alex hackett wrote:Thank you all for your suggestions, they were all very helpful and creative! I am going to look into the hardy kiwi, fiber banana and Maypop passionflower for that space.
with both hardy kiwi and passionflowers you will want to plant at least four of each.
passionflower needs multiple plants to properly pollinate it, they dont have to be different types just different plants or seedlings from the same batch.
different varieties, even slightly different, cross pollinate each other well. the
landrace varieties of each region where they grow wild in abundance, have subtle difference to make them good for cross pollination.
another words you should seek plants and seeds from several sources, and grow at least 4 different ones, for the amount of space you want them to fill in.
the hardy kiwi has male and female plants, and you want to get one male for 3-4 females.
i start kiwis from seed, hoping this gives me a good chance of getting males too. i would purchase starter plants somewhere though if you want to see fruit in the next few years.
it takes a long time but kiwi seeds start up well...its pretty easy to start kiwis from the fruit. if you can get some fresh hardy kiwis to plant the seeds, ferment them a little (in their own pulp), clean them through rinsing... and then plant them on the top of prepared wet potting soil.
then use a humidity dome or wrap some plastic wrap around top of pot, otherwise mist them frequently so the top of the soils dont dry out. you press them into the soil, but they start best just sown on the surface of the soil.
keeping them through being sprouts to being well established plants can be tricky, but one kiwi will eventually make dozens of plants if you baby them for a year or 2.
they thin themselves out a lot, so plant the seed thickly, 25 or more to a little starter pot.
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