I was seduced by a photo.
It was something I'd only seen once before, at a famous botanical garden, but never found the name.
The passion flower.
Sigh.
Not familiar with the plant family Passifloraceae?
Look it up, you'll understand.
In the spring I received a gardening catalog addressed to a former roommate. While idly flipping through the pages I saw it, the passion flower vine, for sale.
Thus began my first foray in purchasing plants from a catalog.
The vine survived over the summer on our balcony. Through my absences while it was casually cared for by roommates, through the beating sun and car pollution, in spite of a small container and less than optimal drainage, it survived.
I saw buds for those magnificent flowers form, but they never opened.
Sigh.
So what to do with the passion flower vine at the end of autumn? It would not survive the winter outdoors. I reused a larger plastic container for repotting and put that into a prettier freestyle green plastic planter.
It looked kind of spindly and sad. No fit state for a passion flower vine.
Then I remembered the two bamboo poles I bought at a garden center over the summer for no particular reason other than that they were cheap and seemed potentially useful...
Ta da!
 |
| a little peppier |
I placed the dark red sticks (leftover from found orchids) in the soil and attached them to the bamboo poles to act as anchors.
I reused the orchid accessories to tie the vine up, including the small green clip shown below.
We'll see if the passion flower vine likes its new indoor home.
Will there be a winter passion flower? Time will tell.
Happy gardening.