Growing in containers and extreme pruning

17 years ago

I only recently added a new cultivar of passionflower after having just the 'vitifolia' for years, and quickly found just a year or so after growing the first cutting of vitifolia to a large size, that an extreme fall pruning for its move into the small confines indoors quickly led to it's death. Perhaps too big a shock with removing nearly 90 percent of the new growth and having only bare stems left, but I'd guess some other species and cultivars will bounce back from that heavy pruning much more easily perhaps. I found leaving the pruning even for late spring here , with optimum light and temperatures outdoors for regrowth, that even then the new leaves signaled their displeasure and looked sickly and perhaps chlorotic, til sufficient new growth had occurred. At any rate I do keep back up cuttings after the fall pruning and it does look like the heavy pruning has once again just about finished off my poor vitifolia. I'd be curious if you folks in warmer climates in the U.S. have the same problem with the heavy pruning , or perhaps it more climate related than anything else? Obviously , when pruned here , those plants have just moved back indoors where light isn't as good etc. and perhaps that's the problem with the very slow regrowth? Oh well, but keeping them down to size may be much easier in theory than in practice. I would guess even grown outdoors , the vines would need periodic heavy pruning when those oldest leaves are naturally shed over time to leave lots of bare vines lower on their supports?

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Comments (6)

msbatt
17 years ago
Vitafolia is one of the ones that reacts the worst to heavy pruning for me, too, but all of mine look a bit sickly for a while after I bring them in for winter. I try to keep as much growth on them as I can---this year I managed to un-wind several FEET of my P. foetida off the fence, and it bounced back VERY quickly.

I do think having good light is very important---last winter was my first time with a greenhouse/sunroom, and I noticed they were happier faster.
birdinthepalm
Original Author
17 years ago
I must say , my east window is perhaps the poorest choice for one in midwinter, since I get nearly zero direct sun expect for an hour or so tops, and not bright indirect either the rest of the day, and on top of that with the many cloudy days this fall and winter , I shouldn't be surprised mine are struggling. They do love bright light, and even a fair amount of direct sun, but low light is not good!! I'd add I did anticipate perhaps a fairly fast recovering since fortunately, even after the pruning I had quite a few new shoots just starting low on the vines, and thought those would quickly respond to the tops being cut , and leaving the job to them to regrow. Now at this point, even those have about failed. Oh well, the new ones are rooted, and growing , though somewhat slowly still even under gro-lites. It does take a while for those new roots on the cuttings to get going I'd guess, and then---------, off they go!
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karyn1
17 years ago
I used to severely prune all my passiflora before taking them in for the winter. They limped along under fluorescent lights and bounced back when they went back outside. This year I invested in some HID lights and only pruned the vines that were huge (some were over 20') back far enough to get them inside. They are all doing great and continuing to put out new growth and blooming. I've had to continue to prune off new growth inside because it's getting out of control but I've been rooting many of the cuttings. I think the amount and quality of light is the determining factor in how they do inside, at least for my plants.
birdinthepalm
Original Author
17 years ago
I begin to think that most of the passifloras aren't very adaptible to a dormant "treatment" perhaps to keep them through the winter indoors, and light is critical after a heavy pruning especially. The problem last year , was that without a pruning in either fall comming indoors , and growing all winter, they were really huge comming indoors this year, with almost two years of new growth after the previous heavy pruning. I have learned , short of the heavy pruning to get more branching near the base, if you do train some of the vine to grow just sort of horizontal, those branches will usuall send new shoots lower down, so when you remove the upper parts you once again get lots of foliage so those lower stems aren't so bare looking. Mine always shed their oldest and lowest leaves periodcally, which I'd think is fairly normal even under optimum growing conditions yearound outdoors in warm climates, and it is nice to get some new foliage lower down , whenever possible
and one can then remove all the old growth all the way down to those new shoots perhaps with less shock to the plant overall!
jblaschke
17 years ago
I only pruned my vitifolia back a little--mostly to get material for cuttings. I'm moving it back and forth between the garage and the outside depending on whether or not the weather folks predict we'll get temps dipping into the 30s or not. Thus far the arrangement seems to be working well--the existing leaves are looking mighty spotty and sad, but the plant's put out three shoots of new growth, so I'm encouraged. With days getting longer now, I'm optimistic it'll be in full swagger come spring.

Of course, I have the advantage of being considerably farther south than most of you folks. That does make a difference.
sultry_jasmine_nights (Florida-9a-ish)
17 years ago
The only ones I dare to extreme prune of mine are the belotti. I have two of these and I have cut them way back twice and they are already huge monsters again. Last winter I cut back a lady margaret and it died ):_ I finally got another LM and I will never cut that one again. Mostly I just prune out the dead stuff. I have a vitrifolia, and as tempermental as its been for me, I dont dare cut it. It is on a bamboo teepee of sorts in its pot laced with fishing line for its tendrils to climb.It is about 10 ft tall- a royal pain to move around. I too am moving all my passiflora, along with some of my other tropicals from garage to yard because they are in pots - grrr that gets tiring lol, the neighbors prob. think I'm nuts...