Passiflora is a genus that isn’t well known, the reason for this is that they don’t grow well in many countries climate. Due to this you rarely encounter them in garden centre. This is very pitty, because in a lot of countries there are quite a few possibilities to breed a lot of species of the passion flower. A lot of varieties aren’t frost resistant, but they do exist. Besides that, by creating new hybrids; the varieties suitable for the colder climates constantly expand. These new hybrids are usually created by private breeders. By doing this the group of passiflora which is suitable to grow in containers or directly in the garden will get bigger and bigger and also the availability of these passion flowers in garden centre can be expected to grow the coming years. In the Netherlands there is even an association of passion flower enthusiastics, called Passiflora Club Nederland. Furthermore the Passiflorahoeve settled in Harskamp, has one of the largest mondial collections of Passion flowers. Luckily a lot of passion flowers are suited to crossbreed with each other, through which a lot of new hybrids were made. Each year quite an amount of hybrids are created and by now there will be probably also around 600 different kinds of hybrids. Most of the crossbreeding is orientated towards frost resistant species and it looks like they are succeeding in that. However a lot of experience and knowledge is needed to come to satisfactory results. Luckily we have in the Netherlands several private breeders, who have enough experience and knowledge to create stunning hybrids, like Henk Wouters from Weert and Piet Moerman of the Passiflorahoeve. We have a large assortment of their hybrids in our web shop. Don’t forget to visit their websites, you can find them at our web links.
Next to that, they have a glasshouse with a unique collection of butterflies from around the globe. In the summer season you can visit the Passiflorahoeve daily (check the website for visiting hours).
There are a lot of websites were a lot of information is gathered. In a lot cases they go deep into the different species and the following subsections. On this website I don’t go into this, instead I want to show you a wide variety of passion flowers with the breeding technical possibilities.
Most of the passiflora species find their origin in South America, though there are some originated from countries like Africa, Australia and Asia. Passion flowers (also sometimes called passion vines) grow in several climate zones, from cool to tropical. In South America most of the species find their origin, within countries close to the Andes mountain range. Even on heights of 3.000m you can encounter passiflora, these are mainly Tacsonia’s. In the lower tropical areas you can find many beautiful colored species of passiflora. Each year new species are added to the list of known passiflora’s, discovered by passion flower enthusiastics who go in search for them in the remote areas. On this moment the list comprehends about 600 botanic species.