Passion Flower Vines

[aykhan]

Anyone have experience with these. How easy is it to grow them? Is it hard to get them to flower? Do they all make passion fruit and is it edible?

[haris.kabir]

Passiflora is one of my favorite summer vines,I have been growing passiflora incarnata for a few years now. These are quite easy to grow vines and do very well in Rawalpindi, as well as in Jhelum. Not all varieties of Passiflora produce fruits which are edible, infact some are poisonous. The common one available here do not even produce fruit. Their flowers are quite fragrant thou. There are two varieties available in Pakistan one the common blue/purple and white one and other is basically a wild vine in pure white color.

P.S Diamond Nursery Karachi and their Lahore branch have an other red/pink variety only available with them (as claimed by them !)
But it is cheaper to import seeds from abroad then buy a plant from them. =/

[Izhar]

They were very easy for me to germinate and grow.. no problems so far in growth..

[khabbab]

If they are profuse flowering vines, how come we have yet to see a passiflora full of flowers in lahore? Not even a picture guys!!!!!!!!!!

I once saw a passiflora full of flowers, an old specimen in singhpura lahore, way back in 2002. I had no interest in gardening then. When i started gardening, i recalled that was passiflora. I tried the common blue one in pot, could not make it bloom for 3 years. Grew incarnata from seed last year but horizontal runners were too much.

I do no think the Soil or PH are the main culprits for non flowering. Low nitrogen and high potash are easy to achieve. It is temperature which is the main issue. The combination of day/nigh temperatures do not suit for profuse blooming. On mature specimen, the difference is reduced as old ones are tough.

There are few passifloras native to pakistan, they are fruiting varieties. Here is a link to Zahrah nasir article on passifloras http://archives.dawn.com/weekly/review/ ... eview8.htm

[khabbab]

I also put a question on Daves garden and this is what i got the answer:

Khabbab: Is there any passiflora which are famous for flowering within 1 year of growing from seed and fragrant too? I have heard there are some cultivars which flowers early.
DG: In my experience the following can take blazing hot sun as long as it's watered regularly and bloomed the first year for me from seed.
Passie foetida var. gossypifolia
Passiflora rubra
Passiflora trifasciata Tri-color

DG2: I had an Arida that bloomed in just a couple months from seed.

[aykhan]

Very interesting article Khabbab. Check out logees.com for passiflora varieties, they are all listed as zone 10 and higher and they also mention which vines bloom profusely and how often. There are a number of vines which bloom continually presumably for zone 10 and higher. I am tempted to try a couple! The only problem is they are just 2.5 inch pots and transporting them here is stress enough after the initial stress of getting them shipped from their greenhouse. Banda kharchh ho jata hai yeh to phir boota hai

[khabbab]

Banda kharchh ho jata hai yeh to phir boota hai

Yes you are right. This summer heat will be too stressful for young plants.

[Tahir Khan]

Yes! passifloras are very easy to grow from seed i have 2 vines and they are happily growing in containers, i will post the pics soon

[aykhan]

Sunshine seeds have a lot of passiflora variety but quite expensive.

[Tahir Khan]

How much expensive?