Before and After

You are looking at kiwi vines in their exuberant disarray, pre-pruning. Nestled up there on the arbor roof is T, our local plant whisperer, who was finally able to adjust his schedule to lend his magic to this jumble. I would not recommend that anyone crawl around on that roof, but here he is, happy as a clam. The male kiwi is on the right, and can be pruned hard, since all we want are some pollinating flowers to help our girl on the left produce the fruit. So he chose to leave long horizontal canes on that side, and remove a lot of mess in the center of the roof where we can’t reach to pick anything. There is an After shot in Extras, although you have to know what you’re looking at to appreciate how much he actually took off. Not enough to fill a small pick-up, but enough to tire us out as we carried the branches away. 

We didn’t get much fruit this year because last year’s job was done by a different person who didn’t know what he was doing, not leaving any long canes, but insisting that everything had to be taken down to three nodes per branch, even though I kept saying he was wrong. This is just a note to myself to remember the right way to do it, and to acknowledge that I actually do know a thing or two about plants! Just need a little courage.