Amethyst in bloom

I stopped off at Lowe's yesterday to browse their plant section, and see if there was anything of interest. I was delighted to see they had a section of passion flowers set up, with more than a dozen vigorous vines growing in gallon pots.

I blogged about my incense passion vines last summer, so passiflora are a pretty consistent obsession of mine. So much so that I noticed right away the vines Lowes had labled as incense were nothing of the sort. The three-lobed leaves were very different in shape from the five-lobed incense leaves. Other stuff was wrong, too. I sorted through the plants, my curiosity growing, and then I found this:



It wasn't incense at all--it was Amethyst! That or Lavender Lady. Amethyst is a hybrid that's more than a century old, that I'd wanted for a long time. Lavender Lady is a newer hybrid that I didn't want quite so much, but even so, it was too good an opportunity to pass up. I grabbed it, and a one gallon vitifolia as well. I pointed out the labeling error to the Lowes workers, but they didn't seem to care much. When I got home and checked some books, it did indeed appear that I'd gotten my sought-after Amethyst. Very cool.

I plan on potting both in hanging baskets this evening to hang on the porch. When they get a little bigger, I hope to layer some of the vines in pots so that they'll root and propogate. Much fun. And it makes me happy to know I'm smarter than the folks at Lowes.

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