Count Your Blessings!

With love and passion, everyone can have a nice garden...Elaine Yim

Count Your Blessings!
Count The Garden By The Flowers, Never By The Leaves That Fall.
Count Your Life With Smiles And Not The Tears That Roll.
..... Author unknown.

Knowing me, Knowing you..... Aha.....!

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Malaysian Flora USDA Zone 11
Welcome to our exotic world of everlasting summers and tropical rainforests!

Friday, October 16, 2009

Passion Fruits & Passion Flowers

Here's something to ignite your passion in gardening!

After viewing pictures of the Scarlett Passiflora Coccinea on my latest Wordless Wednesday post, are you ready for more passion???? And so, the tale continues here ........

This is Passion fruit Passiflora edulis flower.

We get our commercially available pasison fruits from this plant. This perennial evergreen is native to tropical America. It is a vigourous climbing woody vine that clings by tendrils to any structure for support. It can grow up to 20 ft tall, very invasive and needs regular prunning. It can live 5-7 years.

The flowers which are fragrant and usually pollinated by carpenter bees. If necessary, you may use hand pollination method too.

The passion in the name
I always thought that "passion" as in passion flowers and passion fruits refers to romance and affection. However, according to facts from wikipedia, it refers to the passion of Jesus Christ. In the 15th and 16th centuries, Spanish Christian missionaries adopted the unique physical structures of this plant, particularly the numbers of its various flower parts, as symbols of the last days of Jesus Christ and especially the Crucifixion. For more information, please read here.


The passion fruit will turn from green to purple when riped.



The leaves, flowers and stems of the Passiflora edulis has medicinal uses e.g. in lowering blood pressure, treatment of asthma, insomnia and menopausal problems.
The passion fruit is available commercially, either fresh or canned. Examples are passion fruit juice, syrup, jam, mousse, cheesecake flavouring and other desserts. Fresh passion fruit is high in vitamin A, potassium and dietary fiber. Passion fruit juice is a good source of vitamin C.


Here is another type of passion flower, the fragrant passion flower Passiflora laurifolia.
Common names for its fruit : bell apple, yellow granadilla, golden bellapple, water lemon
Malay name: Buah susu

During my first visit on a conducted garden tour at The Secret Garden of 1-Utama, we, the visiting public, were constantly distracted by the whiff of strong heavenly scent that permeated the air around us. The perfume was so distinctly captivating that we just had to interrupt the speaker and asked about its origin. So we found out that it was the fragrant passiflora laurifolia! This is the plant I want in my garden. Since then, I have been dreaming of this passion flower every night.

The flowers are very beautiful and extremely fragrant. This plant produces medium sized, oval shaped fruits, usually with a deep orange skin and white-yellow, juicy pulp. The water lemon has a mild taste, without the tartness of the common passion fruit. A not widely known, and very underrated passion fruit. For more information, please visit Tradewindsfruit.com here.


Now, after reading my post, which passion flower plant would you like to grow in your garden?

a) The scarlett Passiflora cocchinea for the striking red colour
b) The Passiflora edulis for the passion fruit
c) The Passiflora laurifolia for the strong fragrance

Pictures taken by Autumn Belle at The Secret Garden of 1-Utama.
Honorable mention:
Some sources of information are obtained from Wikipedia and Tradewindsfruit.com
Grateful thanks to Dr. Francis Ng, of the Secret Garden of 1-Utama.

This is my entry for Blooming Friday. The theme today is ice crystals. Maybe you can imagine iced passion fruit juice instead. My grateful thanks to Katarina at Roses and Stuff for hosting Blooming Friday. To see what others have posted or to participate, click here.

This is also my first entry for Fertilizer Friday. My grateful thanks to Tootsie at Tootsie Time for hosting Fertilizer Friday. To see what others have posted or to participate, visit here.
This is my entry for Today's Flowers #62. To view more flowers today and to participate, visit here.

Finally, I wish to end here with a picture of this kolam depicting a pair of beautiful peacocks. This photograph was taken at the AON Shopping Centre, Bandar Bukit Tinggi, Klang. Kolams are a form of Indian art paintings drawn on the ground at entrances using coloured rice grains or rice powder. It is said to welcome prosperity into the homes or buildings.


I would like to wish all my friends around the world who are celebrating Deepavali or Diwali,
the Festival of Lights on this Saturday, October 17th, 2009,

A VERY HAPPY DEEPAVALI !
For more photos about Deepavali Festival at Little India, Klang, Malaysia,
please visit my city daily photo blog here
And to others, Happy Holidays and have a nice weekend.

32 comments:

  1. I have to say that all are lovely, but the red one in previous post is still my favorite. Probably due to color...

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  2. Lovely! The bloom on the first picture is very, very nice! Charming.

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  3. Nice to see the fruit, as I've never seen it. Flowers gorgeous.

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  4. Those are amazing! What fascinating flowers. Very intriguing. Thanks for sharing.

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  5. Hello,

    What a beautiful plant and fascinating history!

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  6. Hi AB, Great images of Passaflora. I Haven't seen a Passion flower I haven't loved.
    Scott

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  7. Lovely Passion Flowers we only have one in UK that is hardy enough to grow outside and that needs a protected wall to get through the winter.

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  8. Oh! This is a passion fruit. It tastes exactly like the passion juice.

    This is what I felt the moment I took passiion fruit yesterday.

    How stupid I am.

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  9. Lovely post and stunning top photo!

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  10. Excellent post! So much I didn't know about passion fruit except that I love the drink.
    Beautiful kolam! it's diwali here, and we'd be busy with making rangolis. happy diwali to you too.

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  11. Another stunning passiflora!
    Thanks for your tips on passiflora (guess cuttings is going to very much a experimental factor if I were to find these in the wild)

    Im planning to start my passion fruit plant soon after sorting my garden for more space. As I got the seeds from a passionfriut sold in a market.

    It would be great if you could start growing them in your garden too, I also share the same dream of those passion flowers in the garden.
    Passion fruit is known as timun dendang in Malaysia.

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  12. Happy holidays to you and your family! I can't wait for this long weekend :-D So nice. I really love Malaysia for having many Public Holidays!

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  13. Wow...what a fascinating plant. The flowers are magic. Your post is so interesting - thanks for sharing.
    Happy holidays.

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  14. The passion fruit is an indoor plant here. (All though it spends some time outdoor in the summer)And it is said to bring peace and calm into your home. Have a nice week end!

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  15. They're really special, interesting flowers -those Passion flowers!Now I'll check out your India-Malaysia-Blog.. Have a nice weekend//Eva

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  16. Lovely photos of Passifloras you are showing.
    Fact is, I have some kinds in pots, but they will move inside house, before it gets to cold for them.
    Happy weekend!/
    AnnA

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  17. I love passion fruit I wish we had it warmer so we could grow them here MB

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  18. I really like the red one in your previous post...but I also think that not only is it nice to have a wonderful fragrance, but a beautiful bloom as well--and both can be found in passiflora laurifolia. So that would be my first choice!

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  19. Beautiful photos ... I love the vine curls on the first photo of the fruit... such a great green. It is snowing here as I look at your exotic fruit growing in your garden! The sand painting is incredible! Happy Festival of Lights! Carol

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  20. If I could grow them in
    our garden, I'd choose Edulis - for the tasty fruits. Also, I like the flowers!
    Have a great weekend!

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  21. Oh Please link this in to my fertilizer friday!!! what a wonderful post...I wish I could have them all....even if they are invasive! I want fast growing...fragrant, and beautiful blooms and fruits the whole kit and kabootle!!!
    I wonder if I could grow that in my greenhouse!!! hmmm.....maybe I see a seed hunting google going on...have a great weekend friend...I have loved reading this post!

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  22. Exotic, exciting and so much more. I love the transformation photos. Very well done.

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  23. I have never seen the fruit what a wonderful post. Thank you for sharing have to say the red one is my favorite. hugs, Cherry

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  24. Thank you for taking the time to explain all the different varieties. I would have to say "c) The passiflora laurifolia for the strong fragrance"... for me it's all about fragrance;~)
    *hugs*deb

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  25. I'd pick the last 2. I love purple and I love fragrant flowers. You got some gorgeous shots!

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  26. Vrtlarica, Tatyana, Mary Delle, Ms Daisy, Noelle, Scott & Liz, Joanne, Rainfield, Joey, Urban Green, Stephanie, Randi, Angel Pearls, Ann A, Maria Berg, Jan, Carol, Poetic Shutterbug, Cherry, Dragonfly Treasure, Sweet Bay,

    Thank you very much for visiting and for the nice comments. But best of all thank you for sharing the same passion with me.

    Rainfield. I haven’t eaten the fresh passion fruit before, only tried passion fruit juice which tasted great. I will definitely look out for this fruits at the markets.

    Lillebeth, I truly believe that the passiflora plant will bring peace and calm into our homes. The perfume itself has the most beautiful floral scent I have ever experienced.

    James, today I learnt a new word from you i.e. timun dendang. Honestly, I haven’t heard of it before. Growing passion fruit from seeds is a good idea. I definitely want to try this method too.

    Happy Deepavali to Urban Green and James.

    Katarina, thank you for hosting Blooming Friday and your encouraging words.

    Tootsie, thank you for hosting Fertilizer Friday and your encouraging words.

    Now, I am wondering who will successfully get passion fruits and flowers next summer.

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  27. Beautiful garden and flowers and thanks for the info. I have the wild version at my backyard Stinking Passion Flower (Passiflora foetida) .

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  28. I've never seen the passion fruit flower before, it's so beautiful!

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  29. Tabib, I went over to your blog to check and yes, you do have a preety passion flower plant and a wild one too. How nice.

    Sandy Carlson and Jama, the fragrance is like perfume and it seems to cast a spell over you. I tried eating passion fruits for the first time yesterday and it tasted sweet and a bit sour. Oh, before I forget, I must reserve some seeds for growing.

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  30. Wow, thanks a lot for the details! Now i know why some people said a passion fruit is yellow. I definitely will go for the fragrance one! --- but where to get ar? hahaha. Thanks again for the help :)

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  31. I always took the passion fruit for granted and treated the creeper as a nuisance to be gotten rid of as soon as they appeared in the hedges of my house.
    Now I know that the passion plant has other beneficial uses....

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