The Lessons of the Passion Flower Vine are this: Every spring you think it’s dead.
And, then, a small green/brown shoot comes out and slowly for a month it grows.
I was told to cut back this passion vine severely every fall, nearing frost. I mean down to almost the ground.
Around March, with the tulips beginning and the daffodils blooming, nothing from the passion vine. Nada.
You think for sure it’s dead and that so-called expert who told you to cut it back was a charlatan.
Then, end of March, the beginning of April, a tendril of the vine the size of your thumbnail is visible. Each day it grows. By June you have a dense vine and no blossoms. You don’t even see the buds of the flowers. You think, “Oh, great! I’ve got vine but no blooms.”
July and all of a sudden you see a bud. Then, another. By this time the vine has grown so dense, I have to drape it below the window and direct its growth over the white fence. It has fragile, light tendrils that absolutely attach to anything.
Then, late July, one morning you see a flower bud has opened up overnight! And, you need to photograph it that day as if you wait a day? It closes and does not reopen again.
There will be many more blossoms throughout August and September but no bloom is as delightful as that first one.
Jeff Hale composed the music for me!!
