Passion fruit poser?

[Snadger]

I've grown a passion fruit vine from seed of a passion fruit I ate!

I planted it in a large pot and trained it up canes on the front of my summerhouse. The reason I planted it in a pot was so that I could prune it and bring it indoors for the winter.
The problem is the vine is still surviving after a couple of frosts and to move it I would have to cut its leaves off. I am loathe to do this and wonder whether I should just leave it where it is?

This is what it looks like now.

[burnie]

It's the rootball that needs protecting as the tops can die back to the ground(mine did in Leicestershire) and re-appear the following year. Up here I would only grow one under cover and don't really have room in the greenhouse.

[SelkirkAlex]

I would cut it back and get the pot into shelter, the vine isn't going to grow more in winter and it will take off rapidly come spring.

I used to grow them in the garden in the transvaal highveld, deemed too cold by many with winter night time temps typically around -5c, it would look bedraggled and drop leaves but every spring it became a triffid no matter how hard I cut it back

[BUFFS]

I grow mine outside and it was flowering until three weeks ago, it has been outside for three years now and even when we had minus ten for weeks in 2011 it just sprouted the following spring, the one I have now is from one of its seed, we lost the old one when we had some building work done. I do have it in sandy soil as the winter rain around here would drown it otherwise..

[boatsman]

My neighbour has a large passiflora vine which hangs down in my garden. It produces plenty of green fruit about 7-8 cm in diameter. The soil locally is heavy clay. I saw on Wiki that the fruit is either purple or yellow, so presumably my neighbour's should turn yellow when ripe. So far most of the fruit drops off green.

[burnie]

Growing p.edulis is difficult in the UK from my experience, getting fruit ripe is difficult, though climate change might change this, it's 30 years since I tried in Leicestershire.

[DannyK]

RHS lumps it with others and gives min 10C BUT per Vanderplank (keeper of UK Nat Colln) it will tolerate periods of 5-13C and slight frost of -2.5C for short periods.

Have overwintered seedlings at 5C. They were bedraggled but picked up, unlike incarnata they didn't die back.

Do you really have to cut it back? It looks really good. Could you just take out canes?

[Snadger]

RHS lumps it with others and gives min 10C BUT per Vanderplank (keeper of UK Nat Colln) it will tolerate periods of 5-13C and slight frost of -2.5C for short periods.

Have overwintered seedlings at 5C. They were bedraggled but picked up, unlike incarnata they didn't die back.

Do you really have to cut it back? It looks really good. Could you just take out canes?

Unfortunately storm Caroline has had an input and battered it! My logic is that the longer I can keep its leaves growing the more nutrients will go into the plant. I'll try and rescue it at the weekend.

[Snadger]

My rescue attempt has hopefully been successful. The passion fruit plant appears to me to be an evergreen with shiny leaves. Last night the tempratures dropped particularily low and even the brassicas have suffered. I tied up the battered stems of the passion fruit and screwed the ends of the canes to the front of the summerhouse.
The leaves are similar to a fatsia and don't seem to have suffered.

[DannyK]

My rescue attempt has hopefully been successful.

How did your passiflora fare?

The one I brought into the house went into the greenhouse once outside minimum exceeded 50F. Moved it outside few days ago and leaves scorched by sun. Will move it into greenhouse that's got bubblewrap. The maypops and an ornamental unaffected by sun.

Only two that overwintered in greenhouse, min 40F, survived. Dropped leaves and new ones only just appearing!