Author Topic: It's Passiflora Time! (Read 4451 times)

Teresa · « **on:** August 18, 2009, 09:28:52 AM »

My passiflora seem to really like the late summer - I've got a ton of blooms right now:

Teresa · « **Reply #1 on:** August 18, 2009, 09:29:28 AM »

And a couple more:

Holldoll · « **Reply #2 on:** August 18, 2009, 09:40:27 AM »

Beautiful! I noticed mine yesterday has a lot of buds on it. It has had nothing all summer.

maryvonne · « **Reply #3 on:** August 18, 2009, 10:01:59 AM »

Beautiful Teresa! Mine are just starting to bloom well too.

Maryvonne

Joyce · « **Reply #4 on:** August 18, 2009, 10:12:22 AM »

Beautiful!

The only Passiflora I grew this year is the hardy Maypop variety.

jw · « **Reply #5 on:** August 18, 2009, 12:05:50 PM »

Wow, those are gorgeous types of flowers. Have never tried them here but just may have to

. They look like something alien creatures brought from outer space

.

KatFish · « **Reply #6 on:** August 18, 2009, 01:11:46 PM »

I tried this year - twice - and no luck :'( That's ok, I planted Jasmine instead

Mikey · « **Reply #7 on:** August 18, 2009, 01:30:14 PM »

Very pretty Teresa.

Are any of your passion vines invasive? I'm still pulling out suckers from my Incense which I pulled out of the ground last year. In it's place I put in a fruit bearing 'Frederick' but I put it in a large pot and I placed the pot on top of some bricks. I noticed last week that this vigorous vine had lots of fruit and the vines had growing over my orange tree. I picked up some 15 fruit that had already turned purple and dropped to the ground. I made a gallon of passion fruit/pomegranate punch from the fruit. I was surprised how vigorous the plant was considering it was in a pot. I grew suspicious and tried moving the pot. It moved very little.... Hmmm, not a good sign considering it is sitting on top of those bricks and should slide rather easily.... I finally was able to move it enough to see that a large root had come out of a bottom drain hole, worked itself around the bricks, and dove straight into my ground soil......

miguynmkoi · « **Reply #8 on:** August 18, 2009, 02:24:49 PM »

Love your passion flowers Teresa! Mine are slow this year too but just kicking in after a few days of heat a while back.

Mike, I've been growing passion flower vines all these years and never equated the flower to the fruit!

Are there many varieties that bear the fruit. I would love to grow the fruit, as it sounds great from your description.

Teresa · « **Reply #9 on:** August 18, 2009, 02:40:26 PM »

Thanks all! These are my favorite flowers - especially the fragrant ones!

Mikey - they are ALL weeds and very invasive. Some of them are tropical weeds, but they'd still manage to travel pretty far in one season. I have lutea, cearulea and incarnata planted in the ground and they are all three all over the place. I use them as feed for the frit caterpillars and usually have an awful lot of them by this time.

lorraine1960 · « **Reply #10 on:** August 18, 2009, 03:01:25 PM »

oh wow beautiful

CT · « **Reply #11 on:** August 18, 2009, 06:05:01 PM »

Teresa,
Absolutely beautiful as always.
Kay

MikeW · « **Reply #12 on:** August 19, 2009, 12:29:39 PM »

I thought I had seen them all - but what is that heavenly one right after Lady Margaret?
(and in my old school colours too!)

Cheers,

Mike

Teresa · « **Reply #13 on:** August 19, 2009, 04:43:44 PM »

That's Star of Surbiton, Mike. It was a gift from a member of this forum (thank you Kay!). It's very pretty in real life. Maybe I can root you a cutting - still owe you for some of the things you sent me!

Mikey · « **Reply #14 on:** August 19, 2009, 05:24:28 PM »

Annette: The fruiting variety I have is Passiflora edulis 'Frederick'. I just took these photos and here's the flower:

Here's the fruit on the vine:

And as you can see it just cranks out the fruit. It's self pollinating:

When it's ripe it turns purple and falls off the vine. Green ones are heavy and when they turn purple they are very light in weight. This one was knocked off the vine on the wall in the alley by the street sweeper last Tuesday. It was a greenish purple and it has turned darker purple since then. They are sweetest once they start to wrinkle up a bit.

I cut the one shown above open to show you the contents and I scooped out half of it. The seeds are very brittle. When I make a punch I toss the pulp into my blender to separate the seeds from the pulp. The seeds sink like a rock to the bottom and the liquid can then be easily poured off. This one was quite tart still but even so it had a good passion fruit taste.

miguynmkoi · « **Reply #15 on:** August 20, 2009, 09:28:24 AM »

Very cool Mike! Thanks for the photos and explanation! The flower is gorgeous. I've seen these fruits in yards around the beach area when I go for walks and always wondered what they are. Does the vine stay green year round? I'm thinking they do from the ones I've seen but not sure. I will keep my eyes open for a passion "fruit" vine now. Good way to incorporate more food stuff into my garden.

Teresa · « **Reply #16 on:** August 20, 2009, 10:09:02 AM »

Some of the vines do stay green year round and others die back in varying degrees. It kind of depends on how hardy they are. I have three natives and one dies back to the ground each year but the other two don't. One of the other two will die back to the vine in really cold years, but come back from the vine the following spring.

Some of the non-natives and hybrids are hardier than others. All of the species and the fertile hybrids will set fruit, but not all the fruit is edible and of the fruit that is edible, not all is tasty.

Kat · « **Reply #17 on:** August 20, 2009, 11:30:24 AM »

They have such cool looking flowers. The one I've got always gets stripped of leaves starting this time of year from the caterpillars the small orange butterflies leave behind. Kind of nasty as all the poop ends up on top of my mexicana lily.

lorraine1960 · « **Reply #18 on:** August 20, 2009, 05:34:13 PM »

well i don't have any,i'm jealous cause they are beautiful...lorraine :'( :'(

Teresa · « **Reply #19 on:** August 20, 2009, 05:47:40 PM »

Kat those are the Gulf Fritillary. I love them so much that I grow two huge mounds of native passiflora just for them to eat. Then I pay my children to pic the caterpillars off my collection and go let them go on the lutea and caerulea. Usually by this point in the summer you cannot even go get the mail without two or three landing on you because the lutea grows all over the bushes by the mailbox. I haven't had as many this year and the cats are just starting to get thick here so I'm thinking at least another 3 or 4 weeks before I have masses of butterflies. That's actually one of my favorite things about growing passion flowers!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_Fritillary

Holldoll · « **Reply #20 on:** August 20, 2009, 07:24:34 PM »

here's a picture of my first passiflora of the summer. I hope I get more! Mine has kinda been struggling. Do you all let your vines grow tall or keep them trimmed short?

Teresa · « **Reply #21 on:** August 21, 2009, 04:36:57 PM »

I usually try to keep them from grabbing everything within 10 yards of them - I have about 20 different types and I try to keep each to it's own pot (or close to it). This year, I've had such a busy summer that they've just gone wild. The rhododendron near where the pots summer is abloom with many wild and wonderful flowers that it's never had before and the other nearby bushes are also covered with leaves and flowers and buds that usually are not there. It's going to be a pain to try to get these guys back into the greenhouse this fall cuz they are all over each other and everything else.

The ones in the ground I just let go where ever they want to go and they bloom and grow like crazy.

MikeW · « **Reply #22 on:** August 25, 2009, 11:56:43 AM »

Uh oh Teresa - untangling vines - a nightmare!

Not having the patience of Job, I have tried this a few times, and after an hour or so I am swearing, ripping and hacking away - cheap therapy.

Cheers,

Mike

Monica · « **Reply #23 on:** September 04, 2009, 07:53:08 PM »

I just love passiflora's. I had a purple one two years ago and it went crazy.

Rad Michelle · « **Reply #24 on:** January 14, 2010, 08:56:13 AM »

i have just starting getting my hands on some passiflora, the other day i found one at a nursery after having decided i was too impatient to wait and see IF these seeds i got will germinate. and i also got some root cuttings... not rooted cuttings, but pieces of root with the tops cut off i'm not even sure if they will send up new shoots as i was reading that they propagate by seed and cuttings... so hopefully. the lady whom i got 'purple haze' from also gave me cuttings of a rooted passiflora they have on the property so i'm hoping to get those rooted and maybe i will have some extras to trade with people because i really want some more

.

Jerry · « **Reply #25 on:** January 14, 2010, 11:34:31 AM »

Mine came from Teresa and are doing well. As soon as the weather warms and we have fruit id be glad to send you seed

Rad Michelle · « **Reply #26 on:** January 14, 2010, 01:03:25 PM »

ooo exciting do you have pictures of your plant when it was blooming?

Jerry · « **Reply #27 on:** January 14, 2010, 01:06:15 PM »

will search, if i do I will post. GOT IT !

miguynmkoi · « **Reply #28 on:** January 14, 2010, 02:07:12 PM »

Very cool, Jerry! Is that your bamboo fence with the vines climbing it? Looks grand!

Mikey started me on the Passion vine fruit and I finally got one, a Yellow Passion Fruit or Maracuya. Found one at our Armstrong Outlet for a very good price last summer. Can't wait to try the fruit this year.

Jerry · « **Reply #29 on:** January 14, 2010, 02:50:58 PM »

It's just some bamboo I split and tacked to a frame. It hides some long handled tool.
It would do even better If I returned tools, instead of dropping them when I'm done