I might have seeds for the blue, and I know I have seeds for the white.

I'm having trouble getting mine to grow. I ordered a live plant about 12in tall in May it was growing very well inside so in the beginning of July I transplanted it outside in a spot that gets shade in the morning but full sun from around noon until sunset. At first I was Worried it was going to die as some of the lowest leaves turned yellow. With some extra watering and a little miracle grow things turned around. However it really hasn't gotten much bigger. There are a few new leaves at the top but the plant can't be more than 18inches and show no signs of flowering. Something is also eating the leaves!! I have never had trouble growing plants before but this year it's all I've had! Can anyone tell me what might be eating the plant and how to make it stop? Should I just leave it alone, hope it blooms and comes back next year? Should I dig it up and re-pot it keeping it inside and try planting outside again next year? Thanks for your help in advance!!

We have trumpetcreeper vine in several places and, while it is more invasive than I like, the hummers do love it. The only place it is under-control is on the arbor down near the driveway gate and mailbox. There I have both the orange and yellow flowered trumpet creepers in unimproved, rock-hard red clay and the only irrigation they get is rainfall. In those conditions they stay fairly small and manageable and I don't have to prune them or anything. During a really prolonged dry spell they may even drop foliage and go dormant, but they always rebound when the rain finally starts falling again. The trumpet creeper plants I have near the house sometimes pop up in places where I don't want them, but I either dig them out, or smother them with cardboard and mulch. I have trumpet creeper planted around our in-ground tornado shelter, which sticks up out of the ground a couple of feet. It doesn't look that great in winter when it is dormant, but in the springtime, the vines totally hide the tornado shelter. Of course, I have to prune it back regularly to keep it from growing across the door. While trumpet creeper is not my favorite vine, I grow it for the wild critters and it is lovely in bloom in August when other plants are struggling in the heat. Another vine the hummers love is American Cross Vine. It is native in Texas and the hummers follow its blooms as they migrate across Texas. Here, the hummers sometimes arrive before my Cross Vine blooms so I can only assume they don't rely on it as they migrate across our state. We have wild honeysuckle in the woods, but I won't plant that kind of honeysuckle in the "civilized" part of our landscape. Here around the house I have a coral honeysuckle called "Pink Lemonade" that the hummers absolutely adore. It is blooming now on the entry arbor that leads into my veggie garden and the hummers are buzzing around it all day long. Dawn

John, This is more of a guess than anything--hopefully someone growing these in Southern California will speak up. It's to bad you can't try Tacsonias (I think). The possibilities that come to mind are P. vitifolia (or the closely related P. coccinea/miniata) and something like P. phonecia (aka P. alata 'Ruby Glow') or a relative. Both of these require pollination by another clone or different species, and I think you'll have to do it by hand. I've read that P. caerulea works for P. phoenecia and it might work for P. vitifolia or coccinea/miniata--I don't know. Patrick Worley, who has developed a big percentage of the most popular hybrid Passiflora (For starters, P. edulis 'Frederick', 'Red Rover' and 'Black Knight'), recommends his hybrid P. 'Elizabeth' pollinated by P. caerulea as a possibility. I'm waiting for mine to bloom, but I understand P. 'Elizabeth' is a beautiful flower and one of the best overall plants to grow. I've read elsewhere that it's fruit is marginal at best. Who knows. Since the flowers are supposed to be so nice it might be worth taking a chance on that. Worst case you end up with a very nice ornamental plant that does great in a pot. I'm not sure if your climate is appropriate for P. maliformis. Michael Kartuz would be a good person to ask if nobody here says anything. I believe the fruit of that one is tasty enough that it's sold commercially. I think your best best is to ask the place you are going to buy it from. Roger's Gardens in Newport Beach shouldn't be too far from you. Kartuz in Vista, a little more than an hour South would be a good place to try--Michael Kartuz is a really nice guy and has been selling great plants for many years. There are other nurseries in Vista and it makes a good day trip or a stop on the way to San Diego. For mail order I would contact Elizabeth Peters at Grassy Knoll Exotics--an incredibly nice and helpful person and she sells a huge number of different species and hybrids.