Growing Passion Flowers
Answered by: Inge Poot
Question from: Eva Lee
Posted on: October 21, 2008

I recently covered my flower bed with cedar shavings, then noticed that my passion flower plant was starting to wilt and eventually dry off and died. Does the cedar mulch have an effect on the plant? Also do these plants need to be put inside for the winter?

Passion flowers like slightly acid soil. The soil should be sandy, well-drained, and fertile and when the plant is in growth, moist. 2008 has been a very wet year for Southern Ontario, Canada. If that is where you live and if you garden on clay soil, putting on mulch may have made the soil too wet and even less well-drained. The plant could have gotten some root rot. Before replanting make sure to augment the soil in clay areas with sharp builder’s sand and some well-rotted manure. American Passion flower can survive the winter in zone 6. This is found along the Ontario lake-shore in Toronto and westward to Niagara Falls and Detroit, USA, as well as Southern BC All other passion flower species have to be taken into the house in freezing weather.

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