On Sat, 17 Jul 2004 09:04:30 GMT, "Matthew Durkin"
wrote:

Last year I grew a passiflora vitifolia from seed. I only had one shoot out
of a packet unfortunately. The plant is now about a foot tall and is
starting to form side shoots.
I'm now wondering how much cold this plant will take and if it would survive
a UK winter. It has been outside now since spring so may already have had
some light frosts - some of the leaves were burnt.

I don't know what part of the country you live in Matthew, but you are
very lucky to have a plant so young that has withstood being out of
doors. P. vitifolia is one of the more tender species and will often
stop growing at temperatures below 12C. Established, old plants can
withstand the occasional drop to near freezing, but will lose their
leaves and wait until a very warm spell before resuming growth. If
that warm spell does not occur for several months, the plant simply
gives up and dies.

It is a very tropical species that relishes heat and humidity and is
nowhere near as cold tolerant as Passiflora mollissima and far less so
than P.incarnata (Maypops). I can just about persuade P. mollissima
to overwinter out of doors here, but then we get very infrequent (if
any) very short and very light frosts. By contrast, I've had P.
vitifolia keel over and die by late October - even though I brought it
indoors the moment I saw that it was unhappy. 2 weeks of nights
falling to between 10 and 5C coupled with wet days not rising above
14C were enough to do for it. The stems blackened and nothing could
persuade the die back to stop.

My suggestion is to place your plant under glass where it will remain
at around or above 20C by night. This way you will get good growth.
I would expect a year old seedling to be around 6 or 8 feet tall by
now and its spell out of doors is holding it back. By all means place
it outside when it has reached flowering size and night time lows are
in the 15 - 20C range. By the way, watch out for red spider mites -
if there are any about, they will make a bee-line for your plant and
quickly cause the leaves to yellow and fall off.

Good luck with it - it is possibly the most attractive species and
certainly the most stunning.


Dave Poole
Torquay, Coastal South Devon UK
Winter min -2°C. Summer max 34°C.
Growing season: March - November