Questions about passiflora

[Desirai]

I'm aware there is another thread about passiflora, but I don't want to be rude and ask my questions in that thread.

I bought some maypop passiflora seeds from a lady in Atlanta, GA.

I live in Alabama, in zone 7b/8a (depending which map you ask)

Can these grow as perennials in 7b/8a?

I read one commenter say if you can grow olive trees, you can grow maypops. Well, my neighbor has some sort of an ornamental olive tree in her yard, does that count?

Does maypop produce edible fruit? Is this the plant that you get passionfruit from? I've never had passionfruit before.

[CharlieBear]

On the ornamental olive plant question no, We can grow those in the maritime NW, but not regular olive trees.
If you grew it in the ground it would need heavy mulching and some sort of protection during the winter. We are considered 8 where I am and we can only do it with heavy mulch or bringing the plant in for the winter. If we leave it outside there is a chance of losing it on those years that it gets colder than the norm.

[rainbowgardener]

We have a passionflower that is a native wildflower where I am, in zone 6, passiflora incarnata. It is quite cold hardy and easy to grow, but it is not the one that produces passion fruit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passiflora_incarnata

Passiflora edulis is the one that produces the passionfruit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passiflora_edulis It is tropical or subtropical depending on variety. Look in nurseries, they may have a variety that is hardy for you.

[bg]

This is kind of confusing for me, since I bought the Passiflora incarnata in the summer, from territorial seed. They list it as flowering and producing edible fruit.

The wikipedia link given does say it produces fruit, which can be used in jams and even as a substitute for the Passiflora edulis. The Passiflora edulis link for wikipedia that was given is stating that it is the variety used for its fruit as juice known as passion fruit, etc.

So edible or not, does it actually produce fruit then?

Mine is growing quite well, even attacking (pulling down my ghost pepper plant while trying to climb lol). Not actually harming it, lol, but definitely spreading quite well to other areas of my garden. It has yet to flower for me, but we'll see when spring comes around.

[rainbowgardener]

I haven't grown it, but I have a good friend who has a yard full of our native passionflower (it can spread pretty rampantly) and it just makes seed pods. She gave me a couple...

[tomc]

I'm aware there is another thread about passiflora, but I don't want to be rude and ask my questions in that thread.

I bought some maypop passiflora seeds. I live in Alabama, in zone 7b/8a (depending which map you ask) Can these grow as perennials in 7b/8a?

Not without deeply mulching them, and maybe not reliably even with mulch.

I read one commenter say if you can grow olive trees, you can grow maypops. Well, my neighbor has some sort of an ornamental olive tree in her yard, does that count?

The originator of that question lived in north africa, and it is just possible that they could still have night time air drainage problems (low humidity and hills mean it can still freeze at night). Olea europa don't grow where it dips below 32°F too often.

Does maypop produce edible fruit? Is this the plant that you get passionfruit from? I've never had passionfruit before.

My herbals list it as a medicinal. *Shrugs*

[lorax]

I'll toss in my 2 cents. There are about 25 different passiflora species that produce fruit we'd consider to be edible.

The "passionfruit" best known to North Americans is P. edulis var. flavicarpa; the best known one for South Americans depends on country, but you'll get at least P. mixta (Taxo, one of the banana passionfruits), P. ligularis (Granadilla), and P. quadrangularis (Badea, one of the giant passionfruits).

Maypops are the hardiest edible species in North America.