Passion back in fasion - Aug 26, 2011
It's spring, so now is the best time to plant almost everything in your garden. If you have a bare looking pool fence then perhaps you might like to cover it with a passion fruit vine. Passion fruit cost around 50 cents each in the shops and a mature vine will produce between 300 and 400 fruit every year. That's $200 worth of passion fruit every year for free.
Passion fruit are not hard to grow they just need a spot in the garden which gets at least 6 hours of sun a day. They like free draining soil so if you have clay plant your vine on a mound of garden mix. Prune your vine back by 25% every spring after the last frost then fertilise with Blood and Bone.
Now when you go to the nursery to buy your passion fruit vine you will be told that a grafted plant is the best one to get. But after hearing horrific stories for years about how these vines can sucker everywhere now I am not so sure.
If I was planting a passion fruit vine today I would be choosing a seedling grown variety. They may not have as many fruit as a grafted variety and they may not live quite as long but at least I know it isn't going to pop up every where in my lawn and garden.
Seedling grown varieties are at least 50% cheaper to buy so perhaps you can use the money you save to buy another passion fruit vine.
Tim Pickles is a horticulturist and director of Tim's Garden Centre 2 Queen St Campbelltown 46267022.