[permaculture] Which passionfruit?
Rain Tenaqiya
raincascadia at yahoo.com
Tue Oct 7 13:17:22 EDT 2008
There are at least three or four species and hybrids of passionfruit that will grow in the mainland USA. Maypop is the only native one (to the east coast). My understanding is that Maypop need two genetic individuals to get pollination. I have one that flowers every year and never produces fruit, but I've seen some in Eugene, Oregon neigborhoods that are loaded. There are instructions for hand-pollinating maypop that may work. Use a flower from the previous day to pollinate a freshly-opened flower.
As for pruning, maypop die back every year. Other passionfruit can have older vines cut off without a problem. They are very vigorous and will quickly grow back. Just don't do anything to extreme. I've seen a beautiful and productive banana passionfruit killed by idiots that cut off all the vines back to the main trunk, just to maintain an old redwood deck.
Good luck,
Rain
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