Light at the End of the...Year

The Winter Solstice has passed, the days are getting lighter, and Pergola-tory is getting lit up too. For Christmas I received from my parents an "Infinity Light", which is a plastic lantern assembled from identical translucent pieces with a color-changed LED bulb inside. It's a little Scandinavia (e.g. Lego), but the pattern is organic and fits well among the Passiflora. While the air is still cool, I think I'll enjoy it from inside.

Happy Christmas and a Floriferous New Year!

This is my last post of 2012. I easily beat the pests back this year with the prior year's lessons. I added some new species and hybrids to the collection including some highly sought after varieties. And, I started growing some plants from seeds in my new pop-up green house. It has been a good year in Pergola-tory. 2013 should prove to be even more exciting. I'm going to get that hybrid registered - that's the goal. Until then, cheers!

Blue (Da Ba Dee)

I was planting the little plastic name tags that I ordered in the germination wells a noticed a new sprout in addition to the others. I have a bunch of P. tarminiana, just one (P. actinia x P. sidifolia) x P. actinia, and now  one little 'Blue-Eyed Susan' x 'Blue Bouquet'. That's [(incarnata × edulis) × (incarnata × cincinnata)] × [( P. amethystina × P. caerulea) × (P. amethysitna × P. caerulea) × P. caerulea] The others were all gifts, but this one is something I put together on a whim. Who knows if it will ever grow up, blossom, or look interesting, but it will be fun to wait and see!

Ton o' Tarminiana

I returned from another business trip to check on the sprout from the previous post and found 7 more sprouts coming up from the P. tarminiana trays. One of those 7 was already the height of the (actinia x sidifolia) x actinia hybrid sprout. The source of these seeds had warned me that P. tarminiana is like a weed. I am beginning to see why. I'm pleased to find that I'm at least doing something right with the seeds that were gifted to me. There are still a bunch of empty tray wells to go, but in due time perhaps I'll have some incubation trays stuffed with sprouts. I think I've solved the heating issues by insulating the bottom of the heater so that more heat is entrained by the trays and less via convection to the air. It's December, and these little plants are coming up like it's Spring!

Update: The count is up to 40 sprouts now!

Double Bonus Update:

Germination Elation!

I just posted yesterday that nothing was coming up in my seen trays. Well, I'm not often so happy that I was wrong, but this time I am! I did my morning rounds today and after pulling the lid off of one of the trays I spotted something neon green! It was a very small sprout, but it made me very happy to see. I wasn't a complete failure at germination! It's on the edge of the tray, so perhaps there's too much heat in the middle? I'll give it a few days before I drop that temp a bit to test the theory just in case. Even if this is the only one to come up, I'll be thrilled. My first mutant baby! (P. actinia x P. sidifolia) x P. actinia.

Two days later...

A few more...

Green House

Even though it doesn't get that cold here in Redondo Beach, CA with a mean low of about 50°F during the night, I figured that I would set up a green house to help some of the younger and/or cold sensitive plants keep their rooting. Passiflora cirrhiflora is in there and growing like a weed now. I have two spot lights, a 32 gallon trash can filled with water and a submersible tank heater for constant warmth, a tent fan, and a few timers to make sure things turn on and off as I desire. Together in the pop-up green house, the whole thing seems to be working really well. It climbs into the 80's during the day when the sun is coming through, and doesn't go below the 70's at night.

I have 4 trays of 72 seed wells that I'm trying to germinate in the green house. So far absolutely nothing has come up. Maybe it will take awhile, maybe the seeds are sterile, maybe I'm terrible at germinating seeds. I will have to wait and see what comes up if anything.

Serious Flora: Cirrhiflora

Well, I've really gone overboard yet again. I purchased through ebay.com a P. cirrhiflora. It's a rare find, and it cost me a pretty penny, but it should be a fun one to watch grow and bloom and hopefully fruit. However, it's not the best time of the year for an equatorial species that loves heat to be introduced to the fold. I'll have to and keep it warm and under grow lights for the cooler season here before I can let it run rampant in Pergola-tory in some iron rich lateritic soil.

The other half of the story is that I want to cross breed this one very much. It could be a difficult task since it's not of the typical families (decaloba: n=6 group, or passiflora: n=9 group). This is an n=12 and potentially without many compatible species. From what I've read, I think my options are:

• subgenus Tetrastylis
• subgenus Deidamioides
• P. arbelaezii
• subgenus Tetrapathea
• P. aurantioides
• P. kuranda
• P. tetrandra
• P. pittieri
• P. kawensis
• P. candida
• P. guatemalensis
• subgenus Dilkea
• subgenus Adenia

Great! I've identified them...now to find them. That should be interesting. I'll definitely have to put this to the Facebook Passiflora group for help. Until I can find a mate, I'll just have to wait out the Winter and hope for an early hot Spring.

Update: I found one! I picked up a P. tetranda from Grassy Knoll Exotic Plants today. Apparently it's pretty hardy, so if I can combine that with P. cirrhiflora, that might be something marketable.