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Passiflora Passion It's not that the first passion flower I planted was all that unusual. It was a five gallon plant I picked up at a Home Depot that was supposed to have red flowers. Much to my dismay it was mislabeled and the flowers were the fairly common purple Passiflora caerulea that produced small inedible egg-shaped fruit.
It didn't take long to discover how popular the plant was to the Gulf Fritillary, Agraulis vanillae. The plant started to look pretty shabby as dozens of caterpillars began to devour the foliage. I did quite a bit of hand picking and squishing. I tossed a few caterpillars to some to the local lizards but they feigned interest then wouldn't eat them. I dusted with Bt, bacillus thuringiensis, hoping to eradicate the pests. I had limited success and the white dust didn't add anything to the plant's already diminished appearance. Not to be discouraged I purchased Red Star, Passiflora coccinea, seeds and managed to grow six healthy vines in the greenhouse. When I moved the plants to larger containers, to grow up the porch support posts of my potting shed, the vines were attacked by rodents, rabbits and my nemesis the gulf fritillary. The rodents and rabbits were simple enough to control with a bit of chicken wire. The caterpillars were once again, a gardening nightmare.
I was about to give up on any type of passion flower vine anywhere in my garden when I happened to visit the Connecticut based Logee's Greenhouses website and their collection of Passifloras. While reading about the various Passifloras it was suggested the plants grow well in hanging baskets. For some reason I always thought of Passifloras as tall, uncontrollable vines that needed a trellis or wall to envelop. In my mind, a hanging basket seemed more manageable than a sprawling vine up a trellis. I decided to try my hand at a few different cultivars and ordered five different plants in two and a half inch containers. To my surprise the plants arrived in the mail in perfectly good condition ̶ in June no less. There was no damage of any kind, and the soil was still moist. Growing instructions were included in the package so I gave the cuttings a chance to acclimate to my greenhouse environment before I moved them to 12-inch plastic hanging baskets. From there it was a matter of training the vine to grow around the basket, along with watering, and weekly fertilizing. In a few weeks I had flowers buds on two of the vines and the plants' leaves looked healthy having been safe from egg laying Fritillaries in the enclosed greenhouse.
When the Passiflora plants started to take over the greenhouse, I moved four of the hanging baskets to the back porch and suspended them on decorative metal hooks attached to the wood posts that hold up the roof. Within minutes of the move to the open air environment, a fritillary butterfly began to deposit her eggs on the tendrils and leaves of the vines. I sat down on a chair and watched as the butterfly fluttered between the baskets. It seemed obvious this was a battle I wasn't going to win unless I decided to screen in my entire porch which I had no desire to do.
It wasn't too long before the first holes started showing up in the Passifloras' leaves. That's when I began to do my daily caterpillar squish using my thumb and forefinger. With the controlled growth of the vines in the hanging baskets it was easier to look for the cosmetic damage producing caterpillars. When I watered the baskets, I looked for the leaf munching bugs. I was amazed how many eggs the butterflies could lay and how quickly the caterpillars spread havoc on the leaves and flower buds. It became a daily challenge to keep the caterpillars at a reasonable population but it was also a pleasure to find nearly a dozen 'Star of Clevedon' blooms or smell the strong aroma of a 'Blue Eyed Susan' bloom. You have to admire the blooms while you can because the flowers open in the morning and are gone by the end of the day. The vines were vigorous and they attached themselves to the wrought-iron railing below them. I didn't do any selective pruning not wanting to discourage blossom production.
When winter arrives, the hanging basket grown Passifloras will be pruned severely, (to save space) and moved to the greenhouse to avoid any freezing temperatures. Come next spring the baskets will be given a chance to grow in the safety of the greenhouse before they're once again moved to the porch. No doubt I'll get tired of hunting for caterpillars and I'll probably abandon my passion for the various Passifloras I now have growing. But until then I'll enjoy the plants I have blooming and wait impatiently for Passiflora 'Purple Haze', Passiflora alata 'Ruby Glow', Passiflora 'Incense', and Passiflora x decaisneana to bloom. I liked the first five varieties so much, I decided to try four more and ordered the plants in late July. If you would like to try your hand at growing passifloras and would like to find a varied selection of cultivars to choose from, you'll want to visit Aloha Tropicals or Logee's greenhouses on-line. Both offer a great selection of passion flowers and a wide assortment of other tropical container plants. Under the right conditions, the Passiflora vines are easy to grow. It's controlling the insect damage that seems impossible. (2006) |
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