Riverside® Passiflora Hybrids
News Archive 2017-2018
December 2018
Visits to Petersham Nurseries. A lovely place and pleased to see them selling Passiflora ‘Snow Queen’ and Passiflora ‘Betty Myles Young’ outside, and looking far better than the adjacent defoliated Clematis!
December 2018
Visits to Kew Gardens with Sal La Delfa, Laura Rowlands and solo. Met up with Carlos Magdalena and saw the incredible Astropheas Passiflora rusbyi and Passiflora emarginata in flower.
November 2018
Some of the crosses I attempt seem to take forever to ripen. This fruit dropped a bit green and is now ripening to yellow under grow lights in my propagator. It is now producing a nice passionfruit smell. It is a unique polyploid fruit and if all goes well, sometimes seeds are not viable, should produce some exciting plants in 2019.
October 2018
Great fun with Andrea Dudas checking out Amorphophallus titanum and more. 118K tuber. It was its second day of opening so the intense smell had faded but nevertheless a distinctly unpleasant smell of death and decay. At least I think it was the plant. Evolution is amazing. This is the largest unbranched inflorescence in the world. There are often many years between it coming up in this form, with intervening years in the vegetative leaf and leaflet form. So, as it rarely selfs, to be pollinated it needs to come up in the same year as others nearby enough for the carrion beetles & flies to get to both and in the same 24-48 hour period. That’s some timekeeping. Native to Java and Sumatra.
September 2018
Yet another visit to Kew Gardens. This time with Ann Morling and Markus Varga from Austria. Markus has one of the best private collections of Passiflora species in Europe, housed in a purpose built climate controlled 9m x 9m greenhouse built on top of his house! Great to catch up with Carlos Magdalena and Lara Jewitt in the Tropical Nurseries.
August 2018
Ann Morling & myself off to RHS Wisley for the day. Met up with Matthew Pottage, the Curator of Wisley, he and his team have made amazing improvements since my last visit, including the Exotic Garden c/w Passiflora ‘Snow Queen’. So exciting also to see some of my other hybrids on the Laboratory building wall, including Passiflora ‘Damsel’s Delight’, ‘Justine Lyons’ and ‘Star of Surbiton’.
August 2018
Beautiful scanner artwork © Sandra R. Schulze. Amongst others, my hybrids Passiflora ‘Betty Myles Young’ top right and Passiflora ‘Snow Queen’PVR top left.
“All Passionflowers are from my garden including a hybrid I bred. Passionflower plants are exceedingly difficult to scan as the flowers are so deep. Three quarter views propped up by foliage help.”
See more of Sandra’s fantastic work at Facebook Sandra R. Schulze Photography & Instagram Sandra R. Schulze Photography
August 2018
I feel flattered and honoured to have a terrific review of Passiflora ‘Snow Queen’PVR by Dan Cooper aka ‘The Frustrated Gardener’
‘In the four months since I planted it, ‘Snow Queen’ has grown 15ft from the base and is producing ten or more flowers every day, each lasting 48 hours. At first the self-clinging stems produced only leaves, some larger than my hand, but in early August flowering resumed and looks set to continue through autumn. The amount of growth is staggering when you consider the pot my plant is growing in measures only 12″ in diameter.’
July 2018
Ledbury Allotment Association, Gardeners’ Question Time – BBC Radio 4
Excitement. A six minute slot on BBC Radio 4 Gardeners Question Time. Interviewed by Matthew Pottage Curator of RHS Wisley, produced by GQT Editor Darby Dorras. From 14.20 to 21.40 minutes in link above.
July 2018
To my amazement a colleague reports that he has seen a Passiflora ‘Snow Queen’PVRin Iran, produced by one of our Authorised Wholesalers, Clearview Horticulture of Canada. It is flowering even in 38°C.
July 2018
Lovely to see plenty of satisfied customers reporting their excitement at the garden performance of Passiflora ‘Snow Queen’PVR on Social Media, including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. She thrives in all sorts of different conditions, from Canada and USA to all over Europe from France to Hungary, Poland, Germany, Czech, Spain (flowering in 32°C) and more.
JUNE 2018
Thanks to Lawrence Wright Head Plantsman at Tregothnan for buying these beautifully packaged Riverside® Passiflora hybrids from Carnon Downs Garden Centre!
JUNE 2018
Passiflora ‘Snow Queen’PVR in flower at Chessington Garden Centre. Must be selling well as only two left…
JUNE 2018
Great to see a new delivery of Passiflora ‘Snow Queen’PVR in flower, under the Temptations “Irresistible Garden Plants’ label, grown in a British Nursery by Darby Nurseries. Available from Squire’s Garden Centres.
June 2018
Rebecca Hilgenhof, Tropical Nursery Supervisor at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew popped round to see an incredible Passiflora tetrandra from New Zealand covered in thousands of tiny flowers & also checked out the mysteries of polyploids. Not only that but she kindly collected a Passiflora ‘Snow Queen’PVR for Carlos Magdalena’s ‘Barnes Botanical Garden’ at his home!
JUNE 2018
An article by Paula McWaters in Garden Notes, Country Living Magazine July Edition, recommends Passiflora ‘Snow Queen’PVR available from Squire’s Garden Centres.
JUNE 2018
A fabulous day out at Kew Gardens with Ann Morling & the PlantHaven Team, Geoff & Maureen Needham, who look after the Riverside® Passiflora Hybrids worldwide.
JUNE 2018
Sandra R Schulze reports Passiflora ‘Damsel’s Delight’ and Passiflora ‘Snow Queen’PVR now available in the Pacific North West USA!
MAY 2018
Sal La Delfa kindly reports that the only Passiflora Frosts Garden Centres had in stock when he visited were my Riverside® Passiflora hybrids!
MAY 2018
Pleased to see a lovely display of a veritable forest of my Riverside® Passiflora ‘Snow Queen’PVR hybrids at Squire’s Garden Centre – Long Ditton.Buy Passiflora ‘Snow Queen’.
APRIL 2018
Excited to attend with Ann Morling the recording of Gardeners’ Question Time in the Temperate House at Kew Gardens, a week before it was open to the public. £41 million spent on the refurb but looks incredible. Just need to wait 50 years for all the plants to grow into it. And I even got to ask a question about Passiflora seed germination! GQT iPlayer recording.
MARCH 2018
Great to see the Riverside® Passiflora hybrids slowly spreading worldwide. Available in Europe everywhere from France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Spain, Switzerland to UK and more. In USA Passiflora enthusiast Dan Pogust has just spotted Passiflora ‘Snow Queen’ is in stock now at Pistils Nursery in Portland Oregon, USA. Thanks for the pics Dan!
MARCH 2018
Lovely to see an article in Garden Design Magazine on growing Passion flowers and featuring Passiflora ‘Snow Queen’.
MARCH 2018
Many thanks to Graham Rice of the RHS for writing about Passiflora ‘Snow Queen’ in his blog for the RHS. Read More
MARCH 2018
I’ve just read Carlos Magdalena’s book, ‘The Plant Messiah’. Inspirational in so many ways including various thoughts re my Passiflora breeding. A book that says enough is enough. Not everyone, indeed few of us, have the courage to put our lives on the line seeking out plants in remote and sometimes dangerous places, but each of us can do our own little bit. See my review.
Buy here. Amazon UK
February 2018
Great to see the Riverside® Hybrids Passiflora ‘Damsel’s Delight & Passiflora ‘Snow Queen’ in the 2017-2018 PlantHaven Premium Plant Catalogue. Each year sales are building with increasing availability throughout Europe, Canada & USA. Check out out list of some of our bigger Wholesalers here.
February 2018
Surprise visit from Sergio Lloreda of Nature & more, commercial Passion fruit grower and exporter from Bogotá, Colombia. Great fun, a good exchange of info and an assortment of Passiflora chopped up!
January 2018
Plant Breeders Rights Granted (48,160) by CPVO for the Riverside® Hybrid Passiflora ‘Snow Queen’. This has been a long slow process but we got there in the end thanks to the endeavours of PlantHaven International,inc. Picture shows breeder Myles Irvine with the ‘Snow Queen’ herself, Natalia Walaszek.
December 2017
The off season Well in a way but the work goes on. A surprising number of the more tropical species flower in December/January as flowering is triggered by shorter day length. Pictures from 2017 of an interesting new polyploid hybrid. Unusual in that it does not open any further than this. Sleeves rolled up for a productive 2018. Only release the best!
September 2017
Royal Botanical Gardens Kew A fabulous behind the scenes visit to the nurseries at Kew catching up with both Rebecca Hilgenhof & Carlos Magdalena, author of The Plant Messiah. I saw more Passiflora than I could count and indeed many other incredible plants. A day to remember and good learning experience. Picture shows Rebecca holding a huge Passiflora macrophylla leaf. It is one of the Astrophea, which are trees rather than climbing vines.
September 2017
PlantHaven Geoff and Maureen Needham of PlantHaven International pop in for tea and cake from Carmella Patisserie. They also check out progress on adding new lines to the Riverside® Passiflora hybrid range.
August 2017
Plantarium Trade Fair. The Riverside® Hybrids Passiflora ‘Damsel’s Delight & Passiflora ‘Snow Queen’ have been added to the prizewinning FleuraTerraza range by Dutch climber specialists Van der Starre. FleuraTerrazza includes a range of climbers selected to ensure they will bloom in spring, summer and after summer.
June 2017
Horticultural Trade Association National Plant Show. Riverside Hybrid® Passiflora ‘Snow Queen’ wins HTA National Plant Show 2017 Shrubs and Climbers Gold Award and best in category – Presented by Newy PPL
