As extraordinary as this beautiful flowering plant looks: Caring for the passion flower can be described as quite easy with a clear conscience. Most of the passion flowers are native to the Neotropic, a biogeographical region that consists of South America and neighbors, the other species also come mainly from sun-drenched regions.
As a rule, they are dealing with children of the sun, who should get as much brightness as possible from us. They like a lot of warmth as much as they like a lot of light, so a passion flower always has the warmest location in the garden, a house wall facing south, for example. You should definitely treat your passion flower to this space in the garden in summer – the light intensity outdoors exceeds that behind the window glass enormously, even when the sun is not shining. The sun should not even shine directly on your passiflora, if it gets the sun “on your fur” for hours in the midday heat, you could resent that.
In households without a garden, the passion flower can be placed on the balcony in summer, if that is not available, you should let your passion flower soak up some light at the open window as often as the temperatures allow. However, not in a draft, the passion flower does not like drafts at all as the ground dwellers usually surrounded by dense vegetation. If you give your passion flower too little light or warmth, you will usually notice this from the fact that it develops only a few or no flowers.
The earth for the passion flowers should be slightly loamy. You can easily make a clay-containing soil mix yourself: you mix ordinary garden soil (or compost-based potting soil) with sand and clay powder, which you can buy in any well-stocked hardware store.
During the growing season, the soil of the passion flowers should always be slightly damp; if it “just really shoots into the herb”, it even has a fairly large demand for water. You don’t need to be very cautious with your watering, you can’t go wrong anyway – every passiflora should be kept in a plant pot with a deep saucer, from which the excess water will be removed after watering, any waterlogging could damage the roots of the passion flowers.
During the growing season, the plant looks forward to careful fertilization with a balanced complete fertilizer about every two weeks. Especially if you use synthetic liquid fertilizers, you should be very careful with the dosage, if you overdose, you will get a plant with a lot of foliage but only a few flowers.
Table of Contents
Passion flowers are available in a pleasing variety of varieties
The species of the genus Passiflora are for the most part perennial and perennial, herbaceous or woody plants, only one species limits its vigorous growth to one season. Passion flowers can grow as upright shrubs, as low trees or climbing plants and develop leaves of completely different shapes. The flowers are usually exceptionally beautiful and excitingly shaped, they remain tiny in some species and reach a diameter of the size of a hand in others. The outer petals often show exceptionally bright colors, as does the corona inside. This corona consists of sterile pseudo-stamens, which attract insects with their intense color,
In total there are of course over 500 species of the enchanting Passiflora, most of them in Central to South America, some in southern North America and Australia, in Asia and Madagascar, and a single species even on the Galapagos Islands. The individual plants are accordingly rich in variety. You can buy passion flowers with white and pink-red flowers, but also with black, sky-blue or green ones. There are passion flowers with light green and dark green leaves, with striped and multi-colored leaves, which can be less than a centimeter or almost a meter in size, and the leaves and the entire shape of the passion flower also form very different shapes.
Such a wealth of graceful beauty in plant shape naturally attracts the attention of professional breeders, in the last century alone hundreds of new hybrid varieties have emerged through crossbreeding. The passion flower that is probably best known to us is one of these hybrid breeds, Passiflora violacea was bred from Passiflora caerulea and Passiflora racemosa. This fast-growing climber will delight you with its star-shaped, light purple flowers, and will happily do so for several years.
Also popular is the Passiflora caerulea, the blue passion flower, also a climbing species that forms distinctive blue-white colored flowers with a reddish accentuated pistil. The climbing Passiflora tucumanensis with white flowers and a light purple spotted halo has recently been found more frequently on the market, as is the Passiflora incarnata, a fast-climbing climber that has flowers with a very conspicuous purple-white striped halo and up to 10 Meters high. It is closely related to Passiflora edulis, a very interesting passion flower, not only because of its purple or yellow flowers (depending on the variety), but also because of its fruits, which are sold as passion fruit (there is also Passiflora quadrangularis, giant Passion fruit and ligularis, which should bring particularly sweet fruit). The Passiflora lutea brings a touch of the jungle into the house, although it is somewhat restrained in color with its predominantly green flowers.
Passiflora violacea, caerulea, tucumanensis, incarnata and lutea come from American or neighboring regions, where it can get colder, they are considered the most resistant species that can withstand temperatures down to minus 15 degrees outside with good winter protection. They can therefore even be planted permanently in the garden if a house garden in a milder region of Germany offers favorable conditions (e.g. a wall facing south). Then they will freeze back completely in winter and sprout again from below in the next season, the Passiflora caerulea from the rhizome, Passiflora lutea and incarnata from rhizomes that they form in the soil.
In addition to these more bluish-tinted species, there are also a number of red-flowering passion flowers, known and commercially available are the Passiflora murucuja, vitifolia, alata, racemosa, coccinea and the hybrid Passiflora piresii. Most of these passion flowers come from more southerly regions and differ considerably in their demands: The Passiflora murucuja only shows small red flowers, but they like to and without great demands on the care, the Passiflora piresii also blooms reliably and is due to its large leaves and bright orange blossoms are sure to make a big impression. Passiflora coccinea and vitifolia develop flowers in light red, but both are a little more demanding in their care, if there is a lack of warmth and / or light, you can see it quickly.
The last group of species are the Astrophea, the passion flowers, which grow as evergreen shrubs or small trees and reach heights of between 5 and 15 meters in their home. This subgenus includes, for example, the Passiflora lindeniana, macrophylla and arborea. These passion flowers do not climb, can be grown as a shrub or tree and can develop quite large leaves and flowers, these in arborea with a halo of bright orange for a change.
An isolated case, but all the more interesting, is the extremely delicate growing Passiflora gracilis, an annual passion flower that comes from Central America. It copes with our summer climate, usually so well that after planting it begins to bloom without much care and just as voluntarily develops fruits from which you may even be able to obtain seeds for the next year.
The wintering of the Passiflora in the bucket
While the passion flowers like our summer temperatures quite well, a German winter is usually not to their liking, the exceptions have already been described above. They are usually not hardy. If you do not cultivate any of the moderately frost-resistant species or if you live in a region that is too cold, the passionflower should be sent to hibernation, which is prepared by a gradual decrease in temperature in late autumn. Then the plant is either moved to a cold house with temperatures of 6 to 8 degrees or at least placed in a cooler location where it does not get warmer than about 10 degrees if possible (unheated, bright stairwell, for example). The passion flower only needs to be watered a little during the dormant period, just enough that the earth feels slightly damp,
The cut of the passion flowers
Passion flowers do not have to be pruned, especially in the beginning you will want the plant to grow strongly. Older plants can be pruned as desired, preferably only at the beginning of the season, so that they are not weakened by the cut and go into the already uncomfortable winter dormancy. If the Passiflora gets too big for you, in extreme cases you can cut it back to around 20 cm above the ground, whereupon it builds up completely anew. As a rule, however, you will not have to and do not want to proceed so radically, then you can shorten the shoots all around so that as many branches as possible develop, the flowers are each set on the outside.
Support from a climbing aid
Depending on the variety, the passion flowers grow quickly to really very quickly, so the creeping or climbing species need a support right from the start that gives the direction for growth. This can be a trellis, a trellis, and if necessary just a stick, the main thing is that the passion flower finds a hold somewhere. You can definitely influence how the passion flower climbs these growth aids by placing the young shoots in the desired direction around the climbing aid. If the plant is still very young and develops correspondingly tender tendrils, these should also be carefully tied to the trellis.
The Passiflora as an air freshener with or without fragrance
If you have a somewhat larger passion flower in a room, it can noticeably improve the indoor climate with its abundant water consumption. Even better: You even have the choice whether the passion flower accomplishes this air improvement very cautiously without a perceptible scent or whether it also covers the room with an interesting floral scent.
Because not all types of passion flowers smell, but some are particularly good. The Passiflora alata is known for its pleasant scent, and a real star is the Passiflora belotti, a hybrid of Passiflora alata and caerulea, which is described as exceptionally good, but tart and quite subtle smelling.
Buy passion flowers
You are sure to get passion flowers from many vendors, which have something to do with gardens and plants, but if you have read this article before shopping, you will know what kind of gamble you are getting into if you simply buy “a passion flower”.
If you buy from a dealer who knows passion flowers, you will be offered different varieties of Passiflora to choose from, with a detailed description of the properties. You can find such dealers on the Internet. B. the company Blumen & Passiflora from Martin Drews from 44892 Bochum, which offers a whole lot of different Passiflora, you can view the stock of each variety, orders are accepted at www.blumen-passiflora.de. At Sunshine Seeds from Renate Krebs from 59229 Ahlen you will also find many types of passion flowers, even very many, almost 140, but still in the seed stage, which you can order at www.sunshine-seeds.de.
Propagate passiflora
Most passion flowers can be propagated well from head cuttings, which are basically treated in the same way as any ordinary cutting. With the Passiflora cutting, however, you would have to pay particular attention to the fact that it is light and at least 20 degrees Celsius, otherwise not much will happen. Even a rooting hormone cannot do any harm, some passiflora species even adorn themselves quite vigorously when they form roots.
If your passion flower sets fruit, you can also harvest seeds yourself, but only if fertilization has taken place, which requires different conditions depending on the variety.
Conclusion
With the flowering plants of the genus Passiflora there is a lot to discover and a lot to try out, the variety of manifestations alone makes the passion flower a wonderful plant for curious gardeners. Children in particular are fascinated when a passiflora can be grown from the seeds of a passion fruit (grenadilla) that has previously been consumed with pleasure, or when a purchased passion flower sets the first fruits. These fruits can even ripen to the point of consumption with us, but then you have to know exactly that you are cultivating the right Passiflora species, the fruits of some species are inedible to poisonous.
