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

There’s a girl on Etsy that sells REALLY great passion fruit plants. I buy from her every year. The shop is called SaintOngGrowers or something and the lady’s name is Faye.

Her shop is on a break until January/February i believe.

The stuff I’ve gotten from her beats out any Passionfruit seller online so far.

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If 3-4 months is accurate that would explain a lot. These set in August and September.

I’ll check them 12 minutes before first frost.

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I’m growing edulis, incarnata, banana (not sure which species) and quadrangularis in pots in z7a. I have recently developed a strong dislike for the maypop fruit. I don’t know what changed but all I can focus on is the gamey wild aftertaste my fruit have. I may try a selected/improved maypop at one point

If my edulis flower and set fruit outdoors by August they will drop in late October-November usually once I move the pots inside but I have had ripe fruit drop while outdoors during an unusually warm October. Once the plants go inside I get ripe fruit into Dec and Jan. These are my own seed grown vines, the dark purple fruit is beautiful.

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Fruit from an edulis flower that bloomed July 19th (73 days ago)


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I had some stratifying in the fridge that I forgot about, and planted them in June in a pot. They’re now several feet tall, and even bloomed–is it too late to transplant them into the garden? We’re zone 6, and while we’ll probably have a light frost later this month (it was 94F today), we may go all the way until December for a really hard frost (or maybe it’ll happen in a couple weeks).

Absolutely too late. They’re not hardy at all until they’re at least a year old. Best to grow it indoors and then put it out after last frost to be on the safe side.

I just had my plants survive 35 degrees here but they’re all over a year old. The tender new growths will die back at around 34 degrees depending on how humid your area is

I don’t agree, maypops are very hardy and will probably be fine if planted out now. Obviously I don’t have experience with growing them in zone 6, but I think the roots will survive just fine. The tops are supposed to die back, and yes they will.

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I have grown maypops in zone 6/7 and I do agree that fall is not a good time to plant. I have had really poor survival if planted too late. They become much hardier once they get established. If you do plant now, be sure they are heavily mulched. Alternatively, you can cut back and keep them in a cold garage. Keep them on the dry side, and don’t let them go too far below freezing. The roots are not really that hardy, but when insulated underground, they don’t have to be. A small pot can freeze solid if left out, and 15 F is enough to kill the roots.

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I stand corrected! I planted out seedlings with just 4 or 5 leaves in the fall a few years ago, and they all made it through the winter, air temperature low was mid-teens, but the soil probably didn’t even freeze below a couple inches down. It makes sense that they’d need to get their roots deeper to be hardy in zone 6.

This guy in western PA has two of them taking over his property. I was a little surprised to see how far the roots spread. Was thinking about planting a few, but need to revise where to put them after seeing his video.

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My area in Colorado Springs was zone 6b when i first grew there. In 8b where I’m at now, totally fine but 6 gets waay to cold and ground could be frozen solid down a few inches or more during the coldest months.

The coldest i experienced in 6b was -20 degrees every night for a few nights. If you didn’t blow out your sprinkler system before it started to hit 10 degrees or lower constantly, not sure how deep the pipes are buried, but the water in them will freeze and the sprinkler systems will get really messed up.

I’m assuming with that, not a lot of subtropicals can make it even if rooted deeply since it freezes everything far down. Not sure how far but far enough to cost a few thousand in irrigation repairs :sweat_smile:

It just gets too cold there in ground for passiflora

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Sprinkler system trenches are typically 6 to 12 inches deep, but the exact depth depends on several factors,

^ Google said that so it zone 6, it may freeze all the way down to 12 inches during a bad winter. Not good for subtropics

Also anything below 0 and we had to time our dogs potty breaks to no more than 5 minutes at a time. Great Pyrenees and swiss Shepherd will get frostbite on the tips of their ears and tails when it gets too cold. Also dogs will instinctively try to lay down too conserve energy if it’s too cold and a lot of the locals tried to convince me that dogs will lay down in cold weather because they like it when they’re clearly uncomfortable to my forever living with dogs-eye.

8-9 zone winters, i have no issues letting my dogs play outside in the cold but zone 6 winters :pleading_face: the get hurt. I don’t know how else to put it without bringing my dogs into this :rofl: but this is a comparison of how vastly different zones can be for plants.

Thanks–I’ll probably wait until spring to plant out, but now need to decide where to keep them over the winter. Either in with the dormants figs in an insulated room that we’ve run a heater in a few times when it’s gotten too cold out, but it could go down around and below freezing, or inside with the house plants where it’ll definitely stay above freezing… We had some in the ground at my mom’s place, and they survived the winters here just fine, usually with a few super-cold spells, down to around 15 or so below 0.

My thought in planting them out was that the roots could get established, but I didn’t do that a month ago when I first thought about it, and now is a lot later.

I really don’t think it is related to the depth. Roots less than one inch deep seem to survive just fine once established, even after a very cold winter. I think it’s more about the size and energy reserves in the roots.

They can get extremely invasive when they are happy. I have a hybrid I created several years ago growing in my backyard I named ‘Iridescence’. It’s a complex mix of Incense, Byron Beauty and wild maypop. It is smothering my kiwi vines and grape vines, and probably had 10,000 flower buds at it’s peak a few weeks ago. There a probably miles of roots out there. I would be happy to dig up root suckers next spring if anyone wants one. The fruits are not very large or numerous, but vastly better tasting than any maypop. It’s probably triploid, but does produce viable seeds and seedlings are typically fully fertile. Seems to be as hardy as wild maypops.

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It’s kind of scary that the roots can go under the slab. My maypop is next to the foundation of the house :face_with_open_eyes_and_hand_over_mouth:

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Awesome work, tastier than maypop and z7 hardy, I’d love to try it out in the spring :)!

I sourced my maypops from two different places to ensure they were not clones. I transplanted mine this spring and only one bounced back well enough to flower and I only have 3 fruit. So it definitely couldn’t hurt if you got another one from a different source and see what happens.

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Do you have a photo of an Iridescence cut open?


The juice had leaked and partially filled one half of the fruit. Taste is very similar to commercial flavicarpa juice. The negative is the very low fruit production. Growing seedlings may be a better way to get something similar with good production and bigger fruit.

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