Develop a passion for this vine, but look before your leap to plant it
Vertical gardening with vines is tempting, especially when you grow out of horizontal space to use.
Vines are romantic looking, winding their way around trellises and arbors and across the tops of fences.
But, as the old saying goes, vines creep, then leap. Beware of where they can leap—and then emerge.
Purple Passionflower vine is one of those grand leapers. During its first year in a garden, passionflower is polite and prolific. The next year, passionflower turns into a rude runaway, sending its roots deep underground and into all parts of a garden.
Native plant expert Helen Hamilton of Williamsburg, Va., likes passionflower, too, and knows a lot about its good and bad behavior.
“The plant has deep roots and colonizes to form groundcover,” says Hamilton, co-author of “Wildflowers and Grasses of Virginia’s Coastal Plain.”
“In a controlled garden or flower bed, this viny plant should be located in a container, sunk into the ground.”
Intricate in design and looks, the vine’s three-inch lavender flowers have a fringe of wavy, hair-like segments, banded with purple and on top the five sepals and petals. Three styles extend from the ovary in the center of the flower, a unique arrangement that allows only large bees to collect pollen, according to Hamilton. Leaves are attractively toothed along the edges.
Purple Passionflower is a host plant for the Variegated Fritillary butterfly. Emerging early in the spring, female butterflies lay their eggs on the leaves of the plant and can produce as many as three broods through the year. Caterpillars feed on the leaves throughout summer and into the fall.
Growing in fields, pine woods and fencerows, the plant thrives in the southeastern United States, Bermuda and west to Oklahoma and Texas. The plant prefers rich soil but grows in any kind. Full sun produces abundant flowers; drainage can be moist to dry.
Passiflora is a large family— than 500 species of the genus, mostly vines, shrubs and trees of tropical America, according to Hamilton. Passiflora Society International — passiflorasociety.org newly discovered species and man-created hybrids. Native to South America and sold often in local nurseries, the leaves of nonnative blue passionflower (P. caerulea) have five lobes, not three.
Passionflowers were discovered by a Roman Catholic friar in Mexico in the early 1600s.
Chemists have found drugs in passionflower used to combat insomnia and anxiety, according to Hamilton.
Another name for passionflower, Maypop, comes from the hollow yellow fruits that pop when crushed.
The greenish-yellow edible fruit makes a tasty jelly. It is the official state wildflower of Tennessee, she says.