Nice plant! I did not expect it to be so tall when you said one gallon plant. So blooms on most passiflora take several years or just that individual plant?

I have a couple of purple plants that I was given that are about 16 to 20 inches tall.

Darren

Hi Darren,

The P. parritae is pretty typical in size for the Passifloras that Strybing sells.

I think P. parritae is notorious for taking a long time from rooted cutting to bloom. I did hear recently from one of the propagators at Strybing of a 1 gallon P. parritae blooming, just 5 or 6 months after being rooted. This was unique as far as I understand. I had also heard of P. antioquiensis usually taking several years to bloom, although I have increasingly heard reports of seedlings blooming at a year or less.

Here's a P. 'Mission Dolores' (P. parritae x P. antioquiensis) at the last Strybing sale, with 2 buds and a bloom in a 1 gallon pot. I've seen others this size in bloom.

I think many/most Passifloras will bloom at this size (or smaller).

Finally, here's a P. 'Amethyst'/'Lavender Lady' blooming not long after I rooted it, growing in a 10 oz. plastic cup, inside, on a windowsill. This was several years ago:

The P. parritae I planted looks great, in spite of our mini heat-wave this week. I think it only got upper 80s, and cool at night. There is new growth already visible. I'll let it grow another week or two and post another photo.

Mark,

That is just too cool. A bloom like that on such a small plant. I take it you're a collector. Care to share photos on how you utilize all these beauties? I'd love to see what I should be doing with mine. I put a purple in front of two trellises that I want to shield my trash barrels on the side of my home. It is also a location where I can control its growth without competing plants. But I just picked up a lady margaret yesterday and have a couple more suckers growing. I'd like to start collecting but have no idea on the best way to use them. I have a little under an acre, so space isn't an issue.

Darren

Hi Darren,

I moved at the beginning of the year, and my yard is the oppposite of yours: only 20 x 20 ft. About half of that is patio, which is also filled with plants. So I need to cram things into the available space and where possible send them climbing up something.

I don't have the P. 'Lavender Lady' anymore, but I used to grow it in a hanging basket. That worked OK.

Right now I have the following in the ground:

P. loefgrenii x caerulea: climbing a fence.

P. 'Mission Dolores': climbing an unused sattelite dish, a tree Dahlia (Dahlia imperialis), and the wall of my patio area.

P. membranacea: small and will be on the fence and probably covering an unused storage shed.

P. loefgrenii: small, and on the fence.

P. parritae: new, and will climb the fence, walls, a new tree, and whatever else I let it

P. 'Raspberries and Cream': will climb strings/twine that I drop from above...

In pots:

P. loefgrenii (a second one): climbing a Rojasianthe superba.

P. 'Manta': very small, twining into nearby plants.

P. penduliflora: inside and tiny

P. sanguinolenta. Climbing a railing and the Rojasianthe.

P actinia: in a 4 inch pot and needs transplanting.

And a dead P. antioquiensis and P. herbertiana that need to be disposed of. I think that's about it.

So at this point, I need to be very aggressive about pruning. It's good that I like to propagate plants, otherwise there would be a lot of waste.

I also need to grow some more tall and thin trees, mostly in pots, for plants to climb. Some of the candidates (that already have) include another Rojasianthe, another Dahlia imperialis, Montanoa grandiflora, Chorisia speciosa, Iochroma grandiflora, Iochroma fuchsioides, Brachychition discolor. I'm not sure if any of those will work for the purpose but I'll find out. Not all of those are necessarily permanent from year to year, and not all are appropriate for vines to climb. Some may grow too slowly.

I have a lot of other plants, including many other vines, and I don't own a hose.

Want some oak trees, haha?. I am constantly mowing them down in the "wooded" area of my backyard.

Man I just love the people I meet on here because everyone does amazing things, sometimes in the smallest places. That is an impressive collection of vines for such an area that you have! If I grow these babies I want to make them stars and be sure they take front and center stage but want to do that tactfully. I have a lot of other plants in my butterfly garden but these passion vines will play a prominent role in my yard.

Did you send me an email today? I read something on my phone briefly while I was in the yard and tried to mark it as unread so I wouldn't forget it and think I may have deleted it?? Maybe I'm just too tired from gardening ;-)

Darren

Darren, I did send an email. I'll send it again.

I think I probably have too many trees. The problem is that the vines will grow so much faster than them. Actually, the Rojasianthe (started as a 3 foot Annie's plant) and the Dahlia imperialis (started as a stem cutting) are both about 9 or 10 feet tall, and growing. Both were started this Spring.

I have a Chorisia seedling that I thought would be a good one for the P. parritae to climb. I had one before that grew to 6 feet in the first year, in a pot. Still, the vine will grow much quicker. When these are young, they grow mostly up, which is what I want.

Here's the seedling, with an odd split/diverged stem. I think this might look interesting when it gets older:

It came from a seed dropped by this tree, which grows at Wegman's Nursery in Redwood City. It's one of the few Silk Floss Trees in our area:

Heh, oh its good to know I hadn't lost my mind........completely. Yeah, that was my other email account.

So, too funny, but I just bought this seedling Friday! I was walking around a nursery and saw a sign for this plant which I said "Kapok". We had two restaurants here named after this Kapok Tree, so it is well known. For its large tree and weird roots. I did not know this was also the beautifully blooming silk floss tree. I had to have one. Whether I'll ever see it bloom, I dunno.

But I do agree it would be a perfect tree for a passion vine!

Now for those who might think of growing passion vines, I was warned, some will grow and sucker and get away from and you'll wish you hadn't planted it. I believe it was incarnata. I notice you don't have that one. Mine is small and in the ground, should I remove it.........I've been told I'll regret having this one?

Darren

Hi Darren,

It certainly looks like what I would call a silk floss tree, Chorisia (now Ceiba) speciosa.

However, I understand that there are two other trees which are called Kapok: Ceiba pentandra (I think never called Chorisia) and Bombax ceiba/malabaricum. I don't know offhand what those would look like. Did your plant come with a scientific name as well? I've actually never heard Chorisia/Ceiba speciosa called "Kapok", however a quick search suggests it's a common nickname.

However, a quick search also suggests that the restaurant was named after a Bombax ceiba. I don't know the Bombax tree, but apparently it blooms in the Spring, vs. the Fall for Chorisia/Ceiba speciosa. The Bombax flowers are red instead of pink.

There are also claims online that the restaurant Kapok is a Ceiba pentandra. It seems clear it's either that or the Bombax ceiba/malabaricum.

It looks like the leaves of Bombax ceiba and Chorisia/Ceiba speciosa are similar, so not being familiar with the Bombax, I doubt I could tell seedlings apart.

I find commmon names so much more confusing than the scientific ones!

What does the tag on yours say?

I've never actually seen P. incarnata in California in anyone's yard or at any nursery. I understand that Eric Wortman and Crystal Stone (Passiflora Society President/Treasurer, Eric is eristal on GW) have it--several varieties I think. I have heard it can be very difficult to eliminate once planted. I don't know if it's less popular in CA because of this, or because it's not native? If I had to guess it might just be because I understand it can be dormant for many months. Most people here see little reason to grow something that is dormant for half the year when other species/hybrids bloom nearly year round.

Looking for Passiflora parritae! Have lots of rare tropicals to swap Frank :)

This one did not make it--I should have followed up. It slowly died after a very wet, cold (but above freezing) December, the winter after I planted it.

Frank's tropical gardenLooking for P. parritae, P. antioquiensis, and P. manicata, Passiflora biflora,

Passiflora jamesonii. Have lot of rare tropicals to trade.

Frank

looking to buy Lapageria rosea if anyone has it.