| Charlie Pridham comments:- ''Its been a while since we have exchanged a few words but I thought I would give you an update on the passiflora antioquiensis seed you sent me some years back. To start with the seedlings are a bit tricky and I found it best to leave them in the mist unit where I had germinated them until they were quite large. once growing however it is a rampant plant and flowers from late January on so long as it stays cool. my present trick (given me by John Vanderplank) is to poke the stems out through the greenhouse windows in February, the flowers hang in visitors faces as they walk under a climbing hydrangea! It is also very free to set fruit and I have at present 40 or 50 fruits hanging each 4-6" long, they taste not unpleasant but it was hard work getting anything worthwhile out of the ripe ones! Since the 15th of January in my unheated greenhouse it has never had fewer than 10 flowers at a time open and is still covered in buds. It did not however appreciate last winter (05/06) when the temps dropped to -8c outside and with no heat the greenhouse froze solid, it was April before the first flowers appeared. Now it has grown up (its about 12' high and 20' across) the peduncle length can reach 1M but is normally around 60cm. The only cloud on my horizon is the fact that like so many passiflora, mealy bug love it and keeping it clear is a constant fight.'' Here are some germination tips:- From my experience, germinate P. antioquiensis seed by presoaking in fresh passion fruit juice (P. edulis from supermarket sieved) for 48 hours in a heated propagator. This will ferment the juice. Then sow in a heated propagator without cleaning in a peat pearlite mix. I know this plant is notoriously heat sensitive but this does work. Once up remove from heat fairly quickly & pot up using a very light free draining compost - Greg Cunningham advises that Strybing Arboretum use 1/3 organic compost, 1/3 fine sand & small lava chips, 1/3 perlite for Tacsonia. That's the magic formula! See also general propagation info. These seedlings are initially very hard to keep going..they need a lot of humidity to start with & are slow to establish a root system. They are very susceptible to damping off in too heavy soil, I lost many seedlings through ignorance of what they needed. As with many Tacsonia some seed will come up quickly & others up to a year later. The seed are variable in speed of germination to maximize chances of survival in fluctuating conditions. Grown from seed it will flower in a pot within two years. Some clones, if not all, can self pollinate & the fruit are possibly the best tasting of all Passiflora, but take many months to ripen. | 
Passiflora antioquiensis germination/growing tips
