Anyone has tried to plant passion fruit vines in containers?

Hello, I'm new to permits an very excited to start planning my garden for next year! I have a very small plot and very shady in New England zone 6a, I have been successful growing a lot of food in containers. The previous owners of my house thought that a black top was the way to go for the backyard 😱
I can't rip it off (the black top) and turn it into a garden, but I have been building raised beds and container gardening; anyone has experience with passion fruit in containers? I know I will need a HUGE container... My vines are staying inside for winter and getting big

Pretty sure I've seen them in containers.  I tried growing one once. They sure do attract butterflies. In a week, every leaf was eaten by caterpillers.

I am relatively new to growing passion fruit (it is called maracuya where I am). I think that you already have proven that you can grow it in containers . The fundamental question appears to be will passion fruit grown in containers produce fruit. I do not see any reason why not as long as you keep them watered and the soil that you have them in has good fertility. As you probably know, passion fruit is a hungry and thirsty plant. The one thing you have to watch out for is root rot in a container system - e.g. overdoing it with water.

One thing to consider is what is your climbing strategy? If you do not have one, passion fruit will climb on its own and that might not be a result that you like. Passion fruit also is a fickle plant. It will grow like crazy one year, but then die out the next. Other times it grows well, but does not produce much fruit. But I like growing it and it is rewarding to see the fruit hanging from the vine. I wish you good luck in your endeavor.

In my experience growing in containers has only produced leaves, no fruit (sadly). I have grown in very large containers (like a half barrel). An option might be to have a container with large holes in the bottom, so the roots can grow through in the spring/summer, but you can still bring it inside in summer? It's an interesting experiment, and they're beautiful either way.

The key to growing food in containers is to realize that growing in pots is really growing hydroponically. Therefore, make sure they drain well, and feed them often very weakly, like you would have a nutrient solution in a hydroponics system. Weekly feeding with water soluble nutrients is ideal.

Keep in mind if you over feed nitrogen you will invite pests to feast. As long as the photoperiod is not an issue one can induce flowers and fruit. Offer a flowering solution to the plants BEFORE, just before flower formation. Once you fruits have been pollinated start with a fruit nutrient solution. Remember you are giving a nutrient solution for the NEXT stage of development, moving things along. Natural farming is a perfect fit for this. I've gotten better results sometimes in a container than in the ground at the same time.

I'm a Cho certified Natural Farming instructor. If you have questions hit me up.

I've grown a lot of passion flowers/fruits and have had some fruit in containers. I've only ever had them fruit in containers when outside for the summer, not plants that are grown exclusively indoors. They don't have to be all that big (or heavily fertilized) to set fruit, but plants in small pots simply won't set a lot of fruit.

I've unfortunately never had much success with the standard edible passion fruit, P. edulis. It's never bloomed for me. I've gotten lots of fruit from maypops, P. incarnata, though never in pots. The variety that has most frequently fruited for me in a container is a hybrid, P. "Blue Eyed Susan." Its fruits are often not filled very well with pulp, but the taste is very good.

So, in short, I think it's very possible. Might work well with P. incarnata -- I've simply never felt much need to try because I could overwinter it outdoors. You also have to have at least two different clones or varieties blooming at the same time, in my experience, for pollination.

I have both P. incarnata and a more tropical species of genus Passiflora growing in a sunny window in WI right now. The maypop has a fruit, although it hated the transition from outdoors to indoors and is still recovering from the move in early October. It is definitely possible. They can also produce fruits given appropriate conditions. I have found the hardest part to be giving them enough to climb on indoors. While I was living in Panama, where they can grow on the fence line all year long, no problem! In Wisconsin...different story.

For container growing Passiflora ( both edulis and incarnate)I containers with fruiting you will need a ten gal. size, some peat and sand in the potting mix.
They will need some sort of trellis to grow up on and as much sunlight as possible. Both varieties will die back in winter and sprout out again in late spring, the root system is perennial but the vines themselves aren't.
As was mentioned, you would need at least two plants to get good fruiting along with access by bees, wasps or hummingbird moths for pollination.

use just a little fertilizer if you aren't using composted manure in the potting mix. Likewise, you might find some tomato nutrient a bonus to help with fruit set but not much will be needed.

Mine grow quickly and die back for the winter, then they come out again in mid spring here in zone 7B-8A.

Redhawk

I had wonderful luck with passion flowers, but I lived in San Diego, which is quite a bit different. ( ;

I used two long, wooden potting containers from Home Depot, approx 3' x 8" x 8" each, regular old potting soil, and I put a large 8' wooden trellis up behind them. The passion flowers were gorgeous. Then I was privy to a wonderful plethora of silver winged butterflies - hundreds of them - after that, I enjoyed the abundance of lizards that would snack on the late blooming butterfly chrysalis.

Circle of life! ( :

We had a ton of hummingbirds and bees, which probably helped.

Hi, I'm down here in zone 9.  I planted several seeds in a 3gal.  20 months later- blooms.!!
plant didn't go dormant. What I did though is give the roots the room they need for growth; and
lots of water!
John

If by passionfruit you mean maypops, I had success in a 5 gallon pot outdoors. I am in New England too. The plant in the pot actually produced more fruits than the ones I transplanted into the ground--but they all made extremely small fruits. I'm hoping that's just  because it was their first season. Here is the thread that had some helpful advice on starting the seeds:

https://permies.com/t/54172/grow-Maypop#525739

Oh and by the way, for better or for worse, I left them all to overwinter outside. I imagine you were wise to bring them indoors, though you'll have to harden them off again in spring...

Thank you everyone, I'm planning on getting some maypops to make sure that if the vines flower at all they will be pollinated....
Right now New  England is covered in snow, but the plants are doing great inside! I will post updates as the weather gets warmer

The bottom picture looks like a Maypop which does fine in the ground. I think it will have more issues with containers than most other species because it dies down to the ground. However most passionfruit seem to do fine with containers.

A bit of an update, it is still winter in New England but my plants are doing well, had a bit of
Aphids... rather has been iffy, yesterday snow, sleet and freezing rainy today a beautiful day! New England at is best

Not sure if this is still active but I wanted to explain my experience with p.edulis.  I grow mine in a container so I can bring it indoors in the winter time (in Seattle).  I got a grow light for it and it was growing really well indoors, but it wasn’t producing fruit, then I changed its fertilizer and quickly after, I started seeing flower nodes appearing (indoors), it needs higher amounts of potassium, and lower levels of nitrogen (organic tomato fertilizer does the trick), with this fertilizer I successfully got my passion fruit to flower and produce fruit, indoors.  The grow lights I got where sansi 36w LED bulbs.  It has 2 over it. It continued flowering outside and now has about 10 fruit on it.  I’m so proud of this plant!

Currently I have

2023 Incarnata from cutting x1
-fruited in 5 gal pot in 2023 (most likely pollinated by caerulea)

2023 Caerulea from cutting x2
-flowered in 5 gal pot in 2023

2023 Edulis (purple) from seed x2
-did not flower/fruit in 2023, hoping for better this year

2023 Ligularis from seed x2
-did not flower/fruit in 2023, hoping for better this year

2023 Tripartita from seed x1
-did not flower/fruit in 2023, hoping for better this year

2023 Manicata from seed x1
-did not flower/fruit in 2023, hoping for better this year

2024 Colvillii (??) seedlings (saved from seed from my incarnata plant's fruit - which most likely crossed with caerulea)
-biggest is about 1ft tall

2024 Edulis var flavicarpa (yellow passionfruit)
-just beginning to germinate now

I'm considering up-potting the 2023 plants from 5 gal to 9 gal.