Passiflora / Passion flower vines

Discussion in 'Outdoor Gardening in the Pacific Northwest' started by Anthony 88, Jul 8, 2021.

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  1. Anthony 88

    Anthony 88 New Member

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    I have 6 varieties of Passion Vine. None of which are the palatable fruit varieties, (I don’t think) , and I’m wondering why after hand pollinating common passion flowers as seen on the Internet tutorial videos, the flowers are still falling off. The vine it’s self is very healthy, lots of flowers every day, good exposure. I don’t over or under fertilize, and the drainage / retention is good. I know the variety fruits , whether tasty or not, I just want the seeds. Any ideas?
     

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  2. Daniel Mosquin

    Daniel Mosquin Paragon of Plants UBC Botanical Garden Forums Administrator Forums Moderator 10 Years

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    Are these planted in those pots? I think you need to find a better way of securing those. Heavy rocks (well, most any rock, really) on the soil like that starts a series of things that are affecting your vines by decreasing oxygen to the roots.

    While it is true that plants uptake CO2 in order to grow, they also require oxygen in order to do cell respiration (in the same way we do). So, I would guess these have root persistence issues -- in that the plant can only grow so much root mass in the oxygen-restricted environment. In turn, this affects nutrient uptake (despite how much fertilizer you give, if there aren't enough roots to uptake, it just can't -- this also gets into diffusion and nutrient concentrations across gradients). And the knock-off effect of that -- not enough nutrients being passed along for flower retention / fruit development. There will be particular micro-nutrients involved in the development and hmmm... "timing" of the abscission cell layer that forms where a fruit will naturally and eventually break off from the stem holding it. The lack of nutrients may disrupt this (it is hormonally controlled, so perhaps a reduced amount of this hormone being developed or too much of another?), causing those cells to break early; in a way, it is an adaptation for the parent plant to persist and survive to reproduce for another day and not throw all of its scant resources into flower retention / fruit development at the expense of killing the already established parent.

    It looks to me like you are very attentive of these in order to get them grow despite this. I suspect if you remove the rocks (and maybe disturb a bit of the soil to help open it up to airflow if the soil has also been compressed), you'll find that you need to pay less attention _and_ get the results you desire.
     
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  3. Eric La Fountaine

    Eric La Fountaine Contributor Forums Moderator 10 Years

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    I think a bigger pot might also be needed for such vigorous vines. I don't have a lot of experience with passion vine, but they are difficult to grow in this region. Some leaves on your plants show some mottling and seem a bit crinkly, not sure what that means. I think Passiflora spp. need warm temperatures to set fruit--above 20 degrees including at night.
     
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  4. Anthony 88

    Anthony 88 New Member

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    Sorry, the first image wasn’t a very good angle to see what the whole system looks like. Those pots are an air layering experiment I read about on the Internet. It instructed to place a rock on top to stop the wind or anything else from unearthing the layer. I’ll attach photos of the whole vine system.
     

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  5. Yo_Jo

    Yo_Jo Active Member

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    Anthony88, that’s a nice big Passion flower plant you have. My wife just bought a Passion flower plant and its been flowering and fruiting nicely over the last 2 months - especially during those 40c days. I think the first thing she did was to put it in a bigger planter. She was watching the plant and notice that the flowers open and close over a few days. We just let the bees and bugs do the pollination. So far we have 3 fruits so far from one plant.

    Keep on trying and good luck.

    ADE27302-F3C7-483F-A047-E0FE99720909.jpeg 13D1DD12-7297-4DCE-8286-3A2207AC8292.jpeg C6AF0AC8-7C53-4674-8E29-ADE92B632D90.jpeg 635A072A-5CBF-40B9-B3F0-DC19B28DD713.jpeg
     
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  6. Anthony 88

    Anthony 88 New Member

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    These are some of my other Passion vines. So far only the Snow Queen has produced a fruit.
     

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  7. Anthony 88

    Anthony 88 New Member

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    More passion vine systems around the property. Betty Myles Young, Lavender Lady, Snow Queen, Star of Surbiton, common and one other, not sure what it’s called.
     

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  8. Yo_Jo

    Yo_Jo Active Member

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    Nice assortment of plants. My wife has the snow queen Passion flower. She noticed the flowers that fruited seems to be shrinking with the cooler weather. I’m not sure how the hot, cold, hot temperature changes will affect their fruit. Have you noticed any changes?
     
  9. Anthony 88

    Anthony 88 New Member

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    Not yet but I only have four fruit so far they are green with tight skin. Size of golf balls. It’s a hot side of my house facing south with tons of sunlight.
     

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