How far apart for passion flower vines?

[snowbunny]

Hi, I'm in the early stages of planning a garden for a house we're hoping to buy in Spain.

Around the house, there is an acre of land which is fenced off from the rest of the farm, which is where we would make our garden area. At the moment, this is partly a whitewash and terracotta tile wall, which is pretty as is, but then largely an ugly metal fence. Despite being ugly, it is very sturdy and we wouldn't want to replace it, due to the cost of doing so, so I'd hope to cover it with pretty climbers.

I'm thinking of a couple of varieties of Morning Glory, Clematis and Passion Flower. However, I can't find any information on how far apart we'd need to plant the passion flowers (passiflora caerulea). I know they're very virulent, but not sure what this actually means in terms of getting the fence covered in a relatively short time (3-5 years). I could take cuttings or use layering to propagate what I plant in the first instance, to fill in any gaps.

[DannyK]

Depends how well it grows. Have seen one cover a 20 foot wall.

Fruit of caerulea insipid. Try incarnata whose fruit is commercially grown.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passiflora_incarnata

[snowbunny]

Depends how well it grows. Have seen one cover a 20 foot wall.

Fruit of caerulea insipid. Try incarnata whose fruit is commercially grown.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passiflora_incarnata

Thanks for that. I was thinking of Passiflora Edulis, but I wouldn't be able to grow from seed this first year, because of time constraints, and I think I've only seen Caerulea plants in the garden centres. I'll keep an eye out for Incarnata, though. It would be nice to have edible fruits if feasible, but if not, I'm happy with the pretty flowers and covering my fence

[Nicos]

Not sure what my type of passion flower is, but it's what I consider the bog standard purple one.
It grows about 20 feet and you can trail it like a fan.
But....during cold winters it dies right back to the ground, and regrows the following spring.
Do you know how cold your winters will be?... And are you hoping to cover that wall at all times?

We had a winter flowering jasmine and winter flowering honeysuckle ( small flowers but large leaves) to cover several fence panels at our last house and the worked a treat.

[snowbunny]

Thanks for your reply. I'm thinking that, if I planted them twenty feet apart, then, they should easily merge into one another in time (ten feet in either direction) and, if needs be, I can plant another in that space.

Winters are very mild. The plot is inland and sheltered. We were there a couple of weeks ago in mid Feb, when it was -15C here in Andorra, and it was +20C at 7pm there.

We only need it covered in the non-winter months, because November to April we'll be up here in the mountains for the ski season.

I know honeysuckle grows well there with no intervention, because there's a huge one that has covered half the house, which hasn't been lived in for ten years, so definitely no-one has been looking after the plants! I love scented jasmine, too, so that's another great idea, thanks. I'd like to encourage bees, and they should do the trick as far as that's concerned. In future years, I might even consider setting up an apiary.

[Nicos]

Sounds like you have some lovely plans!