My CE is planted next to a palm tree, not a structure or wall and it was evergreen this winter. It's flowering like mad right now, but soon the catties will be munching on it (right now they're munching the lavenderlady).

I adore the Gulf Fritillary butterflies! My neighbors had 2 passion vines on the wood lattice topper on our shared wall. Both ornamental, no fruit. One was the classic purple flower and the other was a red flower that was more bell shaped and produced nectar that meant it was always full of ants. Well we always saw butterflies flitting about but never caterpillars. I think the ants ate them as soon as they hatched. Well the lattice was rotten and new neighbors moved in who sweetly asked if it was OK to remove it. We were more than happy since we wanted to replace wood with steel topper. But then I seriously missed the butterflies. I saw zero for a year. I missed them so much I planted a passion vine on the shared wall of the other neighbors. Just the purple flower that doesn’t have nectar so it won’t attract ants. Well for the first time in a year, I see not only butterflies but larva! I plan to cut it back to the “trunk“ each winter so it doesn’t get out of control this time. This vine is incredibly vigorous and could completely cover a carport if you let it. I don’t care about the flowers which are always there or the look of the vine, which is always green with chew holes, but my heart sings when every day I sit in the patio surrounded by the fluttering of beautiful amber butterflies. Usually 2 or 3 but sometimes 7 or 8 as I also provide nectar flowers for them. For me, the whole point of the vine is the butterflies.

@Shad Burns I'm curious, where did you buy your seeds or vines from? I grow them too, and I'm always curious about the source of passiflora incarnata, when grown successfully in zone 5/6. Mine were selected from the wild, in Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio. I'm always interested in hardier strains. @Helene Albert I am in zone 5b, Chicago suburbs, literally a stone throws away from you. I grow passiflora incarnata successfully. I have fruit that's ready to harvest at end of August continuing through to October. It's truly a may sprouting perennial for me. If anyone is growing passiflora incarnata in zone 4/5/6a, please send me a message through Houzz by clicking my profile. I cannot send messages by default to most people, because messages are not enabled by default in Houzz until you go to your profile and enable them under "advanced settings." You should be able to send to me, however. I collect hardy passiflora incarnata. There is some genetic variation. Even the white version of P. incarnata aren't the same, with at least 5+ different strains floating around.

In your location, there are three passiflora species that are hardy---incarnata, caerulea, and lutea. I've never seen lutea, but have the idea in my head that their fruit is very small. If the shriveled pods are about the size of an egg, it's most like incarnata. Incarnata requires a cold period to germinate, so you need to either sow them outdoors now, ot sow them in trays and pop them into the fridge for a couple of months. Incarnata self-sows pretty readily around here, but it's lovely enough that I don't mind. I DO dig several plants out of my beds every spring and pass them along to others. I don't know if incarnata is self-fertile, but I suspect it is. Nor can I advise you re a 'sink test'---my best advice is to plant them outside and just see what happens come spring. Oh, and re the 'invasive exotic species' question---most passiflora species are frost-tender and can't survive Zone 7 winters.