Well, I put up a long post earlier, but it seems to have disappeared. The long and short of it was that these two would easily survive a mild Texas winter like we've experienced this year, but things become more iffy with more extreme weather. If you can plant them sheltered by a southern-facing wall, they'd do the best (although that's one for the obvious column).

As for good books, the two most popular are Passiflora: Passionflowers of the World by Torsten Ulmer and Passion Flowers by John Vanderplank. Lots of good info and pretty pics in both of them. You can look 'em up on Amazon for more details.

If I may ask, where'd you find those two varieties? I've looked around here, but only found Lavender Lady and p. vitifolia.

I believ alata needs to be cross-pollinated with another variety to set fruit, but its rind is pretty hard, so as long as you don't bugs swarming over the vine, the fruit should be ok. More experienced fruit growers, feel free to jump in here.

It's your call whether to protect during freezes or container grow them -- alata gets big, and may not be the best choice for a container if you're going for maximum fruit production.

I'd plant 'em in the sunniest, protected spot you have, mulch them in fall, and protect them with a cover in hard freezes -- it's the roots you want to protect the most; they'll easily survive frozen stems if the roots are ok.

Jim