Description
Purple Passionflower is a perennial vine with an intricate, unusual flower. The fall fruit is a large, edible yellowish-orange berry. It spreads by root suckers. Purple Passionflower is one of the host plants of the Mexican Fritillary butterfly and the Variegated Fritillary butterfly.
Although reliably winter hardy to USDA zone 5, Passion Flower can survive in Zone 4 if you have just the right protected micro climate to plant in. In the summer of 2012 , Prairie Moon grew and planted 8 vines to a gallon size pot with 2-3’ of growth in several likely locations around the nursery. In late fall we did a heavy mulch of 10-12” compost to protect the young vines against our Minnesota winter. Only 1 vine survived the first winter. But we have it still, and it seems quite happy, although it does not come up until early summer.
