Following on from the last post about foliage – one of the most fascinating plants that I have is a vine, Actinidia kolomikta, which is a cousin of the Kiwi fruit, Actinidia chinensis. I felt it deserved a post all to itself, I hope you agree.
The leaves start out plain green in early spring, but soon white variegation starts to appear.
A couple of weeks later some of the white changes to pink, by now the vine is looking very pretty – who needs flowers ?!
Flowers are formed, but to see them you have to dive underneath all the foliage. The flowers are only small and I couldn’t detect any perfume, but I had lots of bees keeping me company while I took my photo – how do they know where they are ?
Fast forward a couple of weeks and the pink is taking over from the white, this is how it will stay for the rest of the summer.
The only minus point is that it doesn’t have any fruit like its cousin, but I forgive it simply because it looks so gorgeous. These are some of the side shoots that I pruned away, they were growing so strongly that they were covering a window, it was getting dark during the day, had to go unfortunately.
Do you agree that in this case the leaves are prettier than the flowers or would you rather see the flowers with green leaves ? I know which I would rather have !
Wow! Those leaves are so pretty, I have never seen anything like it! Totally worthy of its own post, while the flowers are pretty, the leaves are just so unique…love it!! Thank you so much for sharing, hope it likes zone 8, I want one =)
Thanks Julia, so glad you feel the same as me, the leaves are really wonderful aren’t they, a great talking point in the garden. Hope it is happy with you in zone 8 !
The way the leaves change like that is incredible, what a plant!
Bertie
It’s amazing isn’t it Bertie, every garden should have one !
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