If you can set something up to catch them as they fall you will get ripe ones and be able to see how good they can be. Even when soft to the touch but still on the vine i sometimes get that green taste. When i let them fall thats when they are the best with no weird flavors just pure sweetness.
I put this together in a few minutes yesterday.
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¿Is Anna the same as Annanasnaja? I have Ken’s Red and a male, and I’m looking into getting another female variety.
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Yes
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So I have a 17’ x 9’ deck with 6- 4"x6" posts. I can easily add cross members and cattle panels for a horizontal trellis.
Zone 9a.
I’d like to plant 2 female kiwi and 1 male pollinator.
I’m thinking Anna and Ken’s Red. Is there a male pollinator that handles both?
My thoughts are to keep the male pruned pretty hard as it only needs to pollinate two adjacent female vines, thus maximizing the area for fruit production.
Does anyone have a recommended nursery for purchase? I’ve done some searching and didn’t really find any specializing in kiwi (by selection number). E.L. has a lot of selections, but my recent experience with them makes me less sure I will get what I pay for.
Chill doesn’t seem to be any issue in general, but we do get long earl spells in alter winter that might be fillers by a freeze. Don’t know if any varieties are better or worse for early dormancy break.
I want to add though… For looks and shade, I much prefer the leaves and stems of the fuzzy varieties… The leaves are bigger and there is a red to the stems.
Fuzzy kiwi seem to keep better as well.
Maybe one hardy and one fuzzy? Would one make pollinate both?
Another rabbit hole I’m headed down here…
I’ve been trying to grow them for years in 8A North Georgia, and not having much luck. I have Dumbarton Oaks, Anna, Issai, Ken’s Red, Cordifolia, and Meader (male).
They do not like my climate. They leaf out too early in the spring and get zapped by the late frosts at the end of winter, and then they hold their leaves too long in fall and get zapped again by the first frost at the beginning of winter. They will put on a lot of growth during the growing season, but then take grievous losses at both ends. So far, only Anna and Meader seem to be vigorous enough to make any substantial net growth year-by-year, and I bet that a good chunk of the rest probably won’t even leaf out next spring.
In your zone, they will probably be much happier.
I think I got most of my plants from One Green World. I don’t know enough about hardy kiwi to say whether they’re true to type, but Anna has a reputation for vigor, and it is definitely the most vigorous of the vines.
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Sorry to hear they aren’t working out for you.
One would think I’d stand a better chance down here. Of course weather is about averages and not normals so every so many years I’d have a similar issue but I think I’d be able to establish the vines to not start over from an early freeze.
This past spring would have been one a kiwi would have been damaged as we were in the 80’s the last week of February yet hit 27 degrees in the third week of March. That was only the 4th latest hard freeze in over 100 years here… Yet there is nothing to say it couldn’t happen again any year.
With such low chill requirements for many of the kiwi varieties, it’s an issue for many zone pushing, especially in the south as we usually have large temp swings kaate winter.
I like the fuzzy larger leaves and red stems of the fuzzy kiwi vines and don’t mind peeling to eat. They store longer too. And yet the hardy types have other advantages. Some have a more staggered harvest.
So worst case with a fuzzy variety I get little production but a beautiful canopy of leaves.
I think I have room for 3 vines so was thinking of 2 female and a male, but I think that rules out growing both fuzzy and hardy as the male would not pollinate both. The option would be the Issai for the hardy and a paired fuzzy male/female…though I was leaning towards the larger Anna for the hardy.
Hopefully I’ll find more info this winter to decide.
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A good way yo do this is by grafting a small bit of male to one or both of your females. if you do it somewhere obvious, like lower down, its pretty easy to manage. One male os said to sire as many as 10 females, so youll have no lack of pollen. This is toughly what Ive done , though O actually planted a male and then grafted most of the cordons over to a female variety. All argutas are super vigorous, males even more so than females since they dont have fruit production to slow them down.
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Thanks. That would be a way to get fuzzy and hardy in my space. I can just limit the growth of the males to just enough for the pollen.
Question. Will the grafted males benefit in shortening time to bloom from being grafted to an older vine?
Assuming I grow out the females for a year or two before grafting the males…
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yes, it should. youd want to wait until they size up a bit
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Thanks
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If you can find a fuzzy male that has an earlier bloom, then it will pollenize female argutas just fine as long as they overlap. Matua is one with a long bloom period, at least under west coast conditions. The biggest issue may be finding an early blooming male with low enough chill to work for you. Many fuzzy kiwi need 600-900 hrs, but there are lower chill selections like those from Auburn, I just don’t know if it would be early enough. Bloom timing will also vary in different climates, so you may find that bloom periods spread out more in areas with a prolonged spring (south), while they are compressed in areas with brief spring season (north). Bloom periods will also vary from year to year, so they may not overlap reliably. This is something that you really can’t predict well without trying it.
Grafting fuzzy kiwi onto hardy or hardy onto fuzzy is another option. Direct grafts often don’t last more than a year or two, but I have hybrids that could be used as an interstem, that should be fully compatible with both types. You could end up with a Frankenvine. However, pruning may become a challenge.
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I knew this particular rabbit hole would have many dark tunnels in it!
And, BTW, I’ve never seen a rabbit in my yard or street in 27 years…so all the rabbit holes are in my mind…
In my searching yesterday I didn’t find anyone even selling the AU varieties - at least not what I looked at.
Just like stone fruit, all the research to make selections still may not work when it gets in the ground in my yard.
That’s why I made a comment about the nice foliage and stem color of some fuzzy kiwi. At least it would look nice and provide deck shading…
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Super interesting thread.
Do you (or anyone else reading this) have recommendations on varieties good for growing in pots in Southern California (Z10)?
I saw a discussion above where you are growing issai in pots so that seems reasonable. If I keep them small, I suspect I can grow maybe 2-3 varieties and/or issai and Anna and maybe a male pollinator (Flowercloud?)
I was originally planning on getting a rooted Issai cutting from Fruitwood and trying to grow it in a pot but almost gave up on it after reading a lot of stuff about how vigorous Kiwis are. My family loves kiwi in general so I wanted to try to grow some but was not too focused on it given the severe lack of space I have and the supposedly long time to fruit (3-5 years is what I heard). But I was super enthused to see your posts!
Most A. arguta need to get really big to flower, and Anna is one of the least precocious of all, so I think it would be a waste to grow it in a container (unless it’s a really big (30+ gal?) container). As far as I know, Issai and Flowercloud (an offspring of Issai) are the only hardy kiwi that will bloom in a relatively small (<10 gallon) container at a young age.
Arctic kiwi, A. kolomikta, will bloom in very small pots (3-5 gal). They also have very low chill requirements. I’m not sure how they would do in Southern California. They don’t like heat or too much sun, so if you’re in a cooler area, then they may work in partial shade. They are about 10 times less vigorous than most hardy kiwi. I grew some in containers several years ago, but they would leaf out after three warm days in late December to early January, so I had to move them inside a lot once they leafed out to keep them from freezing. In Z10 that would not be an issue.
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I got a kolomikta kiwi last year, Red Beauty I believe. i potted it up to give it a year’s attention before planting it in the ground (it was very tiny).
It bloomed this year in a 1 gal pot. It is about a foot tall and it put out almost a dozen flowers. I was surprised. So they really can bloom at a very young age and in a very small pot.
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That super helpful thanks! I will go with your suggestions and try to source some of these.
Good to know! Thanks!
Apart from fruitwood nursery, are there good online sources for these kiwis that you would recommend? I see a lot of random stores have some in stock so I was wondering if there are any in particular that you have had good experiences with.
Thanks again!
Edible landscaping has a large selection of varieties.
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One Green World has Flowercloud in stock now, Flowercloud Male Hardy Kiwi - One Green World. It was not available for a long time. I initially assumed it would be easy to root like Issai, but it turned out to be much more difficult to root. That may be why it was not available for the past 2-3 years. They are still erroneously calling it “arguta x kolomikta”. It’s pure arguta.
I know this has been discussed here before, but there are two different genotypes sold as ‘Issai’ is the US nursery trade. The one with longer cylindrical fruit is tetraploid and the one with somewhat smaller round fruit is hexaploid. I have both and the long fruit version has produced much better for me in containers. I got it directly from someone else, so I’m not sure which nursery offers the long fruit version. You can’t go by the photos, as they are usually generic stock photos. Maybe someone else who has the same version can chime in on where they got it. Mine is already leafing out, so too late to take dormant cuttings.
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