Maypop provides

One of my favorite plants right now in my garden is "Maypop", Passiflora incarnata. A vigorous perennial vine, I planted it a couple of years ago at one of the supports for the pergola over the patio. My thought at the time was that this would be a nice replacement for the annual vines I had been planting here every year -- my expectations were relatively low.

This surprised me last year by producing so many amazing flowers, and doing a pretty decent job at covering at least part of the pergola. Then it produced some fruit, and I knew this was going to be a winner. This year? Take everything I loved about it last year and double it!

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This vine produced flowers all summer long -- during the heat and drought it just kept producing. I did water it a few times when it looked exceptionally droopy, but for the most part I just stood back. It's still producing flowers now:

But the real story of this plant right now is fruit:

These fruits are deceptive, as they look heavier than they really are -- a good part of each one is hollow,  with the edible part being the pulp surrounding each seed.

Still, there are quite a few of these ripening right now:

Yes, quite a few.

I only know these are ripe once they fall from the vines, as I'm no good at telling when they're ready before then.

Did I mention there are lots of fruits?

One of the main tasks of any vine I plant here is to cover the pergola and provide shade to the patio.

I think it succeeds in this area, don't you?

This is supposed to be a host plant for Gulf Fritillary butterfly larva, but I haven't seen any evidence of them. Something is eating the leaves though:

That doesn't look like caterpillar damage to me, and I saw no evidence of caterpillars. Perhaps I'll attract some next year? (Maybe it is caterpillar damage -- does anybody know?)

I ended up letting the vines climb up into the contorted pine, and I like the look of the hanging fruits -- like ornaments!

So this is one of my favorite plants of 2012. I like it so much, I have a second maypop I'm hoping to plant in the next week or so.

Now to wait for some more fruits to fall...

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