I will be interested to see what responses you get. I've been interested in kiwi for a while too. I know there is a kiwi farm out by Lake Eufaula or somewhere around there I've been meaning to visit one of these days...

I would love to grow them but have highly alkaline soil and highly alkaline water and they need acidic soil so there's no way they would work for me. Even if I built a deep raised bed of very acidic soil, the alkaline water would continually impact the pH of the bed. We don't get consistent enough rainfall for me to think that I could catch enough rainwater in barrels to be able to water them only with rainwater throughout the summer months and my local water pH of 8.2 to 8.3 would be unsuitable.

I've linked a GW discussion about kiwi below because it involves people who've grown the hardy Kiwi discussing how their plants have done after being in the ground for a number of years.

Shelly, Fairly far down the linked discussion, one person comments that the kiwi are not drought tolerant and said that he discussed the issue with the profession kiwi growers in Oklahoma who lost acres of kiwi during a drought (I assume he is referring to the kiwi farm at Eufaula and wonder if it happened in 2011). I found that tidbit of info discouraging for anyone who might want to grow Kiwi here. Of course, if a person has acidic soil and decent water that is not highly alkaline and has only a few kiwi plants to water, they likely could keep them watered in drought much more easily than a farm with many acres could do. There still could be issues in a bad year with water rationing.

You can see the discussion linked below.

Dawn

Hardy Kiwi--Ken's Red, Anna and Issai

Thanks, Dawn. I didn't know about them needing acidic soil or that they weren't drought tolerant. That's a shame about the kiwi farm losing so many of their vines. I bet it was 2011..