The Challenges Of Blogging About a Passion Flower | Green Patches - Mediterranean Gardening

Sunday, June 16, 2013

The Challenges Of Blogging About a Passion Flower

20 comments
This week I meant to write a long post about the passion flower vine I added to my garden a few weeks ago.  I wanted to write about the incredible flowers that are blooming every day now, about its fast growth doubling in size in just three weeks, and about the fact that the vine is slowly but surely trying to get into my house.  I meant to write all this, but I didn't.

Passion Flower

When blogging about my garden, it is very easy to write posts that have been written and re-written all over the net.  I have a few container plants that are quite common, and the simplest thing to do would be to write about how to take care of them, how the changes in weather is affecting them, how they are growing and so on.  I have done this in other posts for other plants, and I was planning to do just that with the passion flower, this is a log of my plants after all.  

Passion Flower


As I was doing my research on the plant, I realized, why do I have to repeat what's out there, what value is my blog post going to add to the reader? The challenge then became, how to write something interesting about the passion flower that the readers can enjoy, without repeating what others have written many times before.  

In my search to find interesting posts, one of two things normally happens.  An idea may come to me, which I then try to support with good pictures.  Alternatively, the garden will show me something interesting, where I take the pictures first, and then I try to explain it in a blog post.  It is not always clear which comes first, but I do find myself in situations where I have pictures, but no post, or the other way around.


Coming back to the subject, I have taken quite a few pictures of my passion flower now, but the post still eludes me.  What can I write about a passion flower that no one has written about before.  How can I look at this from a different angle?  Nothing comes to me, I find myself uninspired. It's such a wonderful plant, however, that I still take pictures to mark its progress, and this brings me to another point.  Are the pictures any good? Not really.

Summer has come all of a sudden, two days ago, without warning.  My garden has turned into a dust bowl, full of soil blowing in from the surrounding fields.  With no rain to wash them down, my plants look like they have been abandoned for years gathering dust, even though it has only been a few days.  Not the ideal environment to take pictures. I could spend a few hours hosing them down, trying to get the soil off the leaves, letting them dry, and take a few pictures for my blog post, but it's too much work in this summer heat.  

passion flower

So here I find myself with no post, and dusty pictures.  I am waiting for the vine to crawl in some unexpected manner, or to do something so outrageous as to warrant a blog post.  In the meantime, I check on it everyday, train it, teach it how to crawl in the right direction, talk to it, and marvel at its beautiful flowers.  I still take pictures, perhaps they can catch something I missed.  Until that day comes, however, my post about the passion flower is going to have to wait.


20 comments:

  1. Lol, well I enjoyed your post about what to post anyway. Your Passiflora flower is simply lovely.

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    1. Thanks Bernie, I have reached my goal then :)

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  2. I too liked the post as it is a song I often sing. The same old same old is reported over and over, and often from people just putting in a plant new - not having the experience of it over time. Others just scour the net looking for trivia about a plant. I rarely profile plants because as a designer, I know they are unlikely to perform the way they do in my garden as somewhere else. I have clients properties that can grow many plants that falter here, and they only live seven miles away. I am profiling two plants this week, but from the pollinators perspective. Passion Flower gets certain pollinators, like the gulf fritillary for example. Here, Passion Flower lives in containers.

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    1. Hi Donna,

      I've looked up the gulf fritillary, it's beautiful, not sure we have them here though. That would make for some nice pictures. I think every garden is a unique little ecosystem slightly, or very different from other gardens, even in the vicinity. It's what makes gardening challenging.

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  3. I have had wonderful success growing plants in my garden...having said that I have tried three times to get a Passion vine to grow with failure. I know that I am on the edge of the hardiness zone for this plant, but each time has been an utter failure. Can you pass any tips or pointers on how you have been so successful?

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    1. Hi Charlie,
      We live in a subtropical climate which is probably why the plant is doing so well. It gets bright light, and a few hours of direct sunlight. I use liquid fertilizer every two weeks, and have planted it in a mixture of potting mix and compost. Soil should be kept moist so I water it regularly in summer. Did you keep yours indoor, I read in colder climates they do better in a greenhouse.

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  4. dear gra, i think you have written a very interesting post. By writing about the process of writing about your passion flower plant, you have written something quite unique and personal and fascinating, and that we bloggers can relate to. I don't think it has to do anything special, I think it is wonderful just as it is. Dust and all. Real, not airbrushed.

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  5. I love passion flowers. Yours looks like a P. incarnata, but did you know there are over 500 species of passiflora, some with edible fruits (thus the name passion fruit)? The fruit of incarnata is edible, but very tart. My mother made passion fruit drink from it when I was little. She would send me out to gather the fruits from the wild plants growing all over the place.

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    1. Hi Deborah,
      Thank you for dropping by. Yes it is in fact P. Incarnata. I don't think this one will make any fruit, the blooms drop when finished, and I don't think it's getting enough sun. It must have been great for you to roam among such beautiful plants when you were young.

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  6. I completely relate to your quest for a post that addresses a subject in a brand new way. It is a challenge, however I like your post because many of us bloggers are often in the same boat. My passion flower is relatively young, so it has not reached the size of yours. I am looking forward to it.

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    1. Hi there,
      thank you for your comment. I got the passion flower about four weeks ago now, and it was about two meters in length. In three weeks I would say it grew another meter if not more, they grow pretty quickly.

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  7. Thanks for the post on passion flower! This is a native plant here, and I don't have one in my garden, something I need to correct! My blog a nature blog, and mainly I write about my experience with plants. It may be similar or different from others, but it is my own perspective, for what that is worth. It is what it is!

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    1. Hi Deb,

      That's what a blog really is I suppose, a personal log of experiences, which are unique to the person experiencing them, which make the posts unique. I think it's one of the advantages of blogging, it has opened up many ways of expression from people who would otherwise have stayed silent when faced with the big sites out there.

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  8. an interesting post Gra, your blog and garden are yours and so post what interests you, I liked that you mention the weather and the dust, it gives a view of gardening in a (for me) completely different enviroment, my blog is at the moment a sort of garden diary but it started with me talking about my textiles and so could change again, I take lots and lots more photos than I show on my blog as I want a record of how the garden grows and changes, that first photo is beautiful and your the first blog I've read showing a passion flower, Frances

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    1. Hi Frances,

      I also take a lot more photos, mainly because I want to keep track of what's going on, and they come in handy for before and after pictures for my blog as well. You started with textiles, your blog took quite a different route, and it's fine, it's our own little piece of creativity so it can take as many forms as we wish.

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  9. Gra, our renosterveld which used to be here before the wheat farmers, might be more like Malta. Tough shrubs, bulbs and annuals - is what I remember from our holiday. This lushness of fynbos is up, on the mountain slopes - with trees along the descending rivers.

    Your passion flower post is one of those that finds its own path, and dances along with the blogger (both you and I). In my mind I juggle folders of photos with ideas that need illustrating - then I catch them as they pair up. We've hiked our mountain before - I need the words to have a fresh spin. I wanted to celebrate my fourth bloagaversary - and that pair came together.

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    1. Hi Diana,

      I have made it a habit to go out and take pictures of all the plants periodically. No need for them to be doing anything special, but then I find myself looking at old pictures and the changes come out at me. I look for an explanation and if I think it's interesting enough I write about it.

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  10. Discovered this blog today. I really enjoyed this post Gra -- The pictures illustrate the progress of your plants perfectly.

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    1. Hi BT,

      thanks for stopping by, hope you enjoyed the tour :)

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