Thank you for accepting me on the forum! I’ve been a long time reader but haven’t made an account until just now. I keep reading about hardy kiwi on this forum and its quite exciting the idea of growing a tropical tasting fruit in my climate. But I also have read a lot of people lose their male hardy kiwis and they are less vigorous than the females. Is there a “gold standard” male hardy kiwi that flowers for longer, is vigorous and very cold hardy that is generally recommended? I’m considering getting an Anna and Geneve-3 hardy kiwi females.
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Meader Male does well for me, it is quite widely distributed too
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Thank you! Meader definitely came up the most when looking for named male cultivars, looks like its for a reason.
Most retail nurseries just sell a “generic” male hardy kiwi so you don’t know what variety they actually are. For me, the result has been that I now have a few super “studs” which could easily pollinate dozens of female hardy kiwi plants while some of my other male hardy kiwis are less vigorous and will not infrequently have whole branches just die off for no apparent reason. Understand the Geneva variety male is a good one, but if I ever need any more males I will propagate them using cuttings from my super studs and not worry about what variety they might be.
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Hi Robert, planted 3 kiwi. 1 was supposed to be male and isn’t. I’m interested in a super stud cutting pls.
I have a vigorous Adam and I prune it heavily each year. It is in partial shade with different levels of shading which may help it to flower longer and also somehow prevents it from frost damage.
Sounds like your hoped for male hardy kiwi is actually a female. Not surprised, since mislabeling is a common problem. For you, however, this is not the most serious labeling problem since you now have an extra female which can help produce a 50% larger berry crop. If one of your females, in turn, had turned out to be a male you would have ended up with 2 males and 1 female - bummer! As for getting an offsrping or cutting from one of my “super stud” male plants, I have sent cuttings back to Michigan on 4 occasions with zero percent success rate. My suggestion would be to buy a male from a local nursery or from Hartmann’s Plant nursery (located in the southwest portion of Michigan). Good Luck.
Thanks Robert. I just found someone local with a male I can get a cutting from.