Passion Flowers Do Not Like My Garden

[MelaniesLaugh]

I love Passion Flowers. I think there’s nothing prettier than a fence covered in the flowers. However, I can’t grow them.

Last year I planted my first one and it died. I blamed DH because he allowed it to dry out when I was away for two nights and it was really hot (of course!). But I didn’t want to give up so I planted another this year.

It hasn’t grown at all, it’s been nibbled by leaf-cutter bees and the leaves are a disheartening yellow colour. I’ve fed it, with long lasting stuff plus tomato feed when I fed my roses, watered it, but it is just one measly stem growing up and then going into a sort of sad looking T

It is in full sun. Soil is clay.

Do I have to admit defeat and not have a gorgeous Passion Flower and instead have another Jasmine as that does grow in my garden!

They are thugs, the fruits are messy, do not do it!

I’m so jealous! I planted mine two months ago and it’s done sod all apart from look pathetic

My mum's NDN had one planted on the outside of her [the neighbour's] house wall. It grew vigorously along the front of her and also my mum's house - then my mum found a passion flower shoot growing out the top of her living room skirting board...

You've been warned. If they go, they really GO.

I have also had a passion flower (at the bottom of my garden, I'm not daft) and it was so rampant I had to take it out. It was beautiful but terrifying in its determination to dominate the world. You might find it's quietly laying down a root system (that will also enable it to pop up a metre from the original planting site), rather than building on its stem structure...

I bought a lovely coneflower and it didn't come back the following year. Same with balloon flowers. I usually don't try again if something doesn't work. Most things are fine but I assume some things don't like my garden.

@ShodAndShadySenators
I'm going to kill this before it kills me!!!!! 😱😱😱

It only went in the ground about a month ago 😳

I’ve got one in a post going great guns. One in shade/sun that’s been rubbish for the three years it’s been in, and one in bright sun that is doing well in terms of growth, but no flowers really.

@Beachtastic Cripes! Er, on one hand it's nice to see something that really likes your garden, but on the other...

As an aside I'm also in the NW of England and mine proved very robust indeed and simply laughed off any frost and wind. On the plus side, digging it out wasn't too bad, but after I'd done it I did see shoots popping up a metre away from the original site, which I hadn't anticipated!

That's why I'm digging it out tomorrow 😜

I daren't leave it a moment longer!!!

I'm going to replace it with a clematis Sieboldii, which to my horror (according to the RHS) is also known as "passion flower clematis" 😳😨 but hopefully has a different nature!

The annoying thing about the passion flower is that despite its vigour, there aren't really many flowers - or at least, there are, but they seem to hide themselves. What you do notice are the clinging tendrils, like little coiled springs, which I think demonstrate its essentially evil nature, like the ring of hooks on the head of a tapeworm.

I'm going to dig it up and replant it along a public footpath under cover of darkness!

So I've dug up the offending passionflower and put it in a pot ready to stealth plant along a pathway somewhere in the dead of night.

It was about 4 metres long, and difficult to extricate from the support mesh because some of the tendrils had wound themselves round it 8 or 9 times (see pix)!

I've just discovered that at this time of year, the plant can regrow from even just a small piece of root left in the soil 😱

Be careful what you wish for!!!!!!!!!!!

put it in a pot ready to stealth plant along a pathway somewhere in the dead of night Please tell me you're joking about this bit... you really CAN'T do that! Not even to someone you don't like!

I also have a Clematis sieboldii but mine is very much more timid than the RHS proclaim. Clearly it doesn't like where I've planted it and is hanging on to life grimly by its hypothetical little fingernails. It's done better this year than many, it liked the early sunshine, but Mile A Minute it is not...

I don't mean someone else's front garden, I mean a pathway "in the middle of nowhere" as it were...! I just can't bring myself to just chuck it off a cliff, even if it has proved its evil nature.

I have form for this: years ago, I was wondering what to do with some bulbs I hadn't got around to planting before leaving the UK for a few years. I got up one misty dawn to plant them around the base of an elderflower on my favourite bridle path. Didn't expect to see anyone, as it was barely light, but a man walked past with his dog and muttered "Takes all sorts!" 😳

Have a horrible feeling you're right about the clematis, but at the moment feel I'd rather have timid than monstrous!

I've had three all died / The best one was a HomeBase plant which grew like Billy-Yo but didn't survive the hot summer . After my third one , I gave up.
I have a Hop , it grows well , not a pretty plant but it got flowers last year .

I had a fabulous passion flower that grew on the back of my house for years. When we had an extension I relocated it but it didn’t survive. I’ve tried many times to grow another passion flower but they never last more than a year.

I'm fairly sure it's illegal to plant non-indigenous, potentially invasive plants in the wild. It'll seem cruel and brutal but please put it in your garden waste bin or the garden waste area at the tip instead. Unless you know somebody who needs to cover a crime scene a la Agatha Christie (Polygonum best for this, but keeping up with the times...) or blanket an 100 yard eyesore?

Ooh heck - I hadn't thought of that! 😞

I will dispose of it responsibly - it will go on the compost heap, but will first bake it in the sun for a couple of weeks. I don't trust it not to come back to haunt me!

I’m in NW and got the right spot and mine has thrived for last 5 years, but in a pot

I’m quite new to passion flowers but mine seem to be doing quite well. I think probably best to get bigger pots, spend time attaching to wire or trellis to give them a head start and I was watering daily and now every couple of days. I chose a passiflora from the hardier end.

@ShodAndShadySenators I'm fretting about this now, was it a crime to plant bulbs under an elder tree on a public path? I'm praying it's not like saying "Look children, I've brought you some lovely pet rabbits" in mid-19th century Australia 😳

I no longer have to torture this plant to death and then compost it! I have found a willing victim recipient.

Path-side bulbs are pretty ubiquitous and afaik often ‘officially’ planted. Not really a ‘natural’ space, usually. There are some bulbs that definitely would be a bad idea to plant eg Spanish bluebells or three cornered leek (the latter has specific restrictions, don’t know about the bluebells). But I can’t imagine many people worrying about a few daffs.

To be perfectly honest, I doubt they ever came up! I have no idea why I imagined the ground beneath a well-established elder tree surrounded by brambles etc would be as soft at Alan Titchmarsh's raised beds. One day I will have to go back in spring and have a look!

Nor mine! Our ndn has a prolific one that teases us draping over the fence but cuttings don’t take our side.

I don't suppose so, our councils often do that sort of thing already, plus local gardening groups. It's more the invasive non-native species that create problems, like Himalayan Balsalm. I would class passiflora in the problematic group, so I'm glad you've found a mug lovely home for it!