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Tropical Fruits

Passion Fruit Vines - Northern Virginia

6 years ago

For some time now I have wanted to try to grow a passion fruit vine in Northern VA. Because of the cold weather in the winters here, I am planning to grow a vine in a large pot so that it can be moved into a shed during the winter. I have a pergola on which I have 3 fuzzy kiwi vines running up 3 corners of it. I plan to let the passion fruit vine run up the 4th corner and prune it back during the fall to move it inside. I bought passion fruit seeds last spring and they are now starting to germinate. They are about an inch tall in a mini green house made from a plastic bowl that I placed in mostly dappled shade outside. Anyone have any advice?

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Comments (6)

Charlie
Original Author
6 years ago
Here is what the pergola looks like where the passion vine will run up one corner.
subtropix
6 years ago
I do believe that there is a species of Passion Flower that is hardy to zone 7a with mulching. I may be wrong but I would look into it. I usually have the more tropical ones about, but this (droughty) year did not grow them.

P.S., Kiwi is one vigorous vine as you must recognize by now. I ripped mine out on the property fence but just got more of them for another location because I missed their..., exuberance for life! Are you sure they won'd just smother the passion vines?
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The flowers are just so pretty. I wish any of my cultivate flowers are as healthy as those native maypop's. They look very invasive though. They are everywhere in neighbor's yard. I wish I could grow them in my yard just to look at the flowers, but they might just pop up everywhere and choke my other flowers. Anyway, I tried tropical passionfruit. It was very aromatic. I think that it looked black when it's ready to be eaten. How about maypop? I am curious to try tasting it. Do I pick it when it turns black, or it does not turn black at all
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Wiley, I have plenty of little sprouts coming up from my lavender-flowered passiflora incarnata and would be happy to share a few bare-root shoots if I can find any more this late in the season (I just finished pulling & discarding a bunch, as I already have 4 potted and rooted for an upcoming local plant swap.) My plant was a gift sent bare-root from a fellow gardener in the southeastern U.S., where these plants are native, up to Virginia and southeastern Pennsylvania. It is perfectly winter-hardy without protection other than the usual winter mulch of shredded leaves in my USDA Zone 7 garden on the mid-NJ coast. Don't despair if you don't see anything in spring - these didn't earn their name "Maypop" for nothing! Due to our cooler spring this year, mine was up quite late, but has made up for it. I don't know how well it would fare through a zone 6 winter, but it wouldn't hurt to try. I would recommend planting it in a large, deep nursery pot sunk into the ground, as once established they do send up shoots quite a distance from the mother plant. Let me know if you are still interested - there should still be time for it to establish some roots before the soil cools.
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This has already been a great learning experience on this message board. Thank you..! We bought a Caerulea variety from a Home Depot two years ago. It made it through the summer last year and grew heartily into a large thick vine that covers a 14' portion of a 6' tall wall in our yard. It's on the East side of a N/S cement block wall. Thus, being Phoenix AZ... doesn't get the direct sunshine late in the day, but does get the heat through the block wall. It's not seeming to bother it at all. Regarding flowers, however... we only had three last year and each one only opened fully for about a 24 hour period. The second day they would open half-way and then died off slowly in about a week's time. I didn't get any fruit last year. I did no trimming over the winter. But this spring, I trimmed back the new growth to maintain the vine to it's current size. The vine has developed tons of flower buds and about eight of them have opened up so far. They still only open up fully for about a 24 hour period. We have few bees here as well so I'll be hand pollinating. But is it common for the flowers to only be open for about a day or so? Thank you in advance for your assistance and wisdom. Michael and Linda Kavanaugh "kavalinda"
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trianglejohn
6 years ago
From the photo those look like fuzzy kiwi's. No matter which type ONE kiwi vine can easily cover that structure. They are very vigorous growers. They need constant pruning to keep them in line. I grow them along with passionfruit vines, both the tropical P. edulis (purple fruited) and the native P. incarnata. Mine took a bit longer to fruit when grown in a pot but it will happen. My kiwi's never fruited in a pot. I grow my purple passionfruit in a 33 gallon tub with an extra large tomato cage. I train the vine to wrap around and around on it all winter in my greenhouse and then drag it over to my kitchen porch deck for the summer. It doesn't grow much during the hottest part of the year but can be very aggressive when things are cooler. It took a few years (maybe 4) for the passionfruit to make decent fruit when grown from seed. The natives also took a few years to get established (also grown from seed). Kiwi's were purchased as plants and even though they were large it took almost 7 years before I got a full sized crop off of them.
subtropix
6 years ago
I can honestly say, I don't think I have ever seen a vine as smothering though luxuriant as a happy kiwi (Actinidia chinensis).
tropicalz7
6 years ago
Charlie, you can plant Passion Flower outside.They will die back to the ground in the winter but will come back to flower and fruit next Summer.
Charlie
Original Author
6 years ago
My kiwi plants are Saanichton with a male Matua pollinator. Had blooms last spring, but the male blooms were killed by a late frost so the females did not get pollinated. Tropicalz7 I can't plant the passion fruit in the ground because the corner on which I want to run it is concrete.

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