Sunday 22 February 2009

passiflora

























The passiflora or passionfruit vine is one of my favourite creepers, not just because it is relatively easy to grow and cultivate, but because of its very striking and sweet scented blooms. There are hundreds of species of passiflora worldwide and even more hybrids. 

They grow best in bright sunlight and flower very readily even in pots. However, like all other creepers, this has aggressive growing habits and will quickly find its way up any trees, trellises or other tall plants. I had quite a bit of problem with mine, having grown it next to the Etlingera elatoir.  So far, I have managed to collect 4 species of passiflora; the Lady Margaret, P. 'Amethyst', the fruiting P. edulis and an unknown. They are relatively easy to cultivate and do grow readily from stem cuttings, although maybe not for all species. I have tried twice to grow the P. coccinea from stem cuttings but they dried up on me, even after I confined it in a humid environment. Perhaps I just need a more mature cutting. 

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