Stunning delicate flowers (Passion Flower)

Member Name: chucklingMonkey

Product:	Passion Flower
Date:	23/08/09 (94 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to grow

Disadvantages: May need to wait a couple of years before it flowers.

I count the years in our house by thinking about the garden.

When we bought it three years ago this was my first garden, and an ambition fulfilled. My next move for that first summer was to fill it with my favourite plants, and first on my list was a passion flower. Passiflora caerulea was the one that I bought i that first spring from my local garden centre (they cost around a tenner for a young plant) - and is probably the most common.

I planted mine on its own in a reasonably vase shaped large pot - knee high, and as wide at the neck as the distance from my wrist to my elbow. I was wary about planting it in a pot (though I have concluded now that you can plant literally anything in a pot of sufficient size) but the container does keep the plant well drained (though thirsty).

The passion flower is a climber which holds on with tendrils, leaves are a sort of dinosaur foot shape (I'm not a gardener) and a lovely deep green colour. You shouldnt expect flowers in the frst year, but when fat green buds appeared it was pretty exciting - meanwhile the plant had grown five foot up up a seven foot wooden trellis, whilst I guided it toward a steel arch.

The flowers on this plant are stunning. On my plant they are roughly 2 inches in diameter, and look very delicate, colourful and almost unreal. Individually they seem to last maybe a week but the buds open in a staggered manner over a couple of months (on my plant anyway).

They have no scent but we have a sweet smelling jasmine (planted by the previous owners) in a pot upwind from the passion flower which fills in just nicely. Once the flowers die, the fruit starts to appear and adds further interest. The fruit grow to egg size and are smooth and bright green (I am colourblind so don't hold me to this). On some varieties they are edible, on mine, not.

If you have two varieties then one trick to try (and I intend to) is to cross pollenate between them, and harvest the seeds from the resulting fruit. Growing from seeds within this fruit will be a brand new variety unique to your garden.

Once the fruit have dropped autumn has arrived. I can confirm (after last winter's cold snap) that the plant is hardy - certainly in the south of the UK. Problems can occur with rot if standing in water for long - but the pot drainage prevents this. The leaves drop off, the stems harden a bit and you start to think that you'll need another one by next spring. But in its third year now, it keeps on coming back. Being in a pot probably restricts its growth, but then I havent needed to prune and it is weaving back and forth across my steel arch just nicely.

I'm a gardening novice and although I am biased heavily towards this beautiful plant, I would recommend it in an instant.

Summary: Impact guaranteed even for a beginner like me.