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vajeff

Invasive passion flower eradication?

vajeff
12 years ago

I'm not sure just where to post this, but here seemed like the best spot since this plant is growing like a weed.

I grew passion flower from seed last year. I believe the variety is passiflora incarnata... the hardy passion flower you get in seed packets off the racks in retail locations. Anyway, it bloomed last year and stayed green all winter. It looked great! However, the downside is that I now have runners trailing everywhere within 7ft of the plants (yes, three of them). Unfortunately there are also azaleas within 3ft of the plants, and the runners seem to either go right through their root masses or cleverly skirt right around them. Either way, I have suckers popping up through the base of the azaleas and beyond. The worst, which seems to have grown 4ft underground in a month is now encroaching on my buddlei, daffodils, and lantana. I tried digging something or it up and found that some runners are right below the surface and others are at least 4" below. Pulling them right up is not an option. It's like trying to track wisteria that keeps popping up in seemingly random locations... and don't get me started on how infuriating that was.

So, it's time to put down mulch and finish cleaning up the garden. Before I start putting mulch down I would like to remove the stray passion flower suckers. It would be great to keep them if I knew I had both a male and female vine so I could at least pick fruit... At this point I want all of it gone. The only use I can find for it is to drown out patches of ivy and periwinkle. I pondered using some sort of durable metal or plastic sheeting to make a 1' high ring around the original plants and drive that into the ground, leaving about 1" above. Surely, that would keep the runners in check... I've read about it for keeping mint runners under control. This wouldn't solve the problem of the already existing runners, however.

How exactly do I kill a passion flower vine and all of its underground growth? I suspect that roundup would eventually work, but I can't risk using that around the azaleas. Tried that before when the brambles, which ironically were located in this same location, took over... It took the azaleas a few years before they could remove from a light hit of Roundup. The passion flower suckers are growing at the base of the azaleas, so getting down in there and not rounding up the azaleas would be near impossible.

Please, please, please. Is there any method of eradicating this highly invasive plant without ruining the plants that are already established?

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