Growing Passionfruit at Home – One Green Planet – GWC Mag

Though it has the reputation of being a tropical fruit, the United States has a native species of passion fruit. It is commonly called maypop and wild apricot, and it grows primarily in the Southeast, climbing as far north as Pennsylvania and rambling as far west as Texas.

As with tropical passionfruit, temperate climate passionfruit, aka purple passionflower, grows on vigorous vines that are extremely voracious climbers. The plant has stunning flowers, uniquely shaped foliage, and tasty fruit.

It can be grown as an ornamental, scaling arbors and covering them without missing a bit, then sending out a flurry of flowers in mid-summer. It can be grown as food, each vine producing a huge bounty of berries about the size of a chicken egg filled with sweet pulp.

Passionfruit Stats

Passionfruit, at least the native USA kind, is truly in the Passiflora genus like the passionfruit from Brazil. It is officially Passiflora incarnata, and one of its common names is actually “true passionflower”. It is a perennial vine, and in temperate climates (Zones 6-11), it will die back each year and return in the late spring, hence Maypop.

Maypop can grow 25 feet long, spreading out quite wide with lateral growth as it does it. The leaves have very defined lobes, usually three lobes but sometimes five. The flowers are extremely elaborate with pronounced styles and stamens that sit atop delicate purplish petals.

Following the flowers, small green fruits (technically berries) form, and they yellow a bit as they mature. The fruits should be ready to eat in 2-3 months when the interior pulp turns from white to a muted yellow.

Cultivating Passionfruit

While maypop grows wild in most of the Eastern United States, it is also easy to cultivate. It can be very aggressive with sending up new shoots each year, spreading its domain several feet each year. Luckily, it’s easy to pull from garden beds, and it can also be controlled by regular mowing.

It likes full sun. It prefers well-drained soil but is known to tolerate some wet feet. it can form a thick carpet of vines in just a short time. Providing a passion vine a trellis will help some with controlling its self-propagation, but it will require some corralling. In other words, the vine doesn’t demand special care to grow; more so, it demands attention in that it has to be controlled.

Each vine can produce somewhere between 10-20 fruits, and they should be planted about three feet apart, though they can certainly grow near each other if a harvest isn’t the goal. The flowers are gorgeous, and they come in abundance in the summertime.

Harvesting Passionfruit

Of course, passionfruit is very well-known for its fruit. Passionfruit is the main flavor used in Hawaiian punch. It is very tasty to eat on its own. It makes fantastic sauces, it plays nicely in fruit salads, and it knocks a smoothie out of the park.

In the United States, the fruit is ready for harvest in the autumn. The fruit outside of the fruit will change from green to yellow-green or orange-green. The inside of the fruit switches from white and somewhat dry to yellow and pulpy. It freezes well to preserve it, and it can be portioned in an ice cube tray.

But, the berries are not the only thing to harvest from passionfruit. Its leaves and flowers can be used to make a calming tea, great for going to sleep or decreasing stress levels. It has a litany of other health benefits. In some places, the fruit doesn’t have time to mature, so this gives the vine another edible quality to appreciate.

Get Your Passionfruit Growing!

With all that in mind, finding passionfruit can be done by digging a bit up from the wild (I got my first few shoots from the side of the road), or it can be purchased through a nursery. It’s best planted in late spring, and it will establish itself very quickly. From one plant, it will be easy to multiply your supply and grow any- and everywhere you like.

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