Passiflora incarnata/maypop in Victoria, BC… I planted it last year with little knowledge of it’s needs or potential in this climate. There is no pollinator around, and with everything I read since I planted it I assumed it would be a failed experiment. Might still be if it’s hollow or an animal gets to it first, but it’s now done more than I expected from it!
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That’s impressive! My maypops have been in the ground for a few years now and never grow more than about a foot or so each summer, regardless of fertilizer rates. I assumed it was from our cool spring/early summer, but it’s not exactly warmer in springtime in Victoria than down here in Seattle. So I’m stumped. Congrats!
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My maypop already died this year, maybe the caterpillars eat all the leaves? I just cant get mine to grow, they are at least 2 years old and little plants shoot up everywhere they just don’t grow more then 4’.
These things are vigorous. I’ve never seen a maypop with a caliper like this.
After taking a break during our little monsoon this past July, they’re blooming again. I’ve had really good fruit set and ripening from two of the four plants. I’ll remove the poor producers and plant out seeds from the good ones next year.
I’ve found that the fruit have a several week long shelf life. They turn yellow a few days after falling off the vine but remain somewhat hard. At that stage, they’re sweet/tart like tropical passion fruit. A week later they start to get softer and wrinkle, at which point they’re much sweeter. If I leave them even longer, almost all the acidity goes away and they retain all the sweetness.
They’re still not as aromatic as I’d like them to be, but the flavor is excellent. Seeds are edible, but gritty so I usually just spit them or swallow whole.
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Very odd how my tetraploid unnamed seedling has basically turned every flower into a fruit and the Marjorie Sherwin which has infinitely more blooms has yet to hold a single fruit. Weirdly enough the seedling bloomed while MS hasn’t bloomed yet so it either is self fertile somehow or was pollinated by my pink pop. But if it could be pollinated by incarnata then MS would be filled with fruit since it overlaps on the trellis with pink pop. Oh well I guess time will tell just found it interesting.
Unnamed seedling and it’s fruit, you can see it’s far less vigorous than MS or pink pop
Pink pop left MS right plus a banana passiflora in a pot mixed in with MS but it’s far smaller
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Yeah, I really do wonder if some of these tetraploids aren’t actually self fertile. I had at least one fully filled fruit set when only one plant was blooming. I’m going to grow some root suckers in isolated locations next year and see if they still set fruit and fill.
And yeah, MS has pretty flowers, but for me it’s mostly a dud. Doesn’t bloom nearly as much, and only ever set one or two fruit. I’m pulling it out after this season.
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Mine has had likely hundreds of flowers just zero fruit set so far
Mine has the flower buds, but they some always fall off before blooming. Only if the weather is just right does it bloom. The unnamed ones to it too, but not nearly as bad.
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If it’s cold and bumblebees aren’t around, you’re going to have to hand pollinate for fruit.
I only ever get them if i hand pollinate.
This particular vine doesn’t set much fruit anyway. Like a lot of hybrid passionfruits, it has fertility problems. Vigorous and blooms like crazy if the weather is decent, but very few fruit.
The other hybrid vines though set loads of fruit most of the time, and I haven’t done any hand pollination in a long time for them.
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Yeah my unnamed tetraploid sets a lot of fruit while the Marjorie sets zero with hundreds of blooms
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Almost the exact same experience both last year and this year. Marjorie recently set a few, and had a single fruit this summer, but it’s so, so little compared to the other vines. She’s getting fertilized with glyphosate in the spring.
I do like the blooms, especially with the white, but I’m growing for fruit. If I wanted pretty flowing vines I’d grow clemantis.
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Haha that’s hilarious.
I may remove mine in a milder manner, maybe fertilize with a shovel
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You’d imagine withe other varieties around it, it would set more fruit than that if it was just a self-fertile issue. We never had passionvine fruit for us down south when I was a kid. We were growing it for butterflies not fruit so it wasn’t a problem, but my mother said she only got 2 fruits off of it in 20 years.
