Growing Passion Flower: Tips at a Glance
Passion flower vines are a good choice to cover walls, fences, and trellises with their unusual blooms that look like miniature ballerinas dressed in frilly, ornate tutus.
- Type Flowering vine
- Lifespan Perennial
- USDA Zones 5-11
- Light Sun or part shade
- Soil Well-drained
- Water Regular drinker
- Design Tip Hide a wall
- Companions Firebush, cannas
- Peak Season Summer flowers
Passionflower: A Field Guide
Fast-growing vines like passion flower are the best friends of gardeners with small plots because they add texture and color without taking up much space.
There are more than 500 species of Passiflora, and most produce show-off flowers with otherworldly silhouettes: stiff antennas on central coronas, surrounded by 10 cray0n-colored petals. In one growing season a passionflower vine can engulf a fence, wall, or pergola with exuberant green foliage and prolific blooms. Though they lend a tropical air to a garden, passionflowers are hardy in colder climates, as well (depending on the variety they’re perennials in USDA growing zones 5 to 11).
“In areas where the vine is not hardy, it can be grown outdoors in a container in summer and taken inside to a bright spot out of direct sun during winter (when it should be watered sparingly),” notes our contributor Jeanne Rostaing.
To keep it in check: “Avoid having a passionflower vine, which can easily grow 20 feet or more a year, run rampant over other plants by attaching it to a trellis or wire frame,” suggests Jeanne.
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