If you’re looking to expand your passion flower collection, you’ve basically got two main paths: starting from scratch with seeds or taking cuttings. To be honest, growing from seed can be a bit of a project—it’s a slow process and sometimes feels like a roll of the dice. If you want a sure thing, propagating from cuttings is much easier and usually has a way higher success rate.
Hand-Pollinating Your Blooms
If you’re up for a challenge and want to try the seed route, your first step is getting your plant to actually produce fruit. Since these beauties often need a little help in the romance department, you’ll likely need to hand-pollinate. Just grab a small paintbrush and transfer pollen from the flower of one plant to the bloom of another.
How to Harvest and Plant Seeds
If you’re lucky enough to see fruit developing after the blooming phase, here’s how you harvest and prep those seeds:
- Scoop the seeds out of the pulp.
- Give them a good, thorough cleaning.
- Fill some small starter pots with coconut coir or a similar seed-starting mix.
- Gently press the seeds into the surface. Don’t bury them! Passion flowers are “light germinators,” meaning they need light to wake up.
- Keep the soil and seeds consistently moist.
- Make sure they stay in a warm spot, ideally between 68°F and 77°F (20-25°C).
After that, the name of the game is patience. Passion flowers aren’t exactly in a rush to sprout, so don’t give up on them too early!
Propagating with Cuttings
If you want a shortcut to success, cuttings are the way to go. Look for a healthy side shoot that’s about 8 inches long. You want a piece that doesn’t have any flower buds, has no more than three leaves, and looks perfectly green—no brown spots or pests allowed. Use a sterilized knife or shears to snip it right at the stem to prevent any diseases or mold from moving in.
Once you have your cutting, dip the end into some rooting hormone and pop it into a pot filled with seed-starting mix or cactus soil. Just like with seeds, keep your new little clones in a nice, warm spot while they find their roots!
