Passion Fruit
Permaculturists like to talk about “stacking functions” which means that we try to find multiple uses for an given thing. From that standpoint, Passion Fruit Vine is a dream plant.
This incredibly hardy vine will grow on just about anything, so it has many great uses:
- Fruit: The tasty “maracuya” passion fruit has a hard shell that you break open and find inside a loose collection of jellied seeds. I used to tell my daughter that they were “frog eggs” and when you chew them, the crunchiness is from the baby frog bones inside them. Maybe that would gross out a lot of kids but Serafina was used to these kinds of stories so she knew when I was joking.
- Flowers: The passion fruit flower is one of the most beautiful in the world. It’s very large, with lots of exorbitant detail… a flower right out of a tropical dream.
- Shade: We use this vine to grow on top of shade structures, because it’s such a fast grower and it has broad leaves that are great for blocking the sun. We’re using it on two structures already: Living Shade Garden Unit and the Monkey Dome.
- Privacy: Don’t want to see something? Or need privacy? You can use this vine to cover a big pile of wood or rubbish. Or block the view of an ugly house or structure by making a trellis to grow this vine on. It will not only beautify, but will give you fruit too.
