"Susan" wrote in message
news
Hi, David, perhaps you can help me? My passiflora caerula has one long
stem
about 10 feet long (I forgot to prune it when I planted it last year) but
there are absolutely no leaves on it. I think that it might have ceased
to
be; that it is an ex-passiflora. So, I'm wondering if I should cut it
right
back to about a foot from its base. If it is dead then obviously cutting
it
back won't make a difference. What do you think? Should I wait and see,
or
should I cut it right back?

Thanks.

I don't think it will make any difference whether you chop it back or not.
The only advantage is as per the original question in terms of getting rid
of the bare stem. It's still relatively early for it being ready to burst
into full growth. I find that they are semi-deciduous. If we have a mild
winter they hang on to their leaves and this obviously gets them off to a
good start. If we have a hard winter they get cut right back. This year was
somewhat in between and the leaves got a bit burnt so I decided to chop them
right back as they were a mess. I was a little worried that this might
expose stems that weren't properly hardened off but I am not concerned that
I will lose them completely. We live on the West coast on the tip of the
Gulf Stream so our Winters are fairly mild (I can just about be 100% certain
that I won't have a damaging frost from now on, although we can get cold
winds that have the same effect). My passion flowers are on an east-facing,
concrete garage and grow like weeds. They also flower abundantly which
doesn't tie up with some of the other comments. Possibly it's because the
soil that they are in is quite poor with lots of rubble at the base of the
garage wall. I always find it a bit strange that some plants need to be
starved into flowering whereas others need to be well fed. I guess it's down
to their natural habitat.


--
David Kirk, Workington, Cumbria
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