Hardy Passiflora (maypop). Too good to be true?

Both the seedlings and the cutting-grown plants from @JeremiahT are doing great for me so far this year, though growing a little slower than I was expecting. Some second-leaf seedlings (outdoors):




And first-leaf cutting-grown (in the greenhouse):


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A few of my maypops are just now starting to show growth. Some of them still just look like empty pots though. So far after a few years of growing them I have yet to get a single ripe maypop, and only a very small number of ripe hybrid maypops (those had the benefit of a greenhouse head start though. At this rate if any of the individuals I’ve been evaluating ever prove worthy of a spot in ground I won’t have to worry about their vines aggressively smothering anything…

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Tricked like ping-pong balls my first time with only one planted, no pollination. :unamused:

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Has anyone run into a particularly good maypop variety besides Blake’s?

I’m hoping to get a vine or two from him this season and would love to combine it with another proven variety for cross pollination. If all else fails, I’ll grab a seedling from him.

Here is one of my grocery store grown edulis. I tried pollinating it twice so far and both fell off. Now I missed the third bloom completely but I have about 5 blooms on my maypop about 20ft away so I am hoping the bees did it for me…

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I was thinking they had different ploidy levels, don’t remember offhand. I started some edulis from grocery store seed about 1990, planted outside on a fence when it warmed up. No flowers before frost but sure made a rapid growing screen of attractive leaves. A guy walking by freaked out and said “I was told they don’t grow here!” (KS). He was from Puerto Rico and recognized the foliage. :slightly_smiling_face:

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I thought I read somewhere incarnata and edulis were the same ploidy, but the thought crossed my mind that I don’t know for sure if this grocery store variety wasn’t some kind of hybrid itself so I grew 3 others along with it, but they are not flowering yet.

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I think you’re right, can’t find the research article anymore. Something about the original, sterile, hybrid having to be chromosome doubled to tetraploid status to restore fertility.

Curious what hybrids these are.

I’m testing out a few hybrids I got off ebay that are purported to be (and as best I can tell actually are) fairly complex hybrids of incarnata, cincinata, and edulis, and are tetraploid.

This is my first year with them, but after about a dozen hand pollination attempts, I’ve not got anything to show for it. I know at least one of them is male sterile with no pollen, but the others do produce pollen. The last few flowers have held on for a few days after pollination, so maybe it worked this time.

Very pretty flowers regardless–bigger than normal maypop, and more blue and purple in most of them.

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The little bit of digging I did about incarnata x edulis hybrids seemed to suggest they are nearly always sterile. Curious to hear how your pollination efforts unfold.

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That’s what I read as well, though I think these hybrids have more incarnata and cincinnata than edulis. In any account, doubling the chromosome count often helps with these things.

The breeder has certainly had some success, as he has various seedlings and even a few self named cultivars. I’m not having any luck so far, but the plants might be too young, or something like that. Or maybe they’re just almost sterile…

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I thought this was going to be a failed experiment but my maypop is fruiting in Z7A after surviving one winter in the ground. Took a while to get going though. More like a mid June pop.

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This is how I’m starting to feel about maypops here as well. Here are two of the most vigorous second-leaf seedlings from the seeds @JeremiahT sent me, and they already seem to be stopping for the season:


The larger one was in a pot in the greenhouse for most of the winter, the deformed little one was planted in this spot last year.

Almost all the seedlings show severe leaf deformation. Maybe some kind of mite or insect damage? Nematodes? Virus? Herbicide drift that isn’t affecting any other plants in my yard? Something else?

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The cutting-grown vines from @JeremiahT in my greenhouse have all started showing signs of some moldy fungal disease that is killing them back after all the continuous rainfall made the greenhouse all cold and damp:


I’m definitely starting to think an edible Passiflora may not be feasible here after all. The outdoor seedlings all went dormant/died back above ground already, but the greenhouse ones all still looked green until this fungus hit.

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Ive noticed they seem to like it more on the dry side. I have mine indoors to winter in a cool sunny basement, mostly because I neglected to plant them during the growing season. So far so good. Theyre all mostly still green. Im watering them a small bit every week or so. I think theyll drop leaves and go dormant once it starts to really cool off down there
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I was able to grow these in southern Ontario. They overwintered the 2022-2023 winter in Oakville (zone 6), but they were too late to send new shoots in the spring (late June), so they flowered a lot in 2022, but not in 2023. That’s the in-ground plant…

I also took cuttings in fall 2022, and used them to grow a couple clones in containers. Cuttings flowered earlier in 2023 (mid July) than the in-ground plant did in 2022 (early August), and was able to begin setting fruit in mid-late August 2023. I believe they are not self-fertile, so they were most likely fertilized by my passiflora caerulea. I had to take the plants indoors in November to protect them from frost, and for the fruits to finish ripening, which they did, and produced viable seeds (some of which have already sprouted).

For the winter 2023-2024, I brought them inside. One plant died, maybe I brought it inside too late, or didn’t provide it enough light in the basement (just had a grow light). But the plant I kept in a south facing window is still alive, and began sprouting new shoots from the ground, one of which has been flowering for the past couple weeks. It seems to take about 2 months from new shoot to flowers, and 2-3 months from flowers to fruit, with maybe an extra month needed because the first flowers might not set fruit? That means you want 5-6 months of summer weather, when southern Ontario/Quebec has closer to 4-4.5. Hence why you should have them in containers (or a greenhouse) to either give them a head start in the spring, or to extend the season in the fall.

I’m also trying out edulis (purple passionfruit), ligularis (sweet granadilla) and tripartita (banana passionfruit) in containers. They’re a little over a year old now, so hopefully 2024 will be the season that they first flower (and hopefully even fruit)?

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I think cuttings produce fruit sooner than plants from seeds by the way - just something to keep in mind. My passiflora caerulea grown from seed only gave 3 flowers from 3 plants on its first year, whereas my passiflora caerulea grown from cuttings gave me about 100 flowers per plant on their first year.

P. incarnata grows well here in central NC. I love the idea of maypops but the ones I’ve tried around here haven’t had amazing flavor.

Does anyone have recommendations for varieties that leave you actually wanting more?

Passiflora Capsularis flowers for me from seen in one season. Mine is in a pot and I bring it inside each winter.

Flowers are small, white and smell sweet. The fruit isn’t considered edible and the fruits explode when ripe (which means I get seedlings in surrounding pots frequently).

Do you mean other Passiflora species or selections of P. incarnata?

Not aware of any widely available incarnata selections known for fruit quality.
My maypops taste really nice to me, but maybe it’s just my taste buds.