Size of Kiwi fruit vine- warning!!

[veggiechicken]

Yes Dominic, there are small gardens and small gardens! What worries me is that these plants are being sold for pennies in the likes of LIDL and Wilkos and that there is so little information on its growing needs on the packaging that unsuspecting gardeners will plant them in the wrong place (as I did)!!
I'd like this to be a warning as to what can happen

[FB.]

'Attempted murder' will take more than brutal pruning. Actinidia is a really vigorous vine, a single plant typically gets 6 - 12 m space in a commercial orchard

I'd try hard pruning and root pruning first.
Root pruning rarely fails; just drive a spade into the ground all around the plant, at a distance of 1-2ft. All main roots severed, and nutrient/water supplies cut off. No nutrients and no water = no growth.

If that failed, I'd dig it out mercilessly (not caring how much root damage I caused) and replant it into the equivalent of a fig pit; a slab-lined pit filled with brick rubble, sand and low-quality soil.
Poor soil (as in lack of moisture and nutrients) and restricted roots (as in slab-lined fig pits) will bring anything under control.

The soil on which I currently grow plants is dry and infertile. There is no such thing as "vigorous" on my current garden soil; the plants usually considered to be vigorous are semi-dwarf (I plant vigorous fruit trees such as seedling, Pyrus, M25 and MM111 at about 3-4 metre spacing as they'll never get any larger), while the plants usually considered to be dwarf just die.

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[veggiechicken]

July August time for root pruning then, FB? Should I prune any of it now?

[FB.]

July August time for root pruning then, FB? Should I prune any of it now?

I would reserve root pruning for winter time in the first instance as it might be a bit too much of a shock in summer (it might affect this year's crop). Kiwi's may have a reputation for being tough, but don't over-estimate them.
I once root-pruned a M25 (very vigorous rootstock) Bramley (very vigorous variety) in mid-summer; it very nearly killed it.

To really get it back under control, I suspect that you'll need to have a year without fruit.

As it's already out of control, it might be better to prune the new shoots back to just an inch or two in July, then prune it hard (to shape it) during the winter, accompanied by root pruning to prevent it being able to grow back so quickly when it comes out of dormancy.

When it comes out of dormancy next spring, if it doesn't want to shape-up nicely, pinch-out the soft shoot tips to redirect or guide its growth.

[veggiechicken]

Thanks FB. I'll cut out enough now, to make it passable (most of this growth has appeared in the last 2 weeks!), then take the rest out in July.
Out of interest, if there any way of telling the male flowers from the female. If I could identify which part was which I may be able to do a bit more radical cutting out of the main stems.

[Vince G]

Flippin' eck VC !! I posted earlier on a thread about grapes saying I was thinking of replacing my (unproductive) vine next to the house with a kiwi. Maybe not!!! Glad I read this.

[Urban]

I was thinking about letting a kiwi cover my shed, looks like that would be a bad idea

Do the kiwi plants have any good points about them? Nice scent, attract bees etc,

[David_richards]

Wow.. didn't think that they could grow that big, I've never tried growing them though

[FB.]

Flippin' eck VC !! I posted earlier on a thread about grapes saying I was thinking of replacing my (unproductive) vine next to the house with a kiwi. Maybe not!!! Glad I read this.

Wow.. didn't think that they could grow that big, I've never tried growing them though

Bear a few things in mind:

Wales has ample supplies of water for plants - a plant is mostly water.
East Anglia has the lowest rainfall in the UK. Plants therefore tend to grow more slowly.
East Anglia also has many sandy/gravelly soils which do not hold moisture, so plants have to put a lot more effort into roots rather than shoots. A plant with tiny roots can thrive in moist soil, but they need to put much more energy into roots in a drier soil. Energy which goes into roots obviously can't go into shoots.
In areas with plentiful rain, trees will have about 30% of their mass as roots. In dry areas it will be about 70% as roots. The tree in a dry area therefore tending to be half the size above ground and twice the size below ground.

There are also areas in East Anglia which have nasty chalky strongly alkaline soil, which literally poisons the plants and severely stunts their growth; high vigour is required to survive on such soils.

So just because something reached a large size for someone else, doesn't by any means that it will reach a large size elsewhere. As I said earlier: fast-draining, shallow and low-rainfall soil in my area causes fruit trees to reach about half the size "the books" say they should. On my current soil, vigorous rootstocks behave like semi-dwarfs (e.g. M25 or MM111 grow like a textbook M26 or M9).
Then there's the complication of climate. Some plants need lots of warmth and sun, while others prefer cooler and duller. If a plant is not in its ideal climate, it will not grow at its best.
This has struck me in recent years, while watching my Edward VII apple trees.
It is a variety recommended for areas prone to late frosts on account of its tendency to blossom quite late (so misses the last frosts). It is also considered to be compact and slow-growing.
However, it seems as if its growth rate is very dependent on temperature. In cool years my Edward VII is a very slow grower. But in hot summers, it is as vigorous as any variety I have ever seen; it's a real monster. It is unusually sensitive to temperature; more so than most apple varieties I have seen. Vigour is T1 (weak) in cool years and T3 (strong) in warm years.

With the ancient variety "D'Arcy Spice" originating on poor, dry, shallow, sandy soil in Essex (near Ipswich/Colchester) I would be wary of the soil in the Ipswich area and check it out before making any assumptions as to its quality.

[Farmer_Gyles]

i have a jenny (from wilkos this year) - it's growing, slowly ....
i'm going to put up some trellis fence for it to grow up .... 3 panels (18ft) wide .... there will be a couple of grape vines on the trellis too ....
any tips on controlling the growth? better in a pot or the ground? i live on a chalk hill with a few inches of soil above the chalk ....

[FB.]

i have a jenny (from wilkos this year) - it's growing, slowly ....
i'm going to put up some trellis fence for it to grow up .... 3 panels (18ft) wide .... there will be a couple of grape vines on the trellis too ....
any tips on controlling the growth? better in a pot or the ground? i live on a chalk hill with a few inches of soil above the chalk ....

Chalk will severely stunt most plants; reducing their growth by half or more. Too much vigour is rarely a problem on chalk. The most likely problem is managing to keep non-indigenous plants alive. Nutrients become unavailable due to calcium overload in the soil, therefore plants easily suffer from malnutrition.
Such soils - being shallow - tend not to hold moisture.
With "locked-up" nutrients and dry soil, most plants will not be growing anywhere fast.

So I would say that I really doubt that too much vigour will be a problem in such punishing conditions. More than likely you'll need to boost vigour rather than reduce it, otherwise I cn imagine it taking a lifetime to get up to the size you want.

So I would let it do its thing. If it grows too slowly, add more nutrients (a manure mulch). If it grows too fast, stop feeding/watering and keep on top of the pruning (July-August pruning is best for over-vigorous plants).

[Farmer_Gyles]

thanks FB.
most fruit and veg plants seem to grow well here, as do the weeds. I haven't found anything that doesn't grow well here. I expect the kiwi and grape will grow just fine but hoping they don't go toooooooooo mad!

[FB.]

thanks FB.
most fruit and veg plants seem to grow well here, as do the weeds. I haven't found anything that doesn't grow well here. I expect the kiwi and grape will grow just fine but hoping they don't go toooooooooo mad!

Well if everything grows well, you might wnt to take precautions.
Root restriction (pots, infertile soil, brick rubble, slab-lined fig pits) would all be worth considering.
If you prevent the roots from spreading far and wide (or only allow them to spread into infertile soil), the plants will not be able to grow out of control.

But I'm surprised that things grow well if the soil is shallow and chalky.

[Farmer_Gyles]

the veggie patch has been worked well for many years so has 10-12 inches of good (but chalky) soil .... the lawn is only 2-4" above the chalk .... we have apple, pear, plum, cherry and peach trees here, and a massive elderberry tree growing over the back .... used to have cooking apple, damson and apricot but a "tree surgeon" managed to kill them off ....

[scarey55]

... and on the subject of size, this was mine in August 2009. The barn door is no longer there but I reckon it was about 12 feet high and the Kiwi is way taller than that .

It was reduced to a brown shrivelling wreck that winter but I cut it down and it has given me loads of small but perfectly formed kiwi fruit every year since.