Incense is generally vigorous despite the latent virus--it's only when the plant is already stressed that the virus manifests itself.

With incarnata and Incense, both of those like well-drained soil. They also love lots of sun. Either of those two reasons may be why they aren't doing well for you--for me, they're growing like crazy.

You might look into some of the Tasconias, such as mollissima or other mountain-evolved species. They tend to tolerate cooler, moist conditions and don't like extreme heat. I'd recommend cchecking out either Vanderplank's or Ulmer & MacDougal's passion flower books (you can get these through your local library via interlibrary loan) for ideas on what may or may not do well in your specific climate.

Thank you. I would love to grow a Tacsonia, and I can tell you they do splendidly for 9 months of the year. Then they freeze to death. They only take a few degrees of frost, even the ones growing at extremely high elevations. The climate in the equatorial Andes is just too stable to promote much tolerance for a week of frost.

The only one we might be able to grow here is...unavailable naturally...Passiflora pennatistipula, a native of Peru and Chile that occurs far enough south in Chile to experience mild frosts and winter rain. I think there is another in southern Brazil worth investigating.

The problem with P. incarnata and its hybrids is probably that it is practically a tropical plant that ranges into hot-summer temperate climates as a freezeback. I think it probably would prefer hotter summers than I actually have. It actually does bloom tho, on wee vines about 18 inches long.

Here's another promising species: Passiflora tucamanensis aka P. naviculata. Supposed to be hardy down to -15C, AND have a palatable fruit. Seems to be in cultivation in Europe but not in the USA.

www.passionflow.co.uk rates P. actinia to -8C. That would make that one another possibility.

I have the first edition of the Vanderplank book.

Sorry to hear about the Tasconias. For some reason, I mistakenly believed the Seattle-area winters were milder than they apparently are. I'm wondering if some varieties of foetida might do well for you. Gossypifolia (currently being discussed on another thread) is native to zone 9 in Texas, but I know they get occasional hard freezes down into the Rio Grande Valley that doesn't seem to bother it much, and it does well enough here in zone 8 when planted out. Although its native habitat is the drier regions of South Texas and into Mexico, it's normally found in ditches and low-lying area that collect rainwater and runoff, so as long as you have some place for it that's well-drained, it might do okay.

You might also check with Myles Irvine at the link below. Britain has a cool, wet climate, and apparently they have difficulty getting incarnata and Incense to grow there as well. Anything he has that flourishes outdoors in that climate may well do fine in yours. It's worth a shot.

Here is a link that might be useful: Passion Flow

>>For some reason, I mistakenly believed the Seattle-area winters were milder than they apparently are

Most people think the other way around--that it must be about as cold as northern Maine because of the latitude. The mountain ranges block most of the coldest interior weather, and the water offshore is warmed by the Japan current. My lows are probably higher than yours BUT...of longer duration! You probably get frosty nights followed by warmish days. We can get a week and a half of freezing weather here. The real problem tho is that the peak of our rainy season is late autumn early winter, meaning that a lot of plants have tissues that are saturated with water when the cold hits.

I did have a look at Mr. Irvine's website. He's got descriptions of a lot of the newer hybrids, which is how I found it when I googled their names.

You're right; the climate here is close enough to that of the UK that anything that does there does well here, and vice versa, with a few exceptions. My climate is slightly warmer but also slightly less equable, and the rainfall here is very seasonal, like a cooler version of a Mediterranean climate.

I read your bio. Fruit and nut trees, eh? Well, I live in the city but I have a good-sized lot as city lots go, and I have squeezed in a mini-orchard. I'd love to grow nuts, too, but those are usually big trees, except for the Hazelnut/Filbert. It would be fun to grow a Gevuina--Chilean substitute for Macadamia nuts (same family, but a hardier Chilean version)--but I can't find any cultivars selected for big nuts and the default is hardly as big as a cherry pit. My fruits are Peaches, a Nectarine, an Apricot, a sweet Cherry, Strawberries (including a wild native, F. chilensis), Raspberries, Blackberries (including "Marionberries"), Black Currents, Gooseberries, and Arctic Beauty type Kiwis (they're better than the fuzzy kiwis, which also grow here). I technically have a "Pineapple Guava" (Feijoa sellowiana aka Acca sellowiana) but it got a bad case of Phythophthora last year and might not live much longer. Ugni molinae ("Strawberry Guavas" aka "Chilean Guavas") also got the Phyto and will need to be replaced.

I think Passionfruits are probably a dream up here, but we'll see what I can come up with. P. carulea produces its fruits with abandon but they don't have enough pulp to bother with. Yes, it's too bad about the Tacsonias because I've heard they have the tastiest fruits.

Judging from the posts I take it that a lot of the contributors here are amateur lepidoterists (sp?). I'm too far north for those kinds of butterflies; all we get here are common ones like Swallowtails, Angel Zephyrwings, and Cosmopolitans.

Hmmm...I followed one link to another link and discovered we have another common interest.

Pleased to "virtually meet" you.

In all honesty, I too thought that Seattle was frigid until just a few years ago, when I learned better. I'm also a big fan of Mike Grell's Green Arrow run, which was set for the most part in Seattle.

We moved into a new subdivision three years back, so everything growing here was planted in that time. The only nut tree I have is a three-year-old Cheyenne pecan in the front yard. I'm not that keen on this particular cultivar, but had to settle for it when the Nacono pecan I'd planted the previous year died and I needed something green and leafy to replace it with, post haste. In the back yard (not huge, mind you) I have a Gala apple tree, a Moonglow and a Warren pear, plus a Methley and a Santa Rosa plum. A Mollie's Delicious apple died from root rot a year ago, and I need to replace it. The Santa Rosa isn't all that happy. The Methley's growing great guns, and with the cold weather we've had this year, I'm hoping for my first decent crop of plums. The Gala blossomed last spring, but didn't set anything--maybe this year will be different? I've read that it will self pollinate occasionally, which is what I have to hope for until I can get another apple started. I also planted a fig last fall, but I don't know if it's making it through the winter or not--the weather's been a little rougher than normal.

All three of my incarnata set fruit last year. One, with a small vine and small (2") flowers, set three kumquat-sized fruit. But it was an effective pollinator for my second one, which had 3" flowers and set a bunch of fruit the size of kiwis. My third incarnata, which I collected from old rice field/strip mined land about 60 miles west of Houston, produced huge flowers 4" across and lots of fruit the size of goose eggs. One of the fruit I suspect came from a cross with my caerulea, since it was mostly hollow, with only a dozen or so mature seeds inside. Interestingly enough, my caerulea didn't set any fruit last year--but my Incense set half a dozen, although they were all hollow.

This spring I plan on putting a Lady Margaret and an Amethyst in the ground in favorable (I hope) microclimate spots. We shall see what happens with those. I'm also hoping to get an incarnata var. Alba, but it's not an urgent acquisition.

What other interests do we share? I'm all over the place as far as that goes. :-)

I love Pecans. I buy 'em in big bags from Costco. Actually I like most kinds of nuts, although Brazil nuts taste bland to me.

All your fruits perform well here, although figs are best selected carefully here for reliable ripening. "Latterula" aka "Italian Honey Fig" is probably the most common here (and they are very common).

My mini apple is a Fuji, and it is self-fertile. I think self-fertility is pretty common among apples, so yes, probably yours will be partially self-fertile. My son's high-school teacher is former farm-boy whose father bred the Cameo apple.

Is New Braunfels warm enough to grow things like Feijoas? One of my favorite fruits. I think there are actually cultivars of Musa xparadisiaca that would fruit there too. 'Rajapuri' is supposed to be cold-hardy and one of the tastiest (never had it...hearsay).

I'm trying to figure out if my "Lavender Lady" survived. The base is still green but it might eventually rot. Doesn't help that I tried mulching it and the mulch turned to goo.

I'm surprised you're not getting more Passionfruits in a climate with summers that long and hot. A fellow I know in North Carolina sent me some natives along with some Passionfruit jelly! He said they grow like weeds, and aren't picky about soil or site.

>>What other interests do we share?

Writing fantasy. I am trying to use it as a vehicle for writing educational fiction. I'm not a professional, don't have much experience yet, and haven't read enough fiction of any kind to get ideas for style and how to resolve certain technical problems. It seems like a good idea for what I am trying to accomplish, tho.

>>I'm all over the place as far as that goes. :-)

Yes, I noticed after following several links to find your home page. I sent email to an address listed on the page.

P. incarnata grows wild here in northwestern 'Bama, and fruits all over the place!

My incarnata fruited plenty. The other species I have didn't, but it's possible they haven't established themselves enough yet. My 3-year-old Incense did set half a dozen fruit towards the end of the growing season, but they all proved to be hollow. It'd never done so before, despite 100 or so attempts at hand-pollination throughout the previous two years.

My Amethyst has set several flower buds amongst the new growth. I'm hoping to get it to cross with something this year as well.

Hello, msbatt. Pleased to meet you.

Howdy, back atcha! (*grin*) My Amethyst flowers its' head off, but it's never produced any fruit. My foetida made LOTS of fruits, but they were all hollow. During the summer months, I grow several different passies in close proxmidity, so it's not like there isn't a pollenator nearby. Wonder what's up with that???

I don't know. I know most Passionflowers are self-sterile but I see all sorts of odd behaviors.

Maybe some of them pollinate best with the same species but a different seedling. This might be a problem unless they are all seed raised.

One of my P. incarnatas produced a pod seemingly without being cross-pollinated which threw me for a loop. Not much pulp but there was a little, and a few seeds.

I too am one of those who can't help but be perennially optomistic that one of the Tacsonias will be hardy enough for us, or that eventually someone will develop a hardy hybrid from one of them. I don't have a huge amount of experience, but I have found P. mixta to be a little hardier than the other Tacsonias. For me it seems to live down to about the mid-20s instead of dying off in the upper 20s. Granted, that's not a really spectacular performance, but perhaps it's something....

I think P. x 'Incense' is invariably stressed in our climate because it would rather be somewhere hot and humid. I tried it a couple times, with no luck. P. incarnata, in my observation, is a magnet for slugs.

I'd really like to try P. pinnatistipula as well. I think Chiltern used to have seeds of it a long time ago.

I googled Passiflora tucamanensis aka P. naviculata - sounds cool!

I have Gevuina avellana in the ground for about 6 years, no fruits yet. It is in too much shade and just grows straight up.

Hello, Ian.

The Gevuina at the UW arboretum regularly sets seed now. The staff at the Patricia Calvert greenhouse told me about it, and they sell what are probably seedlings of it. But I'm holding out for one that has been selected for bigger nuts.

I corresponded with a Passionflower grower who says that a few of the hardier Tacsonias seem to be possible against the shelter of a wall in Portland. As you already know, tropical alpines are usually tempermental in our climate...so I'm holding out for one of the more southerly species.

She also suggested a few other species and hybrids. I am fairly confident that we can grow something more colorful than P. caerulea--although I do like P. caerulea.

If I get one I'll try to let you know how it does.