that we got over the last few days from tropical depression Ernesto had caused it to narrow the walk to the point that only very small skinny people could use it. It was full of flowers (and bees, that's why I had to cut it early) I'll put some of the root in a nice big pot and start weeding out the rest--I hope I'm up to the job. Happy Labor Day!

I bet it'll be back. LOL

Man am I pooped! This is a gorgeous property with its steeply sloped terrain
and lovely old stone walls but it takes hours to mow. It was so dry for weeks
and then RAIN RAIN RAIN I hadn't mowed for 4wks. Today I spent 6hrs weeding
and mowing with the push mower and then another 2hrs on the tractor. The
place looks so much better though.

Let us know what happens with the passion vine - I'm curious if it comes back
this year or waits 'til next.

Tam

Tammy, am I missing the vine in the last picture? It's very pretty but looks like a cereus.

Love your house! We have some of those beautiful old 18th century stone houses here too - lots of Germans settled here via PA. Quite a few old log houses too, the ones that survived Sheridan in the Civil War at least, although most of them are covered with clapboard now so you don't know they're log at a glance.

Hart - my place is actually a log cabin underneath too! The original house was built 200 yrs ago.The
stone addition was added in 1848. Someone put german shiplath siding and then brickface and then
stucco on top of it. Lots of layers! The stone bank barn built in 1828 - which is the back drop for the
vine. So the second to last picture shows the vine completely covering the trellis. The last picture shows
that same trellis with the little passion vines starting up their way at the bottem of it. And the "cactus"
sitting on the wishing well in front of the trellis is an epiphyllum.

Tam

Now I see. Anyway, that's a mighty pretty epiphyllum.

It's so funny how the things we consider cool were covered up in the past to make them look more modern. My house has beautiful handcut beaded board walls that were covered up with drywall. Actually, the worst drywall job you've ever seen in your life. I've managed to rip off the drywall on most of the downstairs walls. My house isn't nearly as old as yours, though. It was probably built in the 1860s or 70s.

A previous owner stripped the inside of the house to the bones & exposed the old hand-hewn
chestnut beams and left some off the original stone work exposed on the inside. When we put
on an addition, we found the corner of the original log cabin & left it exposed. Here's a shot of it.

Wow...Tammy, I'm sitting her with my jaw dropped...that is incredible!! Imagine the history...so cool!!