I don’t know when it was germinated, as I bought these from someone on ebay (passiflorista is the shop name, highly recommend!), but they were about a foot long when I planted them in ground, I believe in May. I nearly lost them to slugs though, as it took me two months to actually get around to trellising them. Blooming began probably a month ago, though I only got the first fruit set two weeks ago, despite hand pollinating the first dozen or so flowers. A hummingbird has thankfully taken over the task of pollinating (she is also a tiny bully–she’s constantly chasing butterflies and bees away from the flowers, the greedy little urchin…).
These are supposed to be a mixture of P. incarnata, P. cincinata, and P. edulis, I think roughly in that order of proportion of genetics. They are also tetraploid, and it shows (much thicker stems, bigger flowers).
Again, I’ll post more pictures once I get a minute to take some… There’s a fair bit of variation between the four vines that I have.
Flowers most vines are dark. Initially, one vine seemed darker and more purple, but either it’s not blooming right now or the other vines have darkened. Hard to say since they now overlap each other a good bit. Each plant has between 10-20 ft of vine, I’d say. One vine has very different flowers, but also appears to not produce any pollen, though it has set fruit so it is at least female fertile.
The fruits are large and somewhat pubescent so far.
Many passionflowers work well in pots. I’ve got almost a dozen potted plants and almost all of them flower for me each year.
P Capsularis will easily flower and fruit in a single season (in zone 6) though the fruit are not palatable. I try to keep the fruit picked off the plant, not because doing so encourages better flowering but because the fruits explode when ripe and then I end up with seedlings in all surrounding pots.
Funny, even with having grown these for over a decade I’ve never gotten any of the caterpillars.
They definitely seem to require lots of heat and sun. Mine didn’t really take off for a while. Granted, they were probably putting down roots, and the slugs really, really did a number on them. But once they were trellised and the peak of summer arrived, they took off.
Mine (maypop) seem to be comfortable with early morning sun then dappled afternoon. This is its first full year in the ground so I don’t have any clue if they will ripen up. So far they look good and the bees enjoy them so its a win in my book.
I’m not an expert but that looks like “incense.” I hav Ethan one and have not had a fruit off of it, but I hear iffy reports about flavor. They say that most hybrids are sterile. They may even set fruit but they will be empty.
The three dark ones are unarmed seedlings. These are supposed to be related to Incense, or at least a hybrid with the same parents, so it makes sense they look similar.
I could be wrong, but my notes say Incense is an F1 hybrid of P. incarnata and P. cincinnata. These plants also have such an F1 in their ancestry, but I don’t know if it was Incense, Blue Velvet, or some other hybrid.
The one white fringed plant is P. “Marjorie Sherwin.” My notes, which could totally be wrong as I just scribbled down some stuff while shopping around, have it as:
Complex hybrid, (P. incarnata x P. Edulis “Ugly Betty”) x (P. “Bucky” x (P. incarnata x P. Edulis f flavicarpa “Norfolk Island” “Byron Beauty”))
I guess it’s not surprising it’s pollen sterile with that family tree… All of these seem reluctant to fruit, only a few set per plant, at least so far. Fruits are heavy though, so I’m thinking they’re not hollow. We’ll see
Tricky to weigh while still on the vine, but this one certainly doesn’t seem hollow. I had read that a lot of hybrids often have very poor seed set, and hence hollow fruit. I’m guessing that’s what the tetraploid doubling is supposed to help with. That, and for larger flowers, though ironically the larger flowers make it hard even for carpenter bees to pollinate them, especially when they do this yoga pose:
Unfortunately, I don’t have Ugly Betty, just a child of Ugly Betty called Marjorie Sherwin. The fellow whose ebay store I linked might still have Ugly Betty though.
Frost expected tonight, so I’m harvesting most of the fruit. The majority in letting sit on the counter while to give them a chance to finish ripening. If they ripen well I’ll post pictures.
Given that this was their first year, the vines have struggled to ripen fruit before cold weather. I’m expecting earlier and riper for next year.
A partially ripe one and an unripe for comparison. The partially ripe one was very good. A complex flavor, if less fragrant than normal on account of the ripeness. The juice was sweet and the pulp very sour. Looks like I’m getting good pollination.
Funny how little difference 3 USDA zones can make. We had our real first frost last night. Forecast called for 32, we had 28. They’re calling for 25 on wednesday maybe with snow. My maypops were poorly filled and what flesh and seeds there was didnt ripen. Im in the same boat though- 1st year. Hopefully theyll flower earlier when established
I didn’t take a picture of it, but up the road from me I found a wild maypop growing up a telephone pole. It dropped its sole fruit a week or two back. Much more oblong, not round like your maypop or my hybrids. The fruit was alright, but I’ve had better wild maypops. Probably too much weed competition for that one, it was just barely peeking through a tangle of dogfennel, morning glory, virginia creeper, sumac, asters, and who knows what else.
Also, yeah, you’d think 3 zones would offer me a little more frost-free time… Seems unfair to me, it was in the lower 80s yesterday.
