Passi Q's for Clare mostly

Clare, could you please tell me how you treat/grow your P. Morifolia and P. Amethystina? I have your P. Mollissima and it's doing like yours. That is growing like CRAZY but I've yet to get it to bloom. Now it's getting full sun from morning until about 3pm. I planted it on a trellis that is next to a handrail for my wheelchair ramp on the deck with 1 Lavender Lady(LL cloned so well, I ended up with almost 10+ cuttings). Your Mollissima has choked out the Lavender Lady almost completely wich is OK, I was hoping they could co exist a little better. I have you Amethystina growing in a big pot with 2 others(1 is rylaff's Caerulea hybrid and the other is her Belotti) on the deck in almost full sun all day. They all 3 are doing well but not blooming yet. The Amethystina is more pale green than I think it should be. I don't know if you remember this particular cutting, I think I described it being very tall with only 1 box cut leaf at the tip of a 3 noded stem. Does that ring a bell? That 1 box cut leaf is still there and growing nicely! I'm shocked that cut even rooted let alone keeping that 1 leaf. It grew a TINY vine off the top of that large stem that was very tight noded with teeny tiny leaves. Anyhow, I'm wondering if I should be doing something different or does it just grow a lighter shade of green compared to the other Passi's? How does yours look and grow and how do you treat it? This 1 is so pale and soft to the point of looking limp on shady/rainy days, mainly on the new growth only. I know it's probably fine, I'm just wanting to see it bloom so badly that I'm willing to try something different. Would you please shine a little light on how you grow yours?

I was also a little worried about the Frosty pink brug until now. I put it in the ground and it was really pale and limp plus some bugs were having a feast on it. I fed it with peter's 20-20-20 before vacation and that is exactly what it wanted IMO. It flowered for me really fast but the flowers had almost no color to them. Now I've only seen 1 bloom since getting home and it was such a rich deep pink, I almost would call it reddish. The foliage is now very dark and healthy and it has 2 good sized basal shoots I'm dying to see what they will do. Sadly, I have something feeding on the main/original branch causing this new awesome growth to curl around all the leaves edges and there is signs of a small amount of webbing inside the tighter curls. I hate using broad pesticides(or any at all if I can avoid it) and I'm wondering if you might know what preys on this baby. It's also causing the buds to develope much smaller in length. Here is a picture I took last night of my P. Incarnata. I pickd the flower off the vine and placed it on top of some sedum which is a lighter green so you can see more contrast of color. I find some flower pics turn out better if I take them this way so peoples different monitor's coloring don't show the wrong tintor hue. Please let me know what you think of this 1, I have TONS of it if you'd like it someday(I know your overloaded right now).

Here is a picture of this Frosty pink.

I'm not seeing the picture when I look at it on my pc. Let me try 1 more time

Trying again

Please forgive me for posting the same thing over and over. This is as bad or worse than my darn marathon posts.
Sorry, here is the Frosty pink leaves I described
I will teach myself to resize these pics, I didn't realize how big they were now the camera settings.

JD,

We've had two weeks of June gloom here -- cool temperatures and not much sun. Guess what decided to set buds? My P. Mollissima. I had heard that it likes to bloom in cooler temperatures, and here it is blooming during June gloom. I would not be concerned about flowers at this point. Most new plants from cuttings should be concerned about directing their energy toward growth and root formation and not towards flower production. P. Amethystina is a huge grower also with a huge root system. I would suggest planting yours in the ground for the summer, and then you can take cuttings for yourself to root in the fall. It may even come back from the roots in the spring. I believe it is a P. Amethystina x P. Caerulea hybrid. Anyway, it needs lots of room to grow and spread. P. Morifolia isn't quite a space hog like P. Amethystina, but it is an extremely good grower. Don't be afraid to prune back any of those three. It won't hurt them a bit. All three are easy to grow and not fussy about soil.

My advice: never fertilize passionflowers. Fertilizer only encourages vine growth, often to the detriment of flower production. I find that most Passifloras like well-draining, sandy soil that is not rich in organic matter.

Yes, I remember cutting the large leaf into a square cut. I've been told that, when a cutting has large leaves, it's best to trim or tear them (tearing is actually better). P. Amethystina has very blue-green fat leaves otherwise. I grew this P. Amethystina from seed that I was sent from someone in Brazil. The first year it grew in a very well-manner way. The second year, it sent out new vines from every node and completely smothered the six other Passifloras that were sharing the same trellis. I hacked it back ruthlessly, and it came back with a vengence. It was too huge for the area so I hacked it back again and dug it up and root-pruned it and stuck it in a container. In a very short period of time, it filled the container with new roots and put on a ton more growth. I just pulled up a Camellia that I had, and so I put the P. Amethystina in the ground. If it can survive all of this abuse, it is one tough Passiflora and tough to kill. You could try misting your rooted cutting with Superthrive, and you could try watering with Episom salt (one tablespoon per gallon) if you want to make the leaves more green. If the rooted cutting is pretty small still, it probably can't handle full sun, and so I would put it in an area that gets more shade. My P. Amethystina bloomed in October last year so it too may prefer the cooler temperatures to bloom. I'll let you know when it blooms this year.

Your P. Incarnata is lovely. Thank you for your offer, but I'm intentionally avoiding this one because of its ability to spread by underground runners. That could become a real problem here where there is no frost. Also, I've decided that I only want fragrant flowers in my garden!

You are right that I am overloaded right now. I have too much to care for. I've tried to put more and more things in the ground, where I can squeeze them in, because I think plants and vines are easier to take care of in the ground than in containers. I'm basically giving them to my landlord, but I don't mind as long as I can take cuttings or propagate them when it is time to leave, and I can enjoy them while I am living here. I just put in six California Descanso Garden lilacs that I had purchased a couple of years ago and that I had been growing in 15-gallon containers. I figure that I can pull up some suckers when I have to move again. I've been really good about not buying plants this year -- just a few small tropicals. My conditions are it has to be rare, small, and fragrant! Well, I made an exception to my conditions when I bought some Adenium seedlings because they aren't fragrant, but they are neat-looking.

Yes, Brugmansias in general are heavy feeders so they respond well to fertilizers. Unfortunately, they are also susceptible to snails, slugs, whiteflies, spidermites, cucumber beetles, and other insects. It sounds like you may have spider mites. I would spray the leaves right away. Avid or any product that says it kills mites will work. Spray in the cool evening and make sure to get underneath the leaves. It also helps to spray the leaves with the hose every time you water. My B. Frosty Pink is blooming also as is my Charles Grimaldi. The fragrance comes alive at night and fills the air. The color of the flower does change with the weather, and it also intensifies as the flower ages.

I hope this helps.

Here is my B. "Frosty Pink":

This is my P. Charles Grimaldi, taken last April. This picture was taken from the outside of my front gate.

JD, your pictures don't look too large to me. They are fine. I saw some other pictures of P. Incarnata yesterday, and I think you are probably right that it is a pure species and not a hybrid.

The leaf curl is a response to insect damage. Mine get it all the time because I have a huge whitefly problem here. Usually the new leaves are affected the most. Try spraying with the hose and with a miticide.

Well, it is very hot here today, and wouldn't you know it, there are some P. Mollissima buds on the ground. Darn it! Some are still attached so we'll see if they open.

Here is a recent picture of my P. Amethystina, which is planted with P. Belotii and some other vines in the ground.

OMG That Charles Grimaldi is just....An Incredibly breath takingly bueatiful specimen IMO! My jaw is still on the floor and I can't wait to show it off to my friends and family. I pray mine gets that way someday. Since it's a cutting, it wants to squat and be bushy but it looks like my pruning is working out great and is taking on a more tree shape look. My blooms aren't quite as deep gold yet. That baby looks like it's been thriving in that same spot for a few years. I put mine in a large pot on the deck and it's getting so huge. It's already a good 4 ft tall and would be atleast that wide if I hadn't pruned it up. I couldn't be more pleased with this 1 and can't thank you enough.
The frosty pink hasn't been pruned on much and is over 3ft tall and atleast that wide. I'm hoping the 2 basal shoots shoot for the moon. I think mine is now a tad darker pink than yours but I've only seen 1 small flower since getting it healthy. It should be blooming again any day now so we will see. I know that leaf curl is a pest problem but I've ruled out spidermites and white flies(unless the fly number's are too small to see). I've had both of those pests too many times sadly and have become more familiar than I like. I did find a few bugs while inspecting it last night. I think the main culprit is a fly like bug or a small black or brown beetle just smaller than a lady bug. But there are also holes that have been eaten on by some sort of catipillar. The reason I rule out spidermites is there is only a small amount of webbing inside 1 of the tightly curled leaves and I don't see any mites or the traces mites leave behind like egg cases or spots from their feces. I had mites bad when I had a indoor grow room and I know them way to well, same with white flies. There are places where something has strategically made a verticle "slit"at the base of many nodes but not all of these nodes have leaf curl. My dad says slugs w/o even looking, I see no tracks from slugs but I've seen large numbers of huge Tiger slugs we've seen in the soil and under rocks. We set up 1 of our tents to treat it and when water had gotten underneath the bottom of the tent, they were everywhere there was moisture in large numbers. I think I'll start treating for slugs now and some mild pesticidal soap for the rest. I find it odd that the damage is confined to 1 flowerbed mainly full of Dat's, Brugs then some misc. Passi's an such that haven't been fed on at all. There are also a few other different brug's and dat's right next to the infected plant's that aren't touched by the leaf curling. The problem seems to pick on B. Frosty pink and D. Inoxia and not touching D. Metal or3 other brug hybrids. Six ft. of grass away from the infected plants is a bed full of more D. Inoxia and many other plant's that are all clean so for. I wonder why just when I get the Frosty pink looking all lush and thick, THEN the pests become a problem. I've been growing these same D. Inoxia's for 3 years and have NEVER seen anything bother them except for maybe underwatering.
My P. Edulis seedling Tropicman started for me in Jan. of 04 is looking awesome. I've been treating all my Passi's the same when it comes to making them grow multiple vines rather than 1 long vine. I just let it get as tall as I like and then pinch the very tip of the top node. With in a few days, nodes below begin growing new vines and a Y forms at the pinched node everytime. That was hos i got your Morifolia to thicken up. I wished I would of backed off the pinching since that 1 grew new vines at almost every node below the pinch and is nopw overwhelmingly thick.
Below is a picture of the entire plant of FP.

Here is the seedling from Tman. P. Edulis

I had more to share and discuss but I can no longer focus and my eyes won't stay open. Lucky night for you all;) The end of my marathom posting for a few hours.Goodnight all

JD, your B. Frosty Pink looks fabulous and healthy. It has grown quite a bit. Feel free to break off those extra lower leaves if you wish. I always end up removing quite a few leaves on mine. That way, you can see the flowers better, and insects are easier to spot. I just snap them off at the base.

You can start new plants from any of the limbs that you prune or from the basel shoots. The shoots that come up from the base have the greatest potential to be a tall, straight tree. At this point, you can just cut a branch and stick it in water or directly in the ground.

Yes, the P. Morifolia and the P. Amethystina and the P. Mollissima will all send out vines from every node eventually and will become very thick. Pinching or pruning on a regular basis is a good idea. I actually don't have P. Morifolia any more. I decided the flowers were too small for my liking, and they weren't fragrant, and I had to keep on top of pruning it. P. Amethystina may be the next one to be shovel pruned if it doesn't behave.

Gosh I wish you had room to pot some of my P. Incarnata, it's as or more fragrant than my brugs or anything else for that matter. It's been so long since I'd had it growing close enough to smell it that I was floored my its odor when I plucked that flower for the photo. I have it taking over a large section of our fence and later in the summer when it's thick with blooms, you shake the fence and it smells so good and strong. Nothing compares to the smell my wild spearmint does when mowed or stirred up but that Incarnata can be close. I guess I can't judge the smell of the brug's completely as I've never had more than 5-6 blooms at any 1 time. The frosty pink and Charles Grimaldi keep throwing me curveballs it seems like. When I left for Florida, Frosty pink was week looking and pale and Charles grimaldi was dark green and setting flowers like mad. Here we are maybe 2 weeks later and they've reversed rolls appearance wise. It's so hard to judge potted plants against plants in the ground I think. Time will only tell and it seems as if time is standing still.LOLIt seems like a few weeks since I came home and tried to green everyone up and now that I look, it's barely been a week. The saying a "watched pot never boils" should be a "watched flower never blooms" IMO.
I did find a new bloom on a Passi today and I can't remember which 1 I planted there. I have a map I made to attempt keeping tracks of al the plants. It was a 2 page wide map and after cleaning up my computer stand, I can only find the 1st. page!UGHH This new flower looks like a Caerulea except its 1/2 the size of all the other flowers. I've never seen any Passi flower so small. I'll find it when I quit looking and thinking about it.

JD, thanks for letting me know that P. Incarnata is fragrant. I didn't know that. I thought it was odorless. Maybe someday I'll make room for it -- as soon as I get rid of some stuff! Although, I'm leary of things that take over the place and send out runners! I'm still reeling from my Ipomoea indica that is still sending up shoots from roots left in the ground. I have mint too, but it too is a fairly aggressive grower and keeps popping up all over the place, but it does have a nice fragrance when crushed.

By the way, it is normal for B. Charles Grimaldi to get yellow leaves in full sun. The sun does tend to bleach the leaves. I wouldn't worry too much about the leaves as long as you have nice flushes of flowers. I would just pull the ugly ones off.

Could the unidentified passionflower be P. Morifolia? The P. Morifolia has leaves which resemble oak leaves. Can you post a picture?

Clare
First off, THANK YOU! Your B. Charles Grimaldi you sent me put on a spectacular show yesterday when we hosted a big July 4th party. That baby sitting on the deck with 20 full blooms might have stolen the show from the fireworks. When everyone saw it, they automatically assumed I was the "master mind" behind all of our flowerbeds(my wife wasn't too happy to hear that!LOL) and all landscaping. Here is a pic I took of CG lastnight. OH BTW, Thanks for the tip about the leaf bleaching via the sun. I was afraid I was starving it of something but it's obvious now that it's not lacking a thing IMO.

The unknown Passi is either Lady Margaret or Lavender Lady. Niether of the 2 look like any other of its siblings oddly enough. It looked somewhat like a very miniature P. Caerulea when in bloom. I got lucky and found a plant tag I put in there with them so I can tell for sure it's not any of the others around it. I just cant rule out which of the 2 I posted. I was looking closely lastnight and found atleast 10 small fruits growing at every node it flowered(I missedd all prior flowers). I can't decide if I should let the fruit mature and play with the seeds or pull them to take away the energy needed to grow fruit rather than flowers. What would you do? I also found fruit on several other Passi's over the last week. I know 2-3 must be hybrids as when these were flowering, only 3 passi's were flowering at that time each having 1 bloom each. That makes me think they must have cross pollenated since all 3 are patio plant's and I know for sure what flower's were doing what at that time. The 3 plants are P. Lavender lady, P. Caerulea,and a P. Caerulea hybrid from rylaff. They all 3 have maybe 3 peices of fruit tops at the moment and have dropped most of the rest of their flower's, I find it odd they dropped rather than growing fruit since the dropped flowers are much more mature than the previous 1's that are fruit. I'm going to tag these pieces and let them mature for seed since so many are blooming now, I have no way of knowing who pollenated whom etc. My Incarnata is going crazy as usual, I planted some at the base of a telephone pole in the yard. I'm betting it will climb the entire pole if I provide somethings for it to grab ahold of. This pole is so new, it doesn't have any notches carved out from people climbing it(that's how most poles get scared up and covered with splinter's).

Well enough rambling for now, it's chore time. I'll chat w/ ya's later.;)
JD

JD, your Charles Grimaldi looks great! I'm glad it put on a show for you and your guests yesterday. The flower color is pretty light and should darken as the flower ages and as temperatures increase. Here's a recent picture of one of mine below.

Your Passiflora sounds like the P. Morifolia I sent you. It has very small flowers, which are almost unnoticeable unless you look really hard, and it bears a ton of inedible fruit which is green and turns purple. The seeds do come true as this vine is self-pollinating. I ended up removing this vine because it had too much fruit and the flower was so little. This vine is so vigorous that it will not be slowed much by producing fruit but harvesting the fruit could lead to more flowers. If you can post a picture of the flower, we can confirm what it is for you.

This is P. Morifolia:

WOW! Is that Grimaldi the parent of my CG? Most impressive, how tall is that 1? The flowers did darken up to a more golden color. Today was going to be it's best day as far as waiting for the blooms to darken but we had a very wicked thunderstorm last night with incredible wind speeds. I was very suprised to see it was still upright let alone have any flowers left on it. They all look beaten down but it may "fluff up" a little more by tonight I hope. Now if I could get the Frosty Pink and the others to start flowering hard and heavy. I put all the others in the ground and dug out their holes 4 times the rootball size so I could fill it with our super soil mix that I used in the CG pot. They all bloomed 1-2 flowers over Memorial Day and haven't bloomed since. I had a small pest problem that seems to be under control if not gone. I have several buds of the Frosty but they are shorter and fatter than any other brug or it's first flowers this spring. I can't wait to see what they will look like, I fertilized them pretty strong since they were all very pale green, almost yellow like I over watered. I didn't over water. They are all very dark green now and growing like mad, just not blooming yet. I'm waiting on the Suaveolens you sent me plus a spring peach, Amarillo, Lake effect and Golden Lady that rootdoctor was kind enough to share with me;). I think I just need to quit over analyzing(That's a major character flaw of mine IMO) and just simply be patient. It's still early summer here so I'll just keep the pests away and watch. I take that back, it's not early here anymore with our short growing season darnit(my wife just informed me of that when I mentioned culling Mollisma). I sure hope all my other brug's will get a chance to flower for me. We have tons of new Canna's of so many varieties to mention that are just now setting buds, 1 is opening today. We even started most of these and our EE's early indoor's as usual and you sure can't tell so far. Now I'm getting bummed out. Oh well, what can ya do?

Your right on the money with the ID of that Passi in your picture but I'm 99.9% sure I didn't plant 1 of that1 there. A tag must have been misplaced in the cloning stage. I'll watch it a little longer and probably let it go come fall.
Thanks again for all my new Babies, you and our friends are so generous, I can't wait to see what we all come up with to trade over this winter?!

No, JD, not that one. The one below is the parent. The one pictured above is about four feet tall. The parent plant of yours is about six feet tall now and has undergone a lot of pruning to keep the branches from sticking out over the sidewalk. It needs pruning on my backyard side also. Charles Grimaldi is pretty resilient to wind and rain so I'm sure yours will recover quickly from that unexpected storm.

Here it is from the other side:

Your sure are right Clare re: how resilient the Grimaldi is. I went back out that evening after the storm and 99% of the prior blooms perked back up almost as good as new. Man this 1 is a keeper for sure! I had to prune off a branch almost 1 week ago and I placed the end of it in my aquarium. Today is either 6 or 7 and it has plenty of roots and 2 more new branches that grew under water!!! I can't wait till the sun breaks out to pot that 1 too. The Frosty Pink has finally come out of it's "funk" or whatever phase it was going through due to pests imo and has several blooms ready to open if the sun would come out.
This was the best spring ever around here for our flowers etc.. Everything came up and bloomed well ahead(atleast 1 to 1 1/2 mos.early) of usual but then it's done nothing but rain it seems with very little sunshine. It's so sad! We have so many new tropicals that are dying to bloom, there just isn't enough sunshine to pull them out. I saw on the news lastnight that we are on day 326 w/o the temp. hitting 90F.!!! That is unreal for my neck of the woods, we usually hit 90F before or on memorial day and it goes on up from there. I sure don't feel any global warming going on here.
Well I need to stir up my barrel of Alfalfa stew so we can spread it this weekend. Lucky me;)

I hope you get some sunshine soon, JD. I'm glad CG pulled through! You're right that it is a keeper:-)

Heya Clare, More Q's for ya. What does the Pink Bower vine like? I think I either have it in too much sun or something. It's doing fine, it's just not nearly as big as it should be by now and has no buds.
Does yours like the heat and/or full sun? I think I put it in the wrong place but I thought I asked or researched what she liked. I think it's probably too much direct sun as the nodes are very tite and the foliage is as dark green as you can get. It's multi branched(or vined) but just ins't blasting off like it did in the spring. PLEASE HELP! Thanks Sweetie.
Tman I think I'm close to blooms on your Blue Bouquet and a couple others. I thought I'd have blooms galore by now since they were all cuttings. Only 1/2 of all my Passi's are blooming as of now. I don't understand what I'm doing wrong or if I'm just being impatient as usual. All the vines are going crazy and looking really good. So far I've only seen Belotti, 4 diff. Caerulea vines, 1 Pura Vita flower, Lavender lady blooming profusely. Oh and Mollissima but like Clare said, That doesn't really count. I'm thinking my water and ground is way too alkaline even though I tried to ammend it this spring with 16 yards of enriched topsoil, potash, bloodmeal and a few other's.
I know this is vague but any ideas? It's probably just the major lake of sunshine but this inquiring mind wants to know for sure;)
Thanks friends, JD

Hii JD, I grew that one from seed so it might be slow to flower at first. It was pretty small when I sent it to you. When it is ready to flower, you will have lots of buds on the terminal ends. Any pruning will cut off flowers so hold off on that until after it flowers. Mine grew way overhead before it flowered, and then I cut it back. Mine does like heat and does well in full sun or part shade. I wouldn't worry about what the nodes look like as long as your leaves look healthy.

JD, I think you just need to be more patient about your Passifloras flowering. Most Passifloras are tolerant of any growing conditions, and yours sounds like it's just fine. Sometimes, a vine wants to concentrate on becoming full-sized before it flowers and wants to concentrate its energy on growth. I don't think cuttings flower any sooner because they are cuttings, at least not with Passifloras. Yes, P. Mollissima will bloom in cooler weather after it has put on some growth. All of my P. Mollissima buds dropped off in the heat so I hope that I will get some in the fall.

Good luck and stop worrying!