The easiest potted fruit to grow, self-pollinating, with a flowering and fruiting period of half a year, can be grown on a balcony
Introduction
Potted greenery is an essential decorative element of home life. It beautifies the room, freshens the air, and uplifts the spirit. Keeping some flowers and plants at home has many benefits. "Flower Voice Potted Plant Diary · Issue 933" introduces you to one of the easiest-to-grow fruit plants.
Today's featured plant
Northern gardening enthusiasts may rarely have seen what this fruit looks like growing on a tree. This is Passiflora edulis, commonly known as passion fruit. It is available year-round in fruit supermarkets, and the price is not low. In fact, Passiflora edulis is very easy to grow and can be grown in pots; it can even be grown on northern balconies. We have introduced it before, and this issue will introduce the easiest-to-grow variety of Passiflora edulis.
Zixiang No. 1
Zixiang No. 1 is currently the most widely cultivated passion fruit variety in China. The fruit is round or oblong, and the outer peel is purple when ripe. It has low sugar content and low acidity. The fruit weighs about 35 grams, and the yield per mu can reach 2000 kg, making it very high-yielding. The flowering period is from March to December. In South China, it can flower and bear fruit all year round. In northern regions, the flowering and fruiting period is from spring to autumn, during which it will flower and bear fruit multiple times, flowering and fruiting at the same time, very diligently.
Easy to cultivate
Zixiang No. 1 is a vine plant. The plant is not very tall, only about 6 m long. It is not demanding about soil and can be grown in an ordinary foam box (a flower pot is too small; it can survive, but it is hard for it to bear fruit). You can set up a trellis or guide it to climb up the balcony. Its growth is very fast. Last year I bought two Zixiang No. 1 plants, and in just one year they covered the security netting. This year they have already bloomed, but so far have not borne fruit (see the post I sent earlier).
Flowering
It is worth mentioning that many fruit plants require cross-pollination to bear fruit, but Zixiang No. 1 has self-compatibility and is hermaphroditic, so it can self-pollinate. The top three clock-hand-like parts of its flower are the pistils, and the five separate small petals below are the stamens. The female flowers bear fruit, and the male flowers are used for pollination. Hand pollination is also possible. The specific operation is as follows: use a brush or cotton swab to collect pollen from the five lower styles and apply it to the three upper styles. It can bear fruit without hand pollination, but experiments show that flowers that receive hand pollination have a fruit-setting rate increased by 30%.
Fruiting
The necessary condition for Zixiang No. 1 to flower and bear fruit: there must be sufficient light. Insufficient light will affect flowering and fruiting. A gardening enthusiast once asked me why their passion fruit only grew leaves and did not bloom. It turned out that they were growing it completely indoors, with no sunlight at all. With green overhead, how could there be fruit to eat? Therefore, potted plants should be placed on a balcony or terrace.
For northern gardening enthusiasts, maintaining it on an enclosed balcony in winter is no problem. I have seen northern gardening enthusiasts share their growing experience: in winter, placing it on an enclosed balcony, enjoying the heating while basking in the sun through the glass, it smoothly flowered and bore fruit beautifully. For daily care, you can provide plenty of water and fertilizer; it is not finicky.