Here’s a good reason to grow passion vine in your garden

Here are five things to do in the garden this week:

Fruit. Passion vine (Passiflora spp.) produces fruit that begins to ripen in the fall and may still be on the vine in early February. Because of its lingering ripening period, some gardeners wait until the fruit drops before consuming it. One of the reasons to grow this plant is its attractiveness to Gulf fritillary butterflies, whose exclusive relationship with it parallels that of monarchs with milkweed. Just as milkweed is the only plant monarch larvae will eat, passion vine is the only plant Gulf fritillaries will eat. In both cases, larvae and adults become toxic to birds, warned to stay away by the butterflies’ orange color. Although gulf fritillaries can denude passion vines of all foliage, the leaves quickly grow back, and fruit development is not affected.

Vegetables. Robert Ginn, who gardens in Arcadia, informed me that he just uncovered a significant crop of eggplants that had been hiding underneath the plants’ leaves. Eggplants, like their kindred tomatoes and peppers, are actually perennials, and as long as the winter is mild, they may persist for a second year of growth or longer. Greenhouse-grown tomatoes, where conditions for growth are optimal, have been known to live for five years, although crop size will decline with age.

Herbs. Chickweed (Stellaria media) is commonly encountered in the winter garden, yet it is not widely known for its edible and medicinal qualities. It grows a few inches tall in lawns or shady spots, a little taller in the sun, and yields tiny, white, star-shaped flowers. It has long been used as feed for chickens and poultry and salves derived from chickweed are recommended to reduce inflammation, especially in the case of bug bites and burns.

Flowers. Pink trumpet (Tabebuia rosea) and angel trumpet (Brugmansia spp.) are blaring/blooming earlier this year (by more than a month) than I have ever seen before. This is due to weather conditions that normally precede their bloom, namely, heavy rain, which came earlier than usual, and warmer-than-average temperatures in November, December, and January. These plants have been “fooled” into thinking spring — which is when they normally bloom — has already arrived. Dormancy is induced or extended by cold weather, which we never really experienced these past few months, and so dormancy, if it did occur, was shallow and plants were woken from their slumber earlier than usual.

House plants. Leafy indoor plants should have their soil changed once a year, and this is the time to do it while they are still in a resting state before new growth resumes. Among the fastest-growing indoor plants is golden pathos or devil’s ivy (Epipremnum aureum). It’s so called due to its gold and green variegated leaves and its ability to grow rapidly in almost any indoor situation, although the gold in its heart-shaped foliage develops more noticeably in good light. Yellow Sunrise is a new variety of a vertical-growing pothos species (Epipremnum pinnatum) with tapered leaves, bright yellow marbling, and fenestrations or cuts of the kind seen on split leaf philodendron (Monstera deliciosa).