🌱 Some great scented passionflowers n the greenhouse today. Here is one of our latest seedlings, an open pollinated seedling from P. ‘Fata Confetto’ so far free flowering,robust and well scented. We will see how it overwinters &the glorious P. ‘Byte’ one of the best scented #passiflora you can grow

🌱 Lots of great colour from the #passiflora in the greenhouse. P. ‘Scarlet Flame’, P. ‘Pretty Tina’ P. ‘Pura Vida’ P. ‘Buzios’ (a form or hybrid of P. princeps - used to be called P. racemosa) All lovely but none are scented.

Some passionflowers: tacsonia hybrid - we have been growing this as P. ‘Coral Seas’ but it probably isn’t! P. ‘Michael’ - has done well this year. An open pollinated hybrid of P. ‘La Morellina’ - really like this one. P. ‘Vivacious Velvet’ our amethystina caerulea hybrid - great scent.

As the season winds down and day length, light intensity and temperatures reduce some #passiflora flowers stay open for 2 or 3 days giving some dramatic displays. Here are P. ‘Byte’, P. ‘Fata Confetto’ and a seed raised P. incarnata.

🌱 Some lovely #passiflora action today. Here’s P. ‘Pura Vida’ with really strong Autumn colour and the night flowering P. ‘Annette’ which can stay open all day when it gets duller and the days get shorter.

🌱 Better late than never! It’s not been a vintage year for our indoor hedychiums, my fault mainly as we have prioritised Passiflora. This is likely to be the only flower from H. maximum, the huge scented glory of autumn. More to follow as it opens. I will try harder next year!

One big #passiflora success this year has been this P. ‘Michael’ (P. x vitifolia x P. caerulea) with its huge red flowers. Although not prolific, it has flowered steadily through the season (with a few buds to come) and has remained healthy. I have now grafted some bits to P. caerulea rootstock.

🌱 This was a lovely surprise this morning. An open pollinated seedling from #Passiflora ‘Fata Confetto’ (seen in last pic) sown this spring. It is healthy looking and full of buds. The flowers are pretty, decent sized and have a good scent. I think this is a keeper!

🌱 Busy with gardening open today so quick share from yesterday. So here’s the magnificent #Passiflora x decaisneana (often missold as quadrangularis - but it’s a hybrid of that & P. alata and a much easier plant to manage) wonderful huge scented flowers. I’ve crossed it with pollen from P. ‘Buzios’

🌱 It’s red/purple day in the greenhouse. #Passiflora ‘Marijke’ (P. x decaisneana x P. caerulea) P. cocuyensis ‘Nova’ P. ‘Michael’ (P. vitifolia x P. caerulea) & P. ‘Pura Vida’ ((P. kermesina x P. caerulea) x P. princeps) Lovely! We even have a P. x decaisneana about to flower.

🌱 By far the two best outdoor hedychium to grow (beating Tara, densiflorum etc by virtue of great scent & long flowering - each inflorescence up to 2 weeks as opposed to 4 to 5 days) are ‘Devon Cream’ & ‘Corelli’. But which is best? No point disturbing Harry Hill with this one, just grow both.

Some wonderfully scented #passiflora in the greenhouse. P. x allardii (P. x decaisneana* x P. caerulea) P. x belotii (P. alata x P. caerulea) P. ‘Byte’ (P. ‘Byron Beauty’ x P. ‘Temptation’) P. ‘Fata Confetto’ (P. ‘Guglielmo Betto’ x P. cincinnata 'Dark Pollen'. *probably-published as quadrangularis

Some top quality colourful #passiflora hybrids in the greenhouse: P. ‘Michael’ (P. vitifolia x P. caerulea) P. x violacea ‘Victoria’ (P. caerulea x P. princeps) P. ‘Pretty Tina’ (P. tarapotina x P. caerulea) & our hybrid P. ‘Blue Nun’ (P. ‘La Morellina’ open pollinated)

🌱 As the days shorten, temperatures drop and the intensity of the sun lessens some #passiflora start to flower and some that have been flowering all summer like Cor Laurens’s recent P. caerulea x P. kermesina hybrid, P. ‘Beervelde’ and ancient hybrid P. ‘Victoria’ develop deeper colours.

🌱 First flower from a seedling that germinated outside from batch discarded a 2 years ago. Might be hybrid of P. ‘Fata Confetto’ (last pic with a bee on). Flowers are smaller & less fancy than ‘Fata Confetto’ but scent is excellent & it’s free flowering. Definitely a keeper! More to come!

If you missed us waffling on about plants on Gardeners World last Autumn or you haven’t been to one of our talks you have a chance to catch up today. You could visit us see here devonsubtropicalgarden.rocks or listen to Toby Buckland at on BBC radio Devon for a quick summary

🌱 Today’s #passiflora report Beautiful red P. cocuyensis ‘Nova’ The shocking pink flowers of P. x exoniensis A bee on a tiny P. tucumanensis &finally most excitingly a flower bud on P. X decaisneana (often sold as the species P. quadrangularis but most frequently you get this hybrid-a better plant)

🌱 #Hedychium ‘Tai Golden Goddess’ reminding us why it deserves its prominent position in the greenhouse. Lovely scent at a reasonable height (some require a step ladder to enjoy!)

🌱 From tiny plug plants to huge flowering monsters in 3 & a half months(if given ideal conditions) #Passiflora ‘Byte’ & P. ‘Fata Confetto’ are scented delights for your greenhouse/conservatory. Video on how to achieve this will follow at some point.

🌱 Ok, let’s do this! The sun is shining and there is plenty of cake! @ngsopengardens.bsky.social

🌱 I suspect that one of the most talked about plants on our open day on Sunday for the National Gardens Scheme will be this amazing ginger, #hedychium ‘Elgar’ (currently unofficial name) it’s a hybrid of H. ellipticum & H. gardnerianum. Scented and hardy it is glorious!

🌱 Here are 3 of our #passiflora hybrids in full flower today. P ‘Blue Nun’ - open pollinated hybrid of P. ‘La Morellina’ As yet unnamed hybrid of P. amethystina ‘Domingo Martins’ with P. caerulea. P. ‘GK2’ an open pollinated hybrid of P. ‘Purple Passion’ which turns out to be free flowering & hardy

🌱 If you’re in the North Devon area on Sunday, we have one of our National Gardens Scheme openings from 11am see here for details. devonsubtropicalgarden.rocks Plant sales and home cooked cakes and tea/coffee available. You also get entrance to our friend Gavin’s garden a couple of miles away!

🌱 #Passiflora ‘Pura Vida’ is a great plant. Ours grows up into the roof and dangles loose racemes of flowers down in flushes all summer. We have now taken a small cutting for the display shelf.

🌱 Caution - incoming rant! Was so disappointed to find Gardener’s World Magazine this month propagating the myth that eucomis are not hardy. They are hardier than many of the plants grown as hardy perennials (having shrugged off -18C and -20C for us in the big freezes of 2009/10). See alt text pic4

🌱 We have 2 forms of #passiflora ‘Buzios’ which was once considered pink form of the scarlet P. princeps but is now thought to be a natural hybrid, the second form (last picture) has flowers alternating with leaves before the terminal racemes whereas the first form has only the raceme after leaves.

🌱 From yesterday: #Passiflora ‘Sapphire’, John Vanderplank’s 1990s hybrid of P. edulis and more recently Martin Drews’s P. ‘Pretty Tina’ (P. tarapotina x P. caerulea) are both ‘must have’ hybrids. I need to take cuttings of both!

Just been out with my assistant on ‘bat watch’

🌱 We are moving into ginger season: #Hedychium densiflorum ‘Stephen’ H. densiflorum ‘Sorung’ H. ‘Tara’ And H. ‘Pink Hybrid’ - wonderful scent like the flesh of a peach. The other 3 have very little by way of scent. More wonderfully fragrant varieties to follow!

🌱 #Passiflora ‘Monika Fischer’ is one of Dr Roland Fischer’s tetraploid hybrids and is glorious. It’s gearing up for a flush of flowers in the greenhouse roof and has a developing fruit (probably hollow but 🤞) and I have taken some cuttings, which are keener to flower than to grow on.

🌱 Lovely passionflowers out today include: #Passiflora x belotii - we have grown a number of forms of this gloriously scented beauty. This one has huge flowers. P. vitifolia with its striking scarlet flowers. P. galbana vigorous and night flowering. P. ‘Fata Confetto’ pretty scented flowers.

🌱 After 7 years the rainwater collection tank covers need replacing. Proper UV proof covers are essential to keep the water clean so you don’t have to clear out algal sludge every other year. The right hand tank is empty now so we have about 900 litres in the store.

🌱 Our #passiflora vitifolia is loving its spot on the display shelf, its pylon style support and the extra shade in the greenhouse. You can see why I’ve been after one for years. Next challenge - overwintering (see upcoming grafting project)

🌱 Solanum pyracanthum is a lovely little thing. It has pretty flowers and fascinating spiny leaves. It’s not hardy but can be dug up and brought in. It also gently seeds itself into gravel paths etc

🌱 it is now ‘a couple of weeks later. Due to the distance between nodes and the difference in diameter between scion and rootstock it struggled and drooped as if to lose the leaf. Daily misting has kept it going. So far so good. The bit I cut off went into the hydropod propagator and rooted!

Cyclamen usually only shades of pink or white, so was excited to see this variant.

🌱 Hedychium ‘Corelli’ is a hybrid of H. coronarium and H. ellipticum. Grown under glass it flowers from late July while outside (where it’s perfectly happy) from mid/late August. It has a gorgeous citrus type scent and qualifies as our second favourite ginger.

These days it’s not uncommon to find that people you looked up to have feet of clay. Therefore I’m pleased to report that the attached is nothing more than a poor choice of words by the bookseller. Great new book from #RobertRankin

🌱 All our own work! All 4 of these #passiflora were grown from seed here in the last couple of years. See alt text for details. Once you have a small collection of passionflowers (and you know you want to) you can start breeding your own hybrids!

🌱 Here are some more top quality #passiflora hybrids - all have P. caerulea in their parentage: P. ‘Pretty Tina’ P. ‘Purple Passion’ P. ‘Beervelde’ & P. ‘Michael’

🌱 Some great things happening in the greenhouse. #Passiflora ‘Marijke’ ((P. alata x P. quadrangularis) x P. caerulea) with its huge heavy scented flowers and the very lovely (also popular with red spider mites!) P. cocuyensis sp. nova.

🌱 The passionflower we found mislabelled in a garden centre and identified as possibly P. vitifolia flowered today & is vitifolia! When i repotted it & wound it round a new support a length of stem was knocked off. Because this needs +14 winter min I grafted 4 bits to P. caerulea rootstock.

🌱 A bit of a bee food fight going on around #passiflora ‘Fata Confetto’ in the greenhouse. But ultimately there’s enough nectar for both and peace wins out!

🌱 By mid/late July the garden is fully into ‘Whoosh’ mode when everything reaches for the sky and things start to flower. More growth yet before we open, but so far so good. We will need to cull the canna ‘Society Belle’ at the end of the season as it’s becoming a bit dominant!

🌱 At a recent talk we were asked (in slightly accusatory terms) if the garden uses a lot of water. Due to the sort of plants we grow, it certainly does. But not much out of the tap. With these 2 tanks & a couple of large butts (no giggling at the back!)we can store nearly 3000 litres of rainwater

🌱 It’s time to release the director’s cut of my ‘Propagating Ensete bananas’ movie from last November with a new suspenseful ending which sets it up for a sequel.

🌱 About 6 weeks ago we collaborated with @trevorthebotanist.bsky.social who’d found an intriguing unlabelled passionflower in a garden centre. It turned out to be the elusive P. galbana.Now it has happened to us, I identified it as P. vitifolia which I’ve been after for ages see alt text for details

🌱 Grafting passionflowers is every bit as easy as taking cuttings. Those that are a bit tricky really benefit from being grafted to P. caerulea rootstock - 9 times out of 10 the difficulties come from root infections If you don’t have a tall propagator use plastic bag. Keep out of direct sunlight.

🌱 This is a seed grown #passiflora incarnata. It is allegedly hard but I have been bringing it into the greenhouse for winter. One that survived outside was late up but I think the problems was slugs rather than cold weather. I’ll leave this out and take a few precautionary cuttings this year.

🌱 Great time yesterday. We had an evening visit from the lovely people Goodleigh Horticulture Society. Unusually early time of year for us to have visitors but garden was going well and weather was perfect. Now we are booked to do an Autumn talk!