A passion flower update (and a shocking photo!)

I know you've been waiting on the edge of your seat wondering how my passion flower is going. So as to keep you not in wait any longer, I tell you, it's been a very successful year for the passion flower here in Jardin Encantado.

Planted at least eight years ago, if not ten, our passion flower has always done well. Dying back every winter, sometimes even to the ground, it always comes back. It can be tricky and not leaf out until late spring, making us think it's muerte. But it never is. 

But this summer? Banner year. Best ever. Tremendous. Shocking, really. Thanks to our mild winter last year, it didn't even die back hardly at all. And with our long warm summer? It completely covered the back arbor. Completely. Full shade. Shocking photo proof:

Photo taken from a second floor window looking down on the arbor. Can you see all of those blooms?! And yes, it's also climbing over the garage. It's a good thing we have neighbors who enjoy having it on their side of the fence, too.

Literally dripping with hundreds of passion flowers. Passion flower decadence. And then one evening while sitting at the table underneath the exuberance, I looked up and saw something round and orange. Lo and behold, it had produced fruit.


That is a first. And today, in mid November, blooms still abound on the vine. Year of the passion flower!