What to do with a Passion Flower

[eskymo]

I'm not sure what variety of passion flower I planted, but it's in a pot at the top of our back stairs that lead down to the garden and is growing over the metal railings. I planted it quite late last year and it grew quite well but didn't flower. It survived the winter amazingly well as I never covered it with fleece or anything and it's in quite an exposed spot.

The thing is, I'm not sure what to do with it now. The clematis I've got planted further down died back completely in winter and I though it was dead, but it's come back to life with such vigour over the past few weeks. The passion flower on the other hand has just stayed the same. It has no new growth and no sign on new shoots anywhere.

I'm wondering whether I should prune it back to encourage it to grow.

Anybody had the same problme before or know how to handle PF's?

Please let me know.

[Lesley Jay]

Same thing here Eskymo. We planted a passion flower in the garden 3 years ago and it still hasn't flowered. So I would like to know if there is a trick to getting them to flower.

[poultrychat]

Mine has flowered for the last 3 years without any care at all, it is fairly sheltered though. I did look it up a while ago and apparently now is the time to prune it and cut out dead stuff but don't prune too heavily

[notmilk]

Our passion flower taken from a small cutting from the mother in law produced beautiful flowers last year. I have recently had to detach it from the fence because i replaced the fence - and then tied it back to the new fence and gave it a good soaking. Only time will tell if it flowers again but it seems to be not doing very much atm. Sorry that's no help at all!

[Janette]

Mine has done nothing yet this year but I seem to remember that it was a late developer last year. It seems to like being ignored and treated quite badly. Mine is also 3 years old and was covered in flowers and fruit last year.

[dragonz]

ours got ignored all last year and we had loads of flowers and fruit, it isnt really sheltered or exposed and we dont cover it in winter, it doesnt usually start doing anything until the end of may though

[eskymo]

I've just pruned mine a little and going to leave it. Thanks for all the advice.