Wait a moment- what? Let's back up and start from a seed. There is nothing inherently wrong about growing houseplants from seeds. Seeds are the foundation of civilization. Hell, which of us hasn't tried it with a lemon? (The results may vary, but are often thorny.) Lemons, avocados, apples, even an occasional squash and pomegranate, all these could be easily started indoors and left out for the summer. Some die off, others come back in to crowd us during the winter months.
Yet others come back with thoughts of a hostile take-over.
Passion fruit is right up there with pomegranate in terms of exotic indoor appeal. Tastes mighty fine, too. Back in kiddie years, I used to have a seed-started one that even bloomed on occasion. It was tiny, and cute, and eventually passed away from some illness or another. Or, possibly, mom forgot to water it once I left for that boarding school. Regardless, it was a passable houseplant, so I thought I'd give it another shot.
The question to the masses is such: are they injecting passion fruit seeds with steroids these days?
The plant above was started from seed in the first days of 2011 and left outside for the summer. It was then brought into the bed..er..plant room with the expectation that it would do the same thing as the seed-grown lemon- namely, sulk for four months and drop leaves by the handful. Instead, the passiflora tripled in size and is currently waging war on the adjacent jasmine. Needless to say, neither have yet to bloom.
On a completely unrelated note, here's a little update of a work in progress:
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