Hi all,

I have a passion fruit grown from a pip that started last summer and survived the winter as a ssedling, it's now just growing massive (4 feet high) and throwing out tendrils..

Can anyone tell me anything about them, looks like a vine type or climber, does anyone think it can survive outside in the norther UK?

Will it fruit soon or in years?

Thanks,

Richard

Assuming the pip came from the common Passiflora edulis, yes, it's a vigorous vine, perhaps up to 40 feet. It's also tropical, and will be severely damaged or killed by temperatures only slightly below freezing.

To continue with the rest of your question, I've had them flower in the second season from seed; I don't think I've flowered one in the first year.

Some P. edulis varieties are self-incompatible, meaning that they need a different variety nearby for cross pollination. Other varieties are self-fruitful. If you know that your seeds came from a self-fruitful variety, you're likely to get self-fruitful seedlings. But of course, from the market, there's no way to know.

In the UK, since you likely don't have the correct species of bee to pollinate them, I do recommend hand pollination, which is very easy with passionfruit -- just break off one of the big, pad-like anthers when it is open and powdery with pollen, and wipe some on each of the 3 green stigmas in the middle. if your plant is self-compatible, you'll get nearly 100% fruit set that way.

Passionfruit are odd, in that you don't harvest them from the plant. When they are mature, they drop naturally to the ground, so the tradition is to pick up the drops once a day, during the ripening season, which may be a period of several months.