Shrub · Actinidiaceae
Kiwi
Actinidia deliciosa
Give it full sun, a strong trellis, and a male partner, and a kiwi vine pays back your patience with fruit.
Full sun
Every 3–7 days
USDA 7–9
10–20 ft · 3–6 m
Overview
The kiwi is a big, fast woody vine that came from the hills of southern China, where folks grew it as the Chinese gooseberry way before New Zealand turned it into a famous export. Leave it be and it'll climb hard and wide, filling a 200 square foot trellis with twisting cane and broad leaves before you know it. That fuzzy brown fruit everybody recognizes? It comes from female vines, and only after a few patient years.
The thing that trips people up is sex. Most kiwi are dioecious, so the male and female flowers live on separate plants, which means one lone vine will flower and never give you fruit. The fix is easy: plant a male right alongside your females, roughly one male for every several, and let the bees do the shuttling.
This isn't a quick crop, so don't expect miracles overnight. A young vine spends its first 3 to 5 years just building structure before it fruits, and it'll want a serious trellis to hold up a full-grown plant. Give it sun, steady water, and a yearly prune, though, and it'll keep cropping for decades.
Care
The short version: full sun, deep and fertile well-drained soil on the acidic side, steady moisture for those shallow roots, a strong trellis to climb, and both a male and female vine if you actually want fruit.
Light
Kiwi does its best fruiting in full sun, which ripens the fruit and fuels all that heavy growth. It'll put up with partial sun or light shade, but you'll get less fruit and softer, leggier canes the more shade it's stuck in.
Water
The roots stay shallow, so the vine wants steady, even moisture and feels a dry spell fast. Water deeply while the fruit's developing and through hot weather, and mulch to hold that moisture in, just remembering to pull the mulch back off the trunk.
Soil
Give it deep, fertile, well-drained loam with lots of organic matter. Kiwi likes things a touch acidic, around a pH of 5.0 to 6.5, and it really can't stand waterlogged ground or salty and alkaline soils.
Temperature
The vine copes with a big range, roughly 14°F to 95°F (-10°C to 35°C) over the year, but those soft spring shoots are the weak spot. A late frost after growth's started can wipe out the new season's wood overnight, so keep an eye on the forecast.
Humidity
Regular outdoor humidity, somewhere around 40% to 70%, suits kiwi just fine. There's no number to chase outside, so put your energy into watering and airflow instead.
Feeding
Feed a balanced or nitrogen-rich fertilizer around the root zone monthly through spring and midsummer while it's growing hard. Then ease off by late summer so the fresh growth firms up and hardens off before winter rolls in.
Pruning
Kiwi needs regular, confident pruning to stay in bounds and keep fruiting, so don't be shy. Cut female vines hard in winter while fully dormant, renewing the fruiting wood every year, since fruit forms on current-season shoots off one-year-old wood. Summer-prune the vigorous canes to let light in, prune the males lightly after they flower, and train young vines to a single trunk up the trellis.
Repotting
Kiwi's a ground plant, not a pot plant, so repotting hardly ever comes up. If you do start a young vine in a container, move it up before the roots start circling, then get it into its forever home on a trellis.
Size & spacing
These vines get huge, hitting 10 to 20 feet (3 to 6 m) tall and spreading 7 to 13 feet (2 to 4 m) wide. Give each one a strong, well-anchored trellis and plenty of elbow room, because a grown plant can fill a 200 square foot frame and pull down anything flimsy.
When to plant
Kiwi runs on a long, slow calendar, so patience is the name of the game. Plant in spring once the last hard frost's out of the way, since the new shoots are really frost-tender, then wait through a few seasons of growth before those late-spring flowers turn into fruit you pick in mid to late fall.
Northern hemisphere
Southern hemisphere
Typical months for a temperate climate: start earlier in warm zones, later where spring frosts linger.
- Plant: Spring after the last hard frost; new shoots are very frost-tender.
- Harvest: Slightly fragrant greenish-white flowers in late spring; fuzzy brown fruit harvested mid to late fall (about October to November).
Hardiness
USDA hardiness zones: 7–9
Temperature: down to -18°C
Troubleshooting
Most kiwi headaches boil down to three things: frost on tender new growth, a missing male vine, or thirsty shallow roots. Learn to read the early signs on the shoots, flowers, and leaves, and you can usually sort out the cause before you lose the whole season.
New spring shoots turning black and limp
What you're looking at is frost damage, and honestly kiwi shoots are about the most cold-tender thing you'll grow. One chilly night after the vine wakes up can turn the soft new shoots black while the older wood doesn't even flinch. So once things start growing again, just cut the dead bits back to live wood, and keep some frost cloth ready to throw over the vine whenever a late frost is on the way.
Fix:
- Prune out killed shoots back to healthy wood once growth resumes
- Cover vines with frost cloth when frost is forecast
Plenty of flowers but no fruit forming
Here's the catch: kiwi is dioecious, which just means the male and female flowers grow on different plants, so a lone female will bloom like crazy and give you nothing. The other usual suspect is age, since a vine often needs 3 to 5 years before it fruits at all. Want fruit? Grow at least one male close to your females, and make sure the bees have plenty to work with when the flowers open.
Fix:
- Plant at least one male kiwi within pollinating range of the females
- Encourage bee activity at bloom time
Scorched leaf edges and wilting in the heat of the day
Since kiwi roots sit so shallow, the vine notices a dry patch fast and tells you about it with scorched leaf margins and a bit of a midday slump. Add some hot, dry wind and it gets worse in a hurry. The fix is easy, though: water deeply through any dry stretch, and spread a good thick organic mulch over the root zone, just keeping it off the trunk.
Fix:
- Water deeply and regularly during dry spells
- Apply organic mulch over the root zone
Toxicity
Good news if you've got pets: the kiwi vine is safe all round. The fruit's an everyday food, and nothing in the leaves or stems will poison cats, dogs, or livestock. Your cat might even fall for the vine the way it does for catnip, but that's just harmless fun, not a hazard.
Safe for
People · Cats · Dogs · Horses · Rabbits · Livestock · Birds
Cats None
Cats are totally fine around kiwi, even if a lot of them get weirdly drawn to the vine like it's catnip, which happens because the genus includes silver vine. That pull is harmless, so a cat flopping around on the canes is nothing to stress about.
Dogs None
Dogs can hang around the vine and fruit with no trouble at all. Sure, a dog that scarfs down loads of fuzzy skin or unripe fruit might get a bit of a tummy ache, but that's just overeating, not poisoning.
Horses Safe
Horses are in no danger here, since nothing in the leaves, stems, or fruit can hurt them. Grazing right next to a kiwi vine? No toxic risk whatsoever.
Rabbits Safe
Rabbits can nibble the leaves without any worry, and a little piece of ripe fruit makes a nice treat now and then. There's just no toxin here to fret over.
Livestock Safe
Cattle, goats, and sheep won't get poisoned by kiwi leaves or fruit. The plant's simply not toxic to grazing animals, plain and simple.
Birds Safe
Birds can peck at ripe kiwi with no harm done, and wild birds will happily clean up whatever falls. None of the plant is toxic to them.
People Safe
Ripe kiwifruit is a healthy, everyday snack that's perfectly safe to eat. The one thing worth mentioning is that some folks are allergic to the fruit, which is a whole separate thing from toxicity.
Fruit and foliage are harmless if nibbled. Note that cats are often strongly drawn to Actinidia vines because the genus includes silver vine (Actinidia polygama), a catnip-like attractant; this is attraction, not poisoning.
Varieties
Kiwi varieties split into fruiting females and the males that pollinate them, so you end up picking them as a pair. Here are the ones worth knowing.
Hayward
This is the big commercial female everyone grows, loved for large, tasty fruit that keeps well into winter.
Tomuri
A late-flowering male that's picked as a partner because it blooms right when Hayward does, even though it never fruits itself.
Blake
A more self-fertile female with smaller, earlier fruit, which comes in handy when there's no room for a separate male.
Companions
Kiwi keeps its own company more than most plants, since the one partner it truly needs is a male vine of its own kind to set fruit.
Plant near
Male kiwi (pollinizer cultivar such as Tomuri): Required near female vines for pollination; one male can pollinate several females.
How to propagate
There's more than one way to make more kiwi, but only the vegetative methods keep a cultivar and its sex true, which really matters when you're pairing up males and females.
GraftingDemanding
Late winter to early spring · 1 to 2 growing seasons
Named cultivars usually get grafted or budded onto seedling rootstock in late winter to early spring, and that's what locks in both the cultivar and its sex. A grafted vine then needs about one to two growing seasons to settle in. It's the trickiest way to go, and it's what the nurseries lean on.
Stem cuttingsModerate
Softwood/semi-hardwood in summer; hardwood in winter · Several weeks to a few months to root
Take softwood or semi-hardwood cuttings in summer, or hardwood ones in winter, and they'll come true to the parent. Pop them under mist or in a humid frame and they root pretty easily, anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. It's a nice middle ground if grafting sounds like a bit much.
LayeringEasy
Spring to summer · One season
This is hands down the easiest way. Just pin a low cane down onto moist soil in spring or summer, and it'll root right where it touches the ground over a single season. Once it's rooted, snip it off the parent and go plant your new vine wherever you like.
SeedModerate
Spring after cold stratification · 3 to 5 years to first flowering
Seed works, but it's a real roll of the dice. After some cold stratification you sow in spring, and the seedlings come up all over the place, not true to type, and you won't even know their sex until they finally flower 3 to 5 years later. Want a known cultivar? Stick with grafting or cuttings.
Myths
Kiwi vines are poisonous to cats.
Nope, the fruit and the whole plant are non-toxic. Cats make a beeline for Actinidia vines because the genus includes silver vine, a catnip-like attractant, so what looks like a problem is really just a cat having a great time. Attraction is not poisoning.
A single kiwi plant will fruit on its own.
Afraid not. Most kiwifruit are dioecious, so a female can flower for years and still give you nothing without a male nearby. You need both a male and a female plant for pollination and an actual crop.