It’s just ok… might be interesting if there was variety I suppose. I spent way more time whacking it down, than I do eating it. It grows like crazy here.
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You would regret that year three when your brambles were suffocating and you had to dig the whole bed out to 18+” to get the incarnata roots out!
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why would i want to get the roots out 
educate me
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Passion fruit can get pretty aggressive
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oh yeah i mean i know that, but its a 40x 10 stretch so i think theres enough space… maybe not lol. so can brambles to be fair and i dont have huge issue just digging them up yearly as needed.
Then again i also grow roses so thorns are just part of the game here, i just wear heavy up to my shoulder leather gloves when i work on the roses or the brambles
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I learned the hard way by planting one in my big vegetable garden raised bed. My kids loved it! But by year 4 it had spread underground 20’ in all directions, with roots deeper than my improved soil. There was no digging it all up. Constantly pulling suckers out of my entire garden and all the surrounding bushes was the only way to manage it. I was considering using herbicide, but we moved before I did it.
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P lutea is hardy throughout much of p. incarnata’s range. The flowers are far less showy and the fruit are not consumed by people. (in my experience they are too small and not tasty at all).
Its not the easiest plant to find in the trade, but it does exist.
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We moved to a new house on 1/4 acre suburban lot north of Houston in 1990. We were new to living in the South and I soon discovered some wild P. incarnata seedlings nearby. After identifying them, I transplanted one into our front yard formal bed. Within a few years it had completely colonized the bed, suckers were popping up in the surrounding lawn, and my wife told me to either properly control, or get rid of, the “kudzu” vine. The fruit, flowers, and Gulf Fritillary butterflies it hosts are all wonderful, but the aggressive spreading makes P. incarnata a downright noxious weed if planted in the ground. Grow it in a large container to prevent the spreading. Ditto for P. “Incense”, P. “Insperation”, and P. cerulea (at least in the South were they are all root hardy).
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Yes, P. lutea is quite root-hardy, native throughout the South and ranges northward to Missouri and upper Midwest. Its small greenish yellow flowers have a subtle beauty, but the fruit is too small to eat. It cannot hybridize with P. incarnata (too distantly related). It does make good fodder for Gulf Fritillary larvae. It too will spread via root suckers, but is far less obnoxious than P. incarnata in that behavior.
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Thank you all for sharing your aggressive spread anecdotes! Definitely changes my planting plans to containers only. I can’t handle a monoculture takeover!
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hm, i am not really being persuaded, it seems like it could be an ok ground cover in this area and i dont mind shoots popping up everywhere, that already happens with my native honeysuckle and brambles. That being said its interesting you have some people saying its so aggressive its crazy and others saying it gets eaten to the ground by catepillars.
those of you that have issues with aggressiveness, do you spray for pests at all? @Johnsgard @Faytowner
Either way burying a pot could work if youre very worried
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20-25 years ago hoards of Gulf Fritillary caterpillars would regularly strip all my Passiflora vines down to mere stubs. Now, I think possibly due to widespread use of neonic pesticides, and especially because of Polistes species of caterpillar-predatory wasps, I rarely see the adult butterflies or caterpillars here (SE Texas). Passiflora incarnata thrives in open fields, roadsides, powerline and pipeline right-of-ways, etc., even when frequently mowed, from south Texas up to the northeastern U.S. The gene pool is vast and includes interesting local variations (e.g. white-flowered forms). Blake’s efforts to develop named varieties (and hybrids) with large/superior fruit are very commendable and clonal propagation of these will doubtless be required to sustain these varieties in cultivation. Even after my early challenges with “kudzu” passionvines running amok in our yard, I still grow a selection of Passiflora species and varieties (mostly in large containers-> I learned a hard lesson), especially for fruits.
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I will note that P. edulis does not usually sucker at all, and I haven’t seen any suckering from my other species. I imagine maypops and other temperate passionfruit suckering is apart of their cold weather adaptions.
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I agree. I have grown both P. edulis edulis and P. edulis flavicarpa in-ground for many years and, although also rampant growers here, I have never seen a sucker. Gulf Fritillary butterflies do lay eggs on them, but rarely do I see a full-grown instar, probably due to Polistes wasp pressure.
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Very sad to hear the invasive wasp and other factors have led to such a dramatic reduction in gulf fritillary.
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We regularly get fritillary caterpillars but not enough to put a dent in the patch.
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We have wild black raspberries here. They are soft and nearly flavorless. If that was my only experience with them I wouldn’t consider them worth growing.
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I wonder if it can hybridize with P Capsularis or P trifasciata?
Do you have this one? I had it, but lost it due to poor placement.
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I don’t grow either P. capsularis or P. trifasciata. I do have some P. “Inspiration” back-crosses to pure P. incarnata that I made and am growing (flowered, but not fruited yet). I have a ton of those seeds, so anyone that wants to try this hybrid can dm me for a batch. The floral characteristics look intermediate between the two “parents,” but the foliage characteristics are spot-on for P. “Inspiration.” I can dig out a photo or two if anyone is interested.
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Curious about P. lutea, not for human consumption just for native vine. I see it suckers less than incarnata- does it also grow slower? Safer to plant this one in a bed with other native (near a fence/dead tree) and count on it not to try to take over?
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