Brian wrote:
"Dave Moore" wrote in message
...

My wife has a Passion Flower climber which 2 years ago she religiously
dead-headed as soon as the flower died off. Last year she did not
dead-head at all with the result that she did get a few fruits but the
number of flowers she received decreased significantly.
Does she just have a straight choice of flowers in abundance or fruit?

Or

is there some other factor in play here?
My thanks for any assistance given.
Dave & Karen Moore

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There is always this option. Take into account that the only
purpose of life is to reproduce and when this has been achieved, by
producing fruits/seeds, then the incentive to flower is lost. Dead heading
is always beneficial. Even fruit trees become biennial fruiting if permitted
to have excessive crops. Some apples are renowned for this.
Regards Brian.


If you encourage growth of the foliage early in the season by giving
them plenty of water then they will almost certainly produce many
flowers later in the season,......at least that's my experience.

They flower on this seasons growth so if you have nice long tendrils
you'll get more flowers.

I don't feed the plant (tomato feed is good) until later in the season
(mid-end july) at which point you get lots of flowers over august, just
plenty of water!

Jason

--
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