I'm so excited that my passionflower is blooming. I babied that thing all last winter after growing it from seed last summer, and it's finally paying off. Do I need to leave spent flowers on the vine in order to receive fruit? Also, I understand that I may need another plant for fertilization to occur. I have a Passiflora C. coming up; will they cross-pollinate, and if so, is this desirable?
P. incarnata is partially self-fertile. Another passiflora will increase fruiting. You might try hand pollinating the flowers.
Scroll down to Cultivation details in this link:
http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Passiflora+incarnata
No need to deadhead spent flowers. They will fall off on their own.
Thanks for the link. I'm new to passiflora, but I can already see an obsession with them on the horizon!
Mine are blooming
there are also being eaten as fast as the cat, can...
Nice!
You know, mine haven't been visited by the caterpillars yet. I guess they haven't discovered the secret location. I sure have a lot of ants on patrol, though! When I first saw the ants drinking nectar from those little bumps at the bases of the buds, I was just sure this was an infestation problem. I had to do lots of reading to find that this was a mutually beneficial, symbiotic relationship.
How are ants beneficial? Mine will have to do without. :-)
The passionflower secretes a sweet substance from those little "bumps" at the base of flowers. The ants take up residence there and defend the vine from "interlopers". Pretty cool, huh?
Uh-oh. We spray for ants around the house. Hope that doesn't make my passies feel unwanted. :-(
Blooming in PA, too, for about 2 weeks now.
Most of mine have been raten to the nub...except Lady Margaret, has not (knock on wood) been touched...wonder why???
Here is a close up, of one of the cats responsible for the stripping...
Sevin dust will get rid of those bad ole boys.
Sevin kills everything! If I were to use anything, it would be BT it is specific to worm like things..but the Passis come back, and I love Butterflies which come later...
Here's a fruit I discovered today. Hooray!
Here are two beautiful bloomers.
I grow my passiflora incarnata for the fritillary butterfly cats, which looks like the cat in the picture, if I remember correctly. I don't have them yet this year either, but they don't really bother the flower or fruit on mine. I always have plenty to go around.
Also, I suppose that nectar you are speaking of is what my hummingbirds are doing visiting the flowers.
Not MY hummingbirds, but I do feed them. LOL
I had a P. caerulea open this morning. When it is fully open, I am going to try to cross-pollenate with the P. incarnata to see what I get.
I have a variety of clemetis but only the hardy P. incarnata in the line of passifloras.I have tried to grow the caerulea from seed with no luck so far.
There is a fragrance from the incarnata, but it isn't really that pleasant.
I have my first passie fruit. At what point do I harvest it to collect seeds?
Deb
When it turns yellow, you can harvest it, or you can wait til it turns brown & papery.
My Passie incarnata literally "took off" this year. Does anybody think it will hurt the siding on the house?
Here's a better picture so you can get a perspective of it to the size of the house. I am 5'1" tall (a shortie).
Passifloras have tendrils that must wind around something to hold on. I have one that winds in and out of two window screens during the summer, but since it dies for the winter, I simply pull the dead stuff off. The tendrils become very brittle and come right off. You must have something on your siding that allows the vine to hold on, but I don't think there will be any damage.
momcat, the fruit is overly ripe when the seeds are harvested. If it is a P.incarnata the fruit will turn yellow and start to shrivel. It may fall from the vine. If you harvest it too early the seeds will be either wite or light brown but need to be very dark and almost black to germinate.
Buttoneer, it is strange to see it on a flat surface like siding. I wonder if maybe its tendrils reached underneath the individual siding slats and grasped on there.
I have a brick foundation and the siding starts up the house about a foot. My inca Major climbs in there and I have to pull it back out. So there is something that it can grip onto in there.
The only damage may be when you rip it loose when it dies back.Maybe cut the vine off where the trellis ends and pull it off.It should send out more growth and you can train it back downward.
Why couldn't I gently remove it from the siding, cut the tendrils & wrap it around the trellis? Would that hurt the vine? It is so beautiful, I hate to hurt it. I have been watering mine & I believe that is why it has grown so much. Everything is dry here in PA & I only drizzle water into my potted plants, the passiflora, of course, and anything I just put in this summer, the existing plants are on their own. We have a well.
I don't think the vine would be damaged. Maybe you can get someone tall to help you cut it loose or get a ladder and have someone help you.
Windy, I had to chuckle at your statement. I don't know any 10-foot tall guys or gals but I do have a ladder. LOL. We'll do that this evening if it isn't raining too much. I just wanted to put a couple pix in so you could see how it was climbing. (Like Jack & the beanstalk)
Stilts? lol
I have had problems with my passiflora clinging onto my window screens.If I dont pull them out they start weighing my screen down.I didnt notice it doing that until last summer(late) so this year i have made sure not to let them get a start on it.Ive been making cuttings and transplanting lots of it this year so its as vigorous as it has been.I had fruit last year but i didnt try anything with tem.I just cut the vine back and threw all of it over my fence.I thought i might try to let one go to seed and try some seedlings.I tasted one of the fruits(i dont think it was ride)it had a strange flavor.Is it true that this is a wildflower in some parts of the US?
Mine are all wild. I found my first one years ago and brought it into my yard. It was growing in a vacant lot adjacent to mine. What a find. I had to post on the ID forum as I was a real (green) gardener back then.
When I used to walk I would find them growing in thickets on the sides of the roads.
Sometimes they pop up in the lawn also.
If you mix the fruit juice up with another sweet fruit juice, the Maypop will give it a tropical flavor.
My passiflora has stopped blooming. :( The vine is still doing quite well, but I'm thinking I may need to fertilize again in order to jumpstart it.
Buttoneer, I love the way your passie is climbing the siding! It must be finding little crevices to hold onto, because I couldn't get mine to climb my porch railings until I ran jute up and down it.
I finally pulled it down from the siding. Next year when it sends up runners, I'll plant them next to the rose arbor DH made for me. We didn't want them to destroy that new vinyl siding we put up a couple years ago.
