Fruiting against the odds

Last year I was tempted to pull out my old passionfruit vine.  It was established in the garden when we bought the house 5 years ago and was fruiting when we moved in that July – which is in the middle of Melbourne’s winter.  I’m not sure what would have prompted it to fruit at that time of the year.   I reckon it is at least 9-10 years old if not older – the neighbours couldn’t quite remember when it was planted – only that they had fruit on their side of the fence too.  9 years is pretty old for a passionfruit – most sources seem to suggest they only live for about 5 -7 years.  It hadn’t really fruited for the last 2 years so last Autumn I decided it had to go.  Fortunately laziness got the better of me and I left it in.  Having done so I decided to fertilise it last Spring.  The vine decided to reward me with fruit.  Whilst we haven’t had a huge harvest we have had at least 30 fruit with a couple more still on the vine.

What is even more remarkable is that it is fruiting despite the condition of its trunk which looks like this:

 Looking at it from that angle and its quite unbelievable that it is even alive, but it is, with a good number of leaves.

There is an area on the underside of the trunk which looks marginally more healthy and it is up that part that the nutrients must be travelling.

I can’t imagine this vine will get through another year so I really will have to pull it out this winter.  Being grafted, it means I will have to poison it which I don’t like doing but there isn’t any other relatively easy way of getting rid of all those suckers.   The suckers are currently taking over and are running across next doors roof so in the spirit of good neighbourliness it has to go.  I do feel sad though as it has been a wonderful vine and I am really appreciative of this last lot of fruit.