Monday, May 17, 2010

Monster vine is a lillikoi

































Last year I bought "Brazilian round yellow passion fruit" seeds from Baker Creek. Unlike the other passion fruit seeds I unsuccessfully tried to germinate before, these germinated very easily and grew very quickly. Within a month or two from germinating around May last year, I planted them in my back yard on a two wire trellis specially made for the two plants I planted.

In my wildest dreams I never imagined them to completely overgrow the trellis and then reach beyond to envelop everything in its path. As you can see in the last picture, they're now snaking up my traveller's Palm.

I see my neighbor tried to hack it away from his Crepe Myrtle trees which were being completely suffocated. I will have to bring out my pruning gear this coming weekend and try to stop it from completely taking over.

It has been blooming profusely for a couple of weeks now, but I still don't see a single fruit forming, I also don't see any bees or other insects buzzing around the flowers. I think I will have to take a small paint brush and start hand pollinating. I wonder if having two vines are enough - hopefully the seeds were not from the same parent and incompatible.

So, if there are more people out there who were wondering what "Brazilian round yellow passionfruit" from Baker Creek are, they are undoubtedly the yellow edible passion fruit or lillikoi.

2 comments:

  1. WOW...I can't believe it's so aggressive! Beautiful, though! I have a Lady Margaret passion vine..don't think it produces the fruit, but I don't know. The blooms of your vine are really pretty! Good luck with your pruning!

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  2. Yeah, I read somewhere that it is very aggressive but didn't quite believe it. Now I do ! But at least it hides the back fence and is quite pretty to look at. I'll just have to keep it in check.

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