Plant · P-475

Hardy Kiwi

Actinidia arguta

Hardy Kiwi is a vigorous twining vine that produces grape-sized fruit with smooth, fuzz-free skin, eaten whole and sweeter than fuzzy kiwi, with several times the vitamin C of blackcurrant. It needs a male vine nearby to pollinate the females - or the self-fertile Issai cultivar - and takes five to nine years before it fruits at all, but a mature vine then yields 50 to 100 lb a year. It survives brutal winter cold, but the spring shoots are frost-tender and get damaged most years where late frosts hit, and it needs sharp drainage or the roots rot in hot, wet clay.