🌱 This is one of my favourite plants from the main tropics border. This is canna ‘General Eisenhower’ although it might originally have been ‘La France’. It is currently being sold as ‘Tropicana Black’. A stunning upright to 7ft plant and perfect partner for variegated arundo donax.

🌱 First proper flower from #passiflora lanuginosa. This pretty little hybrid is a close relative of P. foetida. Could be an interesting species for crossing!

🌱 Today’s 2nd banana story. Just 2 weeks before the first group is due to visit here’s another irresponsible last minute change. The 7ft musa basjoo has been rescued from relative obscurity and planted on the bank as part of the new bed we are calling ‘Banarnia’.

🌱 Today’s first banana story. Update on the flower on miss ‘Rajapuri’ Flower opening and bananas developing!

🌱 It’s neck and neck! Which of these #passiflora I grew from seed in January is going to flower first? P. pentaschista or P. lanuginosa The next few days will tell!

🌱 I’m still making my mind up about this one. #Passiflora ‘Beauty of Hannover’ (and yes it appears to have been registered with a spelling mistake!) is hardy, very striking & feels as though it should be a good partner to P. ‘Snow Queen’ but it seems quite shy flowering. We will see!

🌱 A quick video on how to get your exotic passionflower to produce flowers. This video features: P. lanuginosa, P. umbilicata, P. pentaschista, Open pollinated hybrid of P. racemosa ‘Buzios’, Open pollinated hybrid of P. ‘Annette’, And a trowel being knocked off a stool (audio only)

🌱 The very lovely #passiflora ‘Pretty Tina’, a hybrid of P. tarapotina and P. caerulea by Martin Drews. After an early burst of flowering it went into a bit of a decline, but is just getting going again.

🌱 Using offcuts from our bamboo structure in the back garden and rope left over from the original, we made this swag thing for the rose we rescued from Dawn’s dad’s garden. It will also hide the new tanks going behind the wall to raise our rainwater storage capacity from 3000 to 4500 litres.

🌱 #Passiflora ‘Fata Confetto’ is one of the best. It is almost hardy, so perfectly suited for bedding out, easy to propagate, beautifully scented and the fruit are edible. A hybrid from Maurizio Vecchia.

🌱 #Passiflora ‘Annette’ is a night flowering delight. It is P. ‘Kew Gardens’ back crossed with P. racemosa*. *now known as P. princeps

🌱 Quick update on banana progress. If this is musa rajapuri, as it was sold to us about 8 years ago, then the bananas will be edible. Watching this will become an obsession! Patience needed!

🌱 Today’s passionflower is one of our absolute favourites. This is P. x belotii (a hybrid of P. caerulea with P. alata) - large flowers & a sensational scent. The first exotic passionflower we got back in 1996. This one thrives in the greenhouse or bedded out for summer. 5 flowers open today!

🌱 Something relaxing for a Tuesday evening. Our hardy passionflower hybrid P. ‘GK2’ on the fence behind the greenhouse.

🌱 About a week ago I posted a photo of our musa rajapuri with a smaller leaf and a bulge in the stem. I predicted that it would next throw out a very small leaf as a prelude to the flower emerging. And here is that mini leaf!

🌱 This is #passiflora lanuginosa, which is very similar to P. foetida - hence love-in-a-mist fuzziness around the bud. This was grown from seed sown in late December so at only 6 months old it is developing flower buds on its giant hoop based on two 4ft canes and 2mm aluminium wire across the top.

🌱 Passiflora triloba producing a leaf that lives up to its name! Seed grown then grafted to P. caerulea rootstock making it much less fussy about temperatures. Its flowers are spectacular & one day we might see them (it needs the stem to grow very long first, so a few more times round the supports!

🌱 Here’s #passiflora ‘Vivacious Velvet’, a hardy hybrid we raised by crossing P. ‘Domingo Martins’ with P. caerulea. It’s similar to P. ‘Purple Haze’ and P. ‘Purple Rain’. Currently rampaging along the fence with its numerous well scented flowers.

🌱 Well this looks exciting. For the first time in 10 years our musa ‘Rajapuri’ is showing early signs of flowering. If it is genuinely ‘Rajapuri’ then it will produce edible fruit. The clues are a smaller leaf emerging and the first signs of a bulge as the flower is pushed up inside the stem.

🌱 #Passiflora cocuyensis ssp ‘Nova’. I love it nearly as much as the red spider mites do!

🌱 And now for something a little bit different. Still a passionflower but with copious little pink flowers and healthy looking bat shaped leaves. Seems very resistant to red spider mites although mealy bugs can be an issue (easily blasted off with a sprayer). Can be bedded out for summer.

🌱 A little bit of ‘Monika Fischer’ to brighten up your day! #Passiflora ‘Monika Fischer’ a lovely polyploid hybrid by Dr Roland Fischer

🌱 Red Alert! Incoming time lapse…

🌱 Say hello to my little friends! Picking off infested leaves & washing with water has kept red spider mites under control, but with extra growth reinforcements will be needed. The barbarian horde has arrived & at my command these warriors will unleash Hell! Phytoseiulus Amblyseius Andersonii

🌱 Hard to tell apart by looks alone, excellent #passiflora hybrids P. x belotii & P. x allardii are a must have for the passionflower enthusiast. Both highly scented but x belotii has a heavy sweet almost narcotic scent whereas x allardii is more of a sharp citrus scent. You need both!

🌱 Our extended rope swag thingy for tacsonia #passiflora is starting to fill up. In an ambitious move we have doubled the length of the structure & quadrupled the number of plants. We have 2 of this downward hanging Barbie-Pink & 2 of the orangey form that Dawn showed off on Gardeners World in 2024

🌱 Up early this morning I was able to catch a couple of shots of the gorgeous, night flowering, bat pollinated (hence asymmetrical stamens for depositing pollen on heads), free flowering and easy to grow #passiflora galbana before it closed. The perfect passionflower for any vampires out there.

🌱 All the outdoor #passiflora are starting to go crazy. Here is our hybrid of P. ‘ Purple Passion’ which we are planning to register soon. This is the hardy, vigorous and free flowering P. GK2’

🌱 #Passiflora ‘Snow Queen’ passes the 100 threshold with just over 120 flowers today. It will storm on through the season and will probably near 10,000 in total by November (and no, I’m not going to count them all!)

🌱 The old ones are often the best! This #passiflora ‘Victoria’ is a vigorous and free flowering delight!