Bower Vine

[Rick1965]

Hi all, is anyone growing a Bower Vine, if so do they flower well in our climate?

[Clive60]

I haven't personally tried growing Pandorea (Podranea) but as far as I know it is not frost hardy, there may be somewhere in the UK that it will survive but it would have to be exceptionally mild.
It is so rampant that growing it in a pot may not be practical .

[Troppoz]

I can recall a former member had one growing and flowering years back. They can take severe frosts in my mother's Canberra garden, down to -9c so do have a degree of hardiness.

[DaveP]

One of my favourite climbers and it can be grown against a warm sunny wall in mild gardens of the south. While it may take several degrees of frost in countries where temperatures rise quickly during the day, it is not quite so hardy in this country. Air temperatures down to -2 or -3C will do no harm at all and won't even damage the flower buds and it is not unusual to have flowers open on Christmas Day. However, anything over -5C will defoliate and kill even a well established plant. There are a few varieties doing the rounds nowadays - a near white called 'Princess Diana' plus one or two variegated forms. I think that the straight species is still the best:
Pandorea jasminoides

[Rick1965]

Cheers guys, I will give it a go if I can find one.

[otorongo]

I've got two growing, planted this spring, a straight one and a variegated one (which is not only variegated but also has larger leaves), both pink flowered.

The straight one is flowering. I removed the first flush of buds around May or June, to put more of its energy into vegetative growth, but I left a few buds on the second flush, which is in bloom now.

With the variegated one I did the same (removed the first flush of buds) and it's putting on good vegetative growth, with no more buds forming.