thank you for sharing so much!!

This is so funny (and true!). An excellent example of what can happen when playing with vines. I once had some seeds for a rare Cobaea vine (I think I wrote about it about 6 posts ago), which literally took over our house, shutting out windows and even the porch door. That thing was a beast! My Cardinal Climber does get out of hand even with the 5 or 6 foot canes, but I just try to wrap the growth (once it reaches the top) around the entire teepee, but eventually cut them off. Thankfully, it does bloom on lower emerging growth. Of course, all of these vines are best grown on netting (such as when I plant them along the greenhouse) where they can scramble up 16 feet or higher. I sometimes grow morning glories or moonflowers on our gourd tunnel as well, and they race up to the 12′ mark, flattening out over the roof of the trellis, where they finally start to think about blooming. That’s when you really get a load of flowers. They certainly know what they want. When we try to grow them in containers, they seem to know that its unnatural, and rarely perform as nicely as they do with a free run. Like you, Im enjoying many of them trained around windows, though. It’s especially fun to see the hummingbirds come right up to the glass.

Oh thanks, I appreciate the support. I’m getting more familiar with WordPress now that I switched to blog over from Google. It’s been a huge learning curve.

I can’t say that I have a whole lot of experience with Passiflora, but I do grow a few different ones every year. I would say to first find out what species you have, as some are true warm-weather tropicals, and others able to withstand colder temperatures. Most do well in temperate zone like Zone 5 in the summer, blooming late in the season, but as a cool greenhouse plants, I am not certain what the limitors might be. Is it planted in the ground or in a pot? And, how hot does your greenhouse get in summer? I would check the light requirements as well, as I discovered that my vines never bloomed when I used shade cloth (60%), but they did bloom with 40% shade cloth. There are just a lot of variables. Red flowered forms, I believe like warmer summer temperatures and prefer to grow under glass, blooming in summer. It’s a big genus, so plenty of diverisity. This year I grew the yellow flowered one (from Logees), P. x citrina, which is a hybrid but which bloomed well all summer. Most, of the tropical species however prefer not do drop below 50° F. Cool growing, marginally hardy ones can drop to 40 without loosing vigor. The best advice I can provide you is to first see if you know the name of the hybrid or the species you have, and start from there. Looking for minimum temperature requirements, and height. Also, check to see if your greenhouse has double pane glazing as sometimes that reduces or eliminates UV light. I know, as with Acacia trees, this can inhibit blooming.

Helen is just the best, isn’t she? Plus, it’s about the only place where you can find most of these plants that I talk about (the rare annuals). Walker Farm near her, also often carries good annuals like salpiglossis. I highly reccomend them.