I’m in New Mexico. I’ve tried to grow hardy kiwis a few times. I find that the leaves start to turn brown and dry out on the edges. This becomes progressive and the plant usually dies quickly. I’ve read of other New Mexicans having a similar experience.
I know they are supposed to like full sun (the kiwis, not the New Mexicans) but I’m wondering if the UV at high elevations is too much. Any ideas?
I don’t think it’s pH or minerals, as the decline happens quite quickly.
Hardy kiwis are lianas that grow in large trees in the wild. They don’t like too much full sun. In a forest setting they can seek out the optimal amount of sun. Low humidity is another major issue for them. They grow wild in very humid, temperate forests in China, so it’s not surprising they don’t handle dry conditions well.
Thank you so much for your response. This morning it struck me that humidity might be the problem. Most sources say that hardy kiwis do need full sun, eg. Stark - “As with most fruits, hardy kiwi likes full sun (at least six hours a day)”. However, at 4800 feet I suspect the UV might be damaging the leaves. And maybe as you say they don’t really like full sun. I was planning to grow it in a temporary greenhouse that is protected during the winter months but open during the summer. That way I can protect it from our spring frosts. I can’t really plant it out in the open because we have early warm weather that would cause it to leaf out and be exposed to our late frosts. It’s surprising to me that even after a week of being outside (days only) it is already showing signs of damage to the leaves.
Too much full sun does not mean no full sun. In humid middle TN, hardy kiwi will get very stressed during the heat of summer in full sun, and leaves can get crisp edges or even drop during hot dry spells. In a cooler climate, full sun may not be an issue at all. Depends a lot on humidity, cloud cover and heat. How hot does it get there? High temps combined with low humidity + UV could certainly be causing damage to leaves. They grow at much higher elevations in southwest China, so the UV alone may not directly be an issue. However, extremely clear skies with few clouds could push the UV too high.
We get into the mid to high 90s consistently in the summer. The sky is almost always clear and the humidity is maybe 30%. The crispy edges that you mention is pretty much what I see happening here pretty consistently. It starts with the edges but then the whole leaf dries up. It sounds like the combination of heat, strong sun and dryness is pretty much fatal for hardy kiwis here. I did try growing them at 7000 feet where the summer temps were more like in the 80s but it was drier there - maybe only 10% humidity - and I had them in part shade.
I tried hardy kiwis here in denver but could not keep enough water on them. I think they would need a constant slow drip or just a huge amount of wood chips and regular watering. I had them in partial shade
Thanks, Richard. What were the symptoms that resulted? Did you have the leaves browning and drying starting on the edges and then spreading to the whole leaf?
I went camping and came home to a bunch of dead vines who got thoroughly soaked the night before. They seemed fine with the UV in partial shade although i would not say they loved it, i definitely think you wanna put them in a partial shade zone in NM. In general i would say they would get leaf stress (but not browning just not happily photosynthesizing) and ready to wilt at the drop of the hat.
By the time they died i was beside myself with how much i had already watered them and called it a good sign
I know the feeling. I wonder, though, if you might actually have overwatered it. I had the same reaction when I would see the leaves wilting ( and getting brown, dry edges) that it needed more water. I’m going to try building a sort of tent around the potted plant, putting it into a large tray with rocks with water almost up to the top of the rocks (not high enough to get into the pot) and maybe if I use a material like a cotton sheet for the sides of the tent, the material can wick up water from the tray and keep a high humidity around the plant. I’ll try keeping it in a shaded spot. If that works, then maybe I can experiment with removing the humidity and leaving the shade or keeping the humidity and putting the plant in more sun.
I have hardy and arctic kiwi growing at my mom’s house in Santa Fe. North side of her home. Full shade. More than a decade old. Can’t get them to fruit though.
That’s really interesting. The fact that you’ve gotten them to grow is already way beyond what I could do. The leaves always burned up or dried out. Assuming you have male and female plants, I’m thinking that the cause of no fruit may likely be the flowers being killed by late frost. Do you ever see flowers forming? Do they form after last frost or before? I’ve read that the hardy kiwis leaf out very early. Do you find that the early leaves are sometimes killed by frost? Or does the north side planting keep them from leafing out too soon? And do you have both male and female plants? I’d love to figure out how to get these to work here.
I just read that if the plant doesn’t get enough sun, it might not flower. Maybe an east exposure would work better.
Full shade may be the problem. Do you have male and female hardy kiwi, and male and female arctic kiwi?
Actually the male arctic died a few years back, but there is a male hardy. I have never seen them even flower. I honestly think it might be the disruption of early spring thaws. I have asked my mom to shovel snow on them in hopes of keeping them dormant longer but she is a pretty hands off gardener. Eastern or dappled exposure may be the solution. I should mention that after their second year they easily could have gone over my mom’s roof and exposed themselves to sun, and that the female arctic could swing some lianes over towards the east side of the house but they never have and seem to consciously restrict themselves to the shade. to Jcutts- they seem to almost never have damage from leafing too early at my mom’s> I believe maybe five years back they did have some slight damage but that was otherwise a great fruiting year in Santa Fe. (In order to address that possibility I have my vines in my own garden not in full shade but also behind some burlap. basically western exposure, but with burlap as a mitigating factor to that western exposure.)
In my current garden I have planted two males and five females of the Arctic and one Prolific cultivar of hardy. One male has died but all the others seem well, but this is this first winter so I wont know more about those until later. (my current garden is in Grand Junction CO)
Arctic kiwi and hardy kiwi don’t cross pollinate each other, although it sounds like your issue is lack of blooms. In most climates, they bloom at very different times, but even where they do bloom together, it usually doesn’t work. This may be due to the different number of chromosomes.
In my climate, arctic kiwi try to leaf out and bloom in the middle of winter, so blooms always get frozen. They will push out new shoots later, but those don’t bloom. Hardy kiwi will bud out later as they mature, so even in the most severe frost pockets, they eventually work, but it can take 10+ years. If the vines in Santa Fe are not blooming after a decade, it’s most likely from too much shade.
Right, which is one of the things I had thought of when designing the new garden with the arctic kiwis at a western exposure with some burlap to buffer. I’m glad to hear your analysis, and plan on getting my mom another male acrtic kiwi at some point and maybe try some in more dappled shade there. Do you know how long kiwi vines typically live?
Longer than any of us. There are arguta vines in Maine over 100 years old.
so cool!
Here’s a link with some interesting information:
https://laidbackgardener.blog/2020/10/22/hardy-kiwis-for-cold-climate-gardeners/
As kiwinut says, the arctics seem to bloom too early for us in NM. I had ordered an Issai but that website blasts Issai’s pretty badly, saying they are not that hardy, that they don’t actually fruit that well without a male.
Just ordered a hardy kiwi male and Anna. I’ll put them on an east-facing wall.
My big problem before was that when I got young plants in, the leaves immediately began to suffer, maybe from sun, dry or UV. I couldn’t even get them stabilized to the point that I could plant them. Just spent a hundred bucks on the two plants and hope that I can keep them alive.
You could set up some shading cloth or something when they are young and then remove it later when they are older and properly established maybe? Also I grew up thinking that planting rocks in the soil usually delays leafing by at least a couple days and it generally does help, so maybe that could help you?
I keep thinking about the possibility of dumping snow or ice in late spring especially on the warmer days to also try to delay leafing and the potential for flowering.
I also wonder if some sea bird guano might help with the flowering…
I wanted to update you guys on my Kolomiktov specimens I have in Grand Junction. They were all planted last spring apart from the male who was only planted last october, so they are all around a foot and a half tall. The three surviving females came out of dormancy like a good week prior to the male. It is either a meader male or a USDA male from OGW. (I had two of the Pasha die on me earlier that summer.) Two weeks ago we had a late frost just as the male was starting to leaf (he started two days prior) the female that was right next to him (A september sun, I believe.) had started to massively bud (like easily 40 on a small little vine) and I could tell the male was going to bud as well.
So the first night of the frost got down to 27 and wrecked all the females, especially any growth above 7 inches from the ground. The male was seemingly unaffected due to him only having begun leafing two days prior. That second night got down to 26 and I threw a blanket over the boy girl combo and some hay and burlap over the other two, and I left two five gallon jugs of water nearby. Apparently I should have adapted this tactic earlier since the second night, while colder, dealt no further damage.
The male now has like twenty to thirty buds swelling up, and the female that was budding up, still has two lonely buds down by the base, despite getting hit the hardest of all four plants. Seems pretty crazy to think I may get one or two but it may also just be in the cards. I’ll post pictures very soon.