Penny,

I have this one. It is a low grower...doesn't grow UP but stays low to the ground. Mine does die back in the fall/winter but comes back in the spring. It doesn't get 'big' per se and it doesn't seem to grow nearly as quickly as the A. tomentosa or A. durior but the foliage is most pretty with the variegated leaves.

Where did you get the A tomentosa and A durior. From seeds or plants?

Penny

It will still take you a couple or three years for your A. tomentosa and A. macrophylla to really take off. I planted my A. macrophyllas directly in the ground last year, and they are growing roots, but not much top growth yet. I hope they make more of that next year (3rd year).

I planted my A. tomentosas in pots, and they are doing much, much better than the A. macrophyllas. I recommend, and I know MissSherry probably does, too, that you put your plants in pots for at least the first, if not the first two years.

I have my tomentosas growing pretty much 6 hours of sun; that goes for the A. macrophyllas, too (they may get a bit more shade than the tomentosas). Now it's been pretty cloudy and rainy in Oklahoma this year, and I may have to move the pots around once we start getting really hot; we'll see. But that's the nice thing about potted plants; you can move them around to suit them, and then you'll know where to plant them for optimum growth.

Susan

Penny,

I got both of mine from mail order as plants. :) If you want a picture, I'd be happy to show you what they look like.

Susan, you should see mine. They both took off like, well, WEEDS. In fact, this year I raised some PVS from Penny and both plants were eaten to the ground. Since then, they've come right back to full size. :) They are truly amazing. I wonder if it is the climate? Who knows.

I have both in pots. Here is the A. tomentosa the first year I had it. When I got it, it was this pathetic looking thing because it was in its dormancy. After a few months, it started looking great. Right now, it is super lush.
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To give you an idea of the height, there are two large tomato cages, one on top of the other, with a large pole stuck through the middle inside the plant. This is how I am growing both the A. durior and A. tomentosa.

Thanks for the information. I also see it is in a special butterfly pot!

Penny

You must have the magic touch, or it's California weather or something. Mine are looking pretty good. Maybe I need to fertilizer more. The rain sure has washed a lot of the chicken manure and other fertilizers out of the soil this year. I'm just afraid that I'll over fertilize them.

My two PVS cats have made chrysalis's, so I am waiting for them to emerge - no more cats yet, thank goodness. I don't have enough to feed them. Hopefully next year, my macrophyllas will be really, really big.

They don't grow as fast a passion vines, I'll tell you. My P. ceurulea I bought this year is already about a 20' vine, and it was about 2' when I got it this spring.

Susan

Yesterday on a trip to the blackland prairie my perception of Aristolochia fimbriata as a small pipevine was shattered by the sight of plants that could simply not be described as a small vine. A proper description would have been lush, vibrant, and certainly no less than a medium sized Aristolochia, but these babies were more impressive in mere foliar mass than all of my pipevines except A. gigantea.

The leaves were huge, their spread was wide and dense, and the amount of foliage before my eyes coming from a single plant was in excess of all of my pipevines excluding A. gigantea. Greater than that of the A. tomentosa, A. californica, A. serpentaria, A. elegans, and the A. fimbriata growing upon my grounds.

The gardener who over saw these spectacular specimens had free range chickens roaming about whom de caterpillared the host plants. This could be the reason that these plants attained such great size along with the fertilization by manure.

My plants have always been eaten to the ground by pipevine or goldrim swallowtails several times a year. Also these received a good bit more sun than all of mine.

Well, I am going to plant some A. fimbriata in a very sunny spot up at the woods property.