Finding vines that fruit and that grow around where I live can be quite hard. I know only of a couple, such as Passionfruit, Hardy Kiwi, this Akebia vine and a couple others. These perennial vines come back every year stronger than before. And eventually when they grow strong enough they will mature and produce fruit. I got my first fruit from this Akebia vine a few years back, unfortunately I had to move the plant before I could eat it. Though last year it produced a fruit and I was able to eat it, has a flavor similar to passion fruit.
During the winter, this vine does not do much. It will drop most of its leaves and wait for warmer days. But during the spring it produces all new leaves, these little purple flowers and alot of vines trying to climb everything.
These flowers are quite beneficial to my Mason bees, they bloom early in the spring when the little solitary bees are out and about. Hopefully they visited another Akebia vine near by and cross pollenated them. I am working on growing more Akebia so they will not need to travel as far.
On this cultivar we get purple flowers, they have a lovely smell to them and can notice walking by. I started two other Akebia vines, known as the Shirobana variety. They have white flowers and hoping once they mature both can cross pollenate giving me lots of fruits.
The vines are something I need to stay on top of, otherwise they get into all kinds of places I dont want them. Such as trying to climb up the deck and between the wood panels. I have pushed it down to try to keep it from getting up there so easily. The vines are indeed useful, if you can grow them long they will make for good cordage.
It always seems so happy, this plant in my experience is easy to grow. But if placed in a area where you dont want it climbing be ready to have trim it alot.
Hoping some of these flowers turn into fruit this year, we got a single fruit last year so it would be nice to get more. Though at the time this Akebia was the only one flowering in my garden, so it must have been cross pollenated with a near by Akebia. If a honey bee visited it, anywhere between here and five miles another Akebia could have been flowering. If my Mason bees then only a few hundred yards. But hard to say for sure, was just great I got a fruit and hope I do again this year.