Passion Fruit

Importance of Pruning: There are two vines on my balcony. These are purple Passion Fruit and are about 18 months old. This is the second season they produced. I got about 20 fruit last year and about 40 fruit this year. I believe I could have gotten more if I had trimmed back the vines. I will test this theory next season. Passion fruit buds only grow from new vine growth, so when a vine is cut it promotes new growth, which in turn should create more fruit.

Sunlight vs Shade: I propagated these three purple Passion Fruit plants from cuttings using my main plant on the balcony late last year. These vines are growing on the fence that leads to my front door. 

They are not even a year old, but producing well with over 25 fruit so far and still flowering. Passion fruit grow well in both shade and direct sunlight, but the fruit in direct sunlight are larger. Additionally, I have found that my pollination success is much great in direct sunlight. My pollination success with vines in the shade is roughly 50-60 percent and my success in the direct sunlight is 90-95 percent. Plus, the vines in the shade have stopped flowering and the vines in the direct sunlight are still generating new growth and flowering.

These three purple Passion Fruit vines are about seven months old and growing on a fence in the front of my house. They do not have as much new growth, thus not as many fruit.

Front of my house.

Front of my house.

The yellow Passion Fruit plants in the back of my house are growing like weeds. I planted these last June, which makes them about 9-10 months old. There are five mature plants, but I have four more saplings inside the trellis area and four saplings below, plus I planted about eight saplings in a different part of my garden that goes down a hill. I will have to think what to do with them next season.