Actually the most trifoliate strains,including flying dragon, FD,can be made to grow in clay but they really grow slow. The main thing is acidity or alkalinity in the soil. Here is the best rule of thumb for the Gulf Coast (and inland to San Antonio in Texas]. Look around for wild conifers. If you see them trifoliate will grow well. If you dont see them, do some research. Trifoliate also grows south of Houston along ancient streams courses and newer, still flowing waterways like Oyster Creek where there is much better soil and yet no conifers. Ask your Ag Extension Agent or Soil Conservation office. Our county library system has a soil altas. What you want is a neutral to slightly acid soil AND subsoil. Also check the water, if you have hard water, its alkaline in this region. If you have alkaline clay including down 4 ft, use a raised bed and acidify. You will have a lot less trouble with sour orange in either case. I lost one citrus in this Jan freeze and it was on citrange. My sour orange trees were OK.

no.. no.. no ... i understand what you meant.. but its not what you said ... it doesnt matter where the ORIGINAL STOCK CAME FROM... that single.. individual plant.. is the ORIGINAL STOCK... there should be no confusion possible ... it is .. what it is ... an 'original' .. period.. paragraph.. end of story ... when a piece is cut off that plant.. it is ORIGINAL STOCK .. of the ORIGINAL PLANT... that plant can then be put in TC.. and make TC STOCK of the plant.. but it will NEVER be called OS ... brian gave me 2 pieces of his XP ... crap!!! .. both reverted.. what a generous man.. GRHS ... and as far as i recall it was not possible.. to get it thru tc .. but i might be wrong on that .. so.. a plant could even come from space.. by a martian.. but that single plant.. will be OS ... alien OS for sure.. lol ... i think of the original plant as momma .. and cutting off pieces of momma continues to be momma .. a piece of ORIGINAL STOCK .. you can take pieces of momma.. and put them thru TC.. and get a bazillion more mommas.. but you cant call them ORIGINAL STOCK momma .. they are TC STOCK ...[thats kind of a weird analogy .. lol] so after rereading nitro .. you werent off at all.. but its just not confusing .... there is.. and always be.. the 'original' .. wherever it came from ... after that.. its only about how it was multiplied [gotta love hosta for the ability to cut them up and make more] ken ps: the real nightmare.. is when all the TC xplants.. come out.. and 4 different labs .. all give the same color configuration plant.. 4 different names.. and that is why we have so many SS edged plants.. that no one can tell apart ... [so you now have.. 4 new original plants.. 4 new OS plants.. oh god my head is starting to hurt ...]

Randy, I would be happy to be the first to respond, mi amigo. First let me say thank you for this post. I think it may be up to the few and proud of us to revitalize this forum, and get some great conversations started. It's been a little... slow in the past. Let me get the question I cannot speak to out of the way first: I have never grown P. edulis indoors, or protected in any way for that matter. I have P. edulis 'Fredrick' out in the open with no protection in a large pot, and it overwinters with just a little damage. It comes back fine, and is growing like a beast right now. I hope to soon be growing P. edulis 'Nancy Garrison' as well, (thanks to you), as I have read that it is even better at frost tolerance. Next, anything I have ever taken indoors has suffered from the dryness associated with central heat, a wood burning stove, and watering difficulty indoors. This year I plan to make a space in my garage dedicated to Passifloras with a timed "grow-light" like the pot-growers use. I have too many that will need some sort of protection to let them wither in the winter. Now, on that same note, even though I plan on protecting some this year, we also always test our limits. We are in zone denial. Dozens, maybe hundreds of plants that should not live here, we "force" to live here. Sometimes that means we have to get creative sometime we have to get Very creative. For instance, (though no one seems to have ever heard of this spectacular plant), we grow Mackaya bella outdoors and it has no issues whatsoever. Our Aphelandra squarrosa lost all his leaves in the same pot, (though heÂs fine now). There are countless others On to the Passifloras, the subject you actually posted about. First, let me tell you our climatic conditions, (I almost typed climactic that would have been a bit Freudian). In the last 10 years, our lowest temp was 19 degrees. Usually, in winter we get about 12 -16 days of sub-32 degrees, with our lowest night normally about 23/24. We almost never get snow, maybe once per decade for a couple of hours. Our only rain comes in the winter months, most heavily in Dec and Jan. If you plan a spring, summer or fall BBQ, you can count on it. No chance of the game being called here. We almost donÂt have a spring, and barely a fall. Tuesday the trees have leaves and Wednesday they donÂt. Our summers can be brutal. We just had 5 days in a row triple digits two of them were 107 and 108. ItÂs also very dry think desert. Thankfully, we have misters, drippers, sprinklers, et cetera, or the only thing we would grow would be California natives... yuck! So, let me think We have no trouble growing P. citrina in the ground, though it is supposed to like 45 degrees minimum. Oh man, this is going to be hard we have too many. How about this: In Ulmer and MacdougalÂs book, (if you donÂt have it, you either know too much to be reading this or if you are reading this, you seriously need to buy it. Go here: http://www.amazon.com/Passiflora-Passionflowers-World-Torsten-Ulmer/dp/0881926485/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246590216&sr=8-1), if they state the minimum temperatures for a species or hybrid to live to 5 or lower degrees Celcius, I can grow it outdoors. If it states 7 to 9 degrees C, I need to protect it somehow, be it mulch, overhead cover, 3-wall patio cover, et cetera. If it states 10 or even higher, (for the most part, though there are exceptions), I will most likely have trouble, and at the very least I need to bring it indoors or into the garage space I am making this year. Actually, I am planning on putting my "7+ degree" plants in there this winter also, so they have much less stress, and flourish faster. I am tired of having plants take till May to start growing again. Randy, and anyone else who happens to read this, I am sorry that I cannot give you a full list. This is the best I can do at the moment. IÂm a bad plant journal guy P. mooreana is one that should definitely not have survived with the slight overhead protection we gave it. It has been blooming one flower per day for a week or so right now, and smells fantastic! Another that surprised us was P. herbertiana, which should not make it out in the cold. We had a tiny cutting, (which is supposed to be very hard to do Crystal is the "rooting queen"), out in the open, no protection whatsoever last year, and it made it fine. It is growing great right now. P. ÂCoral Sea grows rampant in our cold and heat, though it rarely blooms. ItÂs a massive vine. It is supposed to only like it up to 86 or so, and doesnÂt like it below freezing. No problems here. I am planning on making this a grafting root-stock for less heat-hardy Passies. But, one other fairly non-relatable, (due to rarity) Passiflora that I can speak on is the P. umbilicata x P. tucumanensis. This is weird. It is the same cross, (and probably a seedling from the same fruit from Henk), as P. ÂJuttaÂ. Mine is slightly different as it has two full rows of coronal filaments. Both parents are supposed to be extremely cold tolerant, but not heat tolerant at all. Mine grows and blooms in the spring and fall, with only some bud-drop and a few month bloom hiatus in the hottest summer months. It still does quite well, with very little if any damage. Granted, cuttings of it have died in the summer, but that may have been my fault. ;-) IÂm sure there are more, but my mind fails me I will have to consult Crystal later and post again. Eric

Pecan: Thanks for the update. I'm disappointed as well. I thought we could have lunch at Sample House, which is close-ish to the Moss Farm fields, if that's where you might have had your tournament. It's a sweet little shop that sells gift items and kitchen things, Crocs, baby gifts, candles, gift wrap, cute pet stuff and lots of other unusual things. It's a fun place to wander around. They have a little restaurant called the Soup Shop in the store that's open from 11-2 every day (except Sundays). Lake Highlands High School seems like another soccer tournament location, but I know that there are fields everywhere (I've been to most of them). Keep me posted if your plans change. Thank you. Fly: Someone told me that Hormel is making nitrate-free lunch meat. This friend also told me that Monsanto "invented" sodium nitrate, which is a preservative, and that Monsanto knows this substance causes cancer, but Monsanto makes so much money off of sodium nitrate that it does everything possible to make certain that it stays on the market. How sad.