Ideas for taming out-of-control passion fruit vine!

[chorvat]

I have a passion fruit vine that is growing out of control along a 120 ft long, tall chain link fence. It is flowering and fruiting in the warm months, but beneath the layer of green is a whole lot of dead wood, making it billow out farther than desired. I'm not sure whether it's best to try to tame it or totally replace it. The fence sits along a sport court, with lots of sun, zone 10b.

The options I’ve considered are:

1. Manually hacking away at the old wood underneath, which is incredibly labor intensive and hard to untangle the old from the new vines
2. Chopping it all down and hoping it will grow back more nicely
3. Chopping it all down and veering the whole fence with a different vine that is less billowy, like creeping fig. I worry I would have to remove the entire fence though to get rid of the passion fruit.

Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Chuck]

I had the unfortunate experience of growing a passion fruit vine. Beautiful flowers, very exotic. Luckily my climate precluded it from fruiting, but that did not stop it from spreading.. It was/is very invasive and shoots came up as far as 30+ feet away. It took me 3 years to finally kill it all. About the only thing I like about the plant is that it is the preferred food of the Fritillary caterpillar which turns into a beautiful butterfly. I finally killed it by cutting the shoots at ground level every time one popped up. I know this isn't you problem but I do not wish this plague I had on anyone else. I finally killed it by mixing diesel and molasses 50/50 on the new shoots which I had cut.

 

[Becky]

Welcome to the forum @chorvat!

1. Manually hacking away at the old wood underneath, which is incredibly labor intensive and hard to untangle the old from the new vines
2. Chopping it all down and hoping it will grow back more nicely
3. Chopping it all down and veering the whole fence with a different vine that is less billowy, like creeping fig. I worry I would have to remove the entire fence though to get rid of the passion fruit.

I don't think option 1 would be a viable option, and option 2 would likely result in similar growth in the long term. If you are looking to change how it looks, then I think option 3 is your best bet. It looks like a metal fence from the photos, so hopefully it would withstand the vine being removed. It's going to take a lot of elbow grease though!

 

[Greenhorn]

I got nothing..... but sympathy. It looks to be a daunting task no matter what the solution ends up being. A real tough one.

 

[kavi]

Go ahead with option 3.

 

[Icecold]

set it on fire.

 

[Corzhens]

Huh, your passion fruit vine is scary. It looks like a set for a horror movie. I don't know much about passion fruit and I only opened this thread because that is the favorite of my husband. In fact, he had planted passion fruit in our extended garden to climb our concrete fence. But when it started to grow, it was infested by pests so my husband decided to remove it. Now we know that it can create a jungle.

 

[Silentrunning]

Having lived in southern Florida I found out that Passion Vine and Morning Glory plants are not our friends.

 

[Rajesh Sethi]

I had the unfortunate experience of growing a passion fruit vine. Beautiful flowers, very exotic. Luckily my climate precluded it from fruiting, but that did not stop it from spreading.. It was/is very invasive and shoots came up as far as 30+ feet away. It took me 3 years to finally kill it all. About the only thing I like about the plant is that it is the preferred food of the Fritillary caterpillar which turns into a beautiful butterfly. I finally killed it by cutting the shoots at ground level every time one popped up. I know this isn't you problem but I do not wish this plague I had on anyone else. I finally killed it by mixing diesel and molasses 50/50 on the new shoots which I had cut.

Wow, this is what you are referring to.

I used to think just disturbing the main stem kills the plant, I never had it on ground.

Generally, I planted in a pot.

 

[roadrunner]

I always hack away at my dead vines (chop and drop) at the end of the year, so you don't have that mess.

P.S. I know this is a very old thread and the OP hasn't been back since opening it.