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Carried away pruning a passion flower
I pruned my outdoor passion flower hard back to its main central stems, but I am worried that I may have got carried away. Will it recover?
Passiflora caerulea is practically indestructible once it’s established. Even if you have pruned a bit too hard, it’s likely to produce new, vigorous shoots from its base. With luck, it will be in full flower by late summer and go on well into autumn.
A good routine with passion flowers is to prune them to the ground every few years when the top-growth has become tangled or too woody and old. If your stems produce sideshoots over the next few weeks, you can leave them be, but if they are sluggish to revive, and if there’s plenty of growth from the ground, I’d be inclined to cut the remaining old stems away and allow the plant to start again.
Early spring is the best time for pruning hardy passion flowers, but feel free to trim the plant while it’s in full growth in summer.

