I know we have several Actinidia aficionados on here. How fast do kiwiberries grow? I’m planning to build a home this year on another lot. If all goes well I’ll be moving in the end of 2025 or early ‘26. That said I expect I’ll be crazy busy getting everything set up as “home” for a few years after. I have been ordering a bunch of plants to put in pots and grow out so I’ll have a head start on fruit when I do eventually plant them. I am planning to order Kiwiberries to try and would really like to save time by starting them this year. My questions are
#1 how big of a pot should they be planted in this year if I get them in 2.5” pots this spring? I know some things grow slowly when young, but found figs bought in the same pot size last year were clearly stunted when planted in anything smaller than trade 3. (I used a wide variety of sizes last year). Blueberries, despite arriving in liters on the other hand seemed to be fine in trade 2.
#2 how long can I hold kiwi in trade7 or smaller pots? Would I be better off planting my test plot on my current lot? We are planning to keep as a rental and are planning to leave a good bit of fruit on site anyway. We’re only about a mile, mile and a half away from the new place.
#3 are there any varieties you’d recommend for hot Virginia summers? Seller’s descriptions always say every variety tastes great and produces buckets. I’d put more stock in this forum.
Finally, I am also interested in fuzzy kiwi if there are any reliably hardy in my area. We get below 20 almost every winter for a good bit of time, below 15 several nights most years and once every few years dip to single digits. I am interested in zone pushing, but from what I understand kiwis get huge fast and would be difficult to protect.
The biggest issue with kiwis in the southeast is the fact that they come out of dormancy so early that the flowers are killed by late frosts virtually every year. The solution would be to give them protection once they start waking up in the spring, but you’re correct in that they quickly get too big to protect practically. I know of one person in Middle TN who gets fruit from her hardy kiwi, but it took 10 years for the vine to get large enough to withstand the late frosts.
If you’re adamant about growing this fruit, for which I wouldn’t blame you at all, Ana seems to be the most variety to most people have success with. The others are pretty hit or miss.
Thanks for the insight! If it’s a very hit or miss crop maybe I’ll scale back my plans and just do a plant or 2 along with a male on a fence line before investing too much in them. Growing space isn’t a huge issue for me, but I’ve got so much else I’m building trellis for I don’t want to waste much new trellis space on a maybe.
Is it the early bud break a problem on kolomikta, arguta and deliciosa equally or is there one less prone to early bud break?
I don’t know anything about deliciosa because it’s not hardy in my area, and I prefer the hardy ones anyway. Early budbreak is absolutely a problem with the other two. I think arguta handles heat and full sun better than kolomikta.
I’m in northern Va. 7A. My hardy kiwi have not had any problems at all. Fuzzy kiwi have also done well for me, but in a bad year you may lose one. A 3-5 gallon pot should carry you a couple years. If your going with hardy kiwi, I’d go with Issai. It fruits faster, is self pollinating, and does not grow quite as fast. Will do better with a male though. Hardy kiwi is not zone pushing at all.
Good to hear Robert! Kinda sounds like I may need to do it on a trial basis still, but it’s encouraging to hear you’ve had good luck since you are also in VA. I wonder if you being a tad colder helps prevent early bud break for you. What varieties of fuzzy kiwi have you grown? Have you actually gotten fruit yet? I’ve heard they can be slow to produce.
Fuzzy kiwi fruit faster than hardy. Hardy can sometimes take up to 10 years. Mine started at about 5 or 6. Fuzzy are usually 3-4 years. I’m growing Saanichton fuzzy. Scott is even further north and he is growing a bunch of fuzzy. Doubtful you would have any problems with hardy at bud break. Tons of people on here are growing them in all types of environments with no problems. The hardy is difficult to control growth though. They grow wildly fast once established.
Well that’s great to hear, thanks! I’ll have to be on the lookout for some kiwis to try. Esp with those fruiting times, it sounds like it would definitely pay to plant sooner than later. Probably won’t go too crazy in case there are problems, but I’d like to get a few going.
I have grown an Issai and it’s male offspring Flowercloud in 5 gallon pots. Both will bloom prolifically. In my experience, Issai will not fruit in a smaller container without a male. It needs to get large and mature before it will fruit parthenocarpically. The only time I have seen any other argutas bloom in pots was when they snuck roots out and into the ground the previous summer.
Kolomiktas bloom easily in containers, but they will leaf out after 3 consecutive warm days anytime after mid December in milder climates. I had to move them indoors to get fruit.
Fuzzy and yellow kiwi should be plenty hardy for you, but they need to be quite large to bloom.
3 or 5 gallon pot should be fine for a year or 2 or 3 with hardy kiwi ( actinidia arguta)I would just put the pot on top of soil, and let their roots go into the ground a bit eventually, so you don’t have to water as much.
I wouldn’t expect them to produce fruit in a pot, possibly issai would produce a few( my issai do 2nd year in a 5gal pot sometimes). I would also suggest you buy cutting grown ( or grow yourself from cutting) and not tissue culture if you want fruit in 3-5yrs instead of 10+yrs.
Good to hear! It sounds like Issai is definitely going to make the “need to try” list. I’m not so much wanting to fruit in pots permanently, mostly just want to give them a couple year’s head start when they do go in ground eventually. That said, if it would fruit in pot that’d be awesome.
You’re in a similar climate to mine. How Mach room do you give your fuzzies? Do you trellis overhead or more like grapes? The videos I’ve seen from NZ show overhead structures, which seem cool but also like they’d make it impossible to protect them from birds. I’ve discovered at least with grapes, easy to net trellis beats cool trellis lol. This is all totally new to me. Until this December I thought kiwi was out of the question for my zone.
I’m glad you commented! I was actually planning to buy from Hartmann’s. I’ve gotten a lot from them and been satisfied so far. I think, but can ask, that everything they grow is tissue. The figs I got from them grew explosively from teeny tiny 2-3” starts to several feet and produced figs that summer, albeit too late to ripen. Blackberries also grew and flowered in spite of being Floricane types. I know that’s proverbial apples to oranges though.
Do you know why tissue culture sets kiwi back? Does it postpone bloom on other fruits? I’d be curious what is at play if it’s known
I don’t grow fuzzies as they have not been very hardy here. They seem to lack tolerance of winter warm spells, which may be worse here than in your area. They seem to be fine for Scott in Maryland. Yellow kiwis tolerate our winters much better, and I consider them to be much better than fuzzies. Mine are extremely overcrowded, but I’m growing seedlings for selection for hardiness, etc. I’m finding that Sungold seedlings are hardier than many of the other yellows that are available, and some seedlings seem to be very hardy by mid-south standards. The only problem so far is the two hardiest seedlings that have bloomed so far are both males. I expect to see more of the seedlings bloom this spring, so hopefully one will be a good female.
Last winter we had the coldest temps in along time, -8F. The surviving Sungold seedlings (already selected by the flash freeze in Dec 22) were completely unfazed. A ‘Golden Sunshine’ planted in the same row was killed to the ground.
Curious what the male/female ratio is you have been getting on those seedlings? I was going to try some golds from seed because no one sells them, but Scott said that he got all males on his. @kiwinut
Several years ago I grew a bunch of Hort16A seedlings. The males started blooming their second spring and females the 3rd. Overall, they seemed to end up about 50:50. I know another grower who grew out lots of Sungold seedlings and got a lot of blooming and fruiting vines. He ended up with more females than males. Many of the females produced fruit similar in size and quality to the parent fruit. The only potential problem is some growers may use dried deliciosa pollen that is sprayed on the flowers, so seedlings would be 5x hybrids. That’s not necessarily a bad thing as 5x kiwi are usually completely fertile-Meyer’s Yellow is a good example, but these would tend to ripen later.
I am just going by my experience with tissue culture hardy kiwi ( and figs for that matter). In my environment they tend to take years longer to fruit. With my original kiwi, it was about 14yrs before it fruited. It has some to do with being in a lower light spot… but I have 4 plants that I grew from cuttings off of that original, and they all started fruiting in year 3, 4 or 5. They tend to be on more of the schedule of a seed grown plant, whereas cutting grown plants take on some of the maturity of the tree or vine they came off of.
My Issai have bloomed and put out a few fruit in a pot ( 7 -8 gallon) in year 2 from cutting, but they were on drip irrigation and definitely had some roots going through the pot into the ground