I've done some more research since posting. if you're just starting out you can prune them the same as muscadines on a single wire with two cordons and spurs. there are a number of people I've spoken to that have had good success that way. it is probably not the best for a commercial venture but for the home garden it will apparently provide gallons of kiwi. Do you have a male planted nearby? I planted a pair (male and female) in the same hole the other day on a new trellis i started, we have some pollination issues that limit fruit set.

Zone 6.5 NJ. we have a concord grape vine which is about 10 years old. Always produced good even when grown dense and unkept. A few couple years ago I made a thread with photos https://www.houzz.com/discussions/5411473/grapes-falling-off-b4-ripe-2nd-year-bugs-cut-to-stump wondered why they were all shriveling up way before ripening. It turns out grapes prefer lots of ventilation and them being against a wood fence with shrubs on the other side of the fence, plus allowed to grow dense caused fungal problems. Last couple years I thinned it out but didn't (and won't) spray any fungicides etc, I still got a decent amount to eat but like %80 were mummies. It has grown even more than those photos, it goes like 18 feet in both directions. Last week I thinned it out to still have about 14 feet in both directions from the trunk but I left only about 4 vines going each way. I removed like %75 of the growth and had I left it as-is there'd be like 10 vines going 18ft in both directions plus a big mass near the trunk. From what I saw on youtube, growers usually only go for vines about 10 feet from the trunk in both directions and only keep 1 or 2 vines (so 2 or 4 vines total per plant with a total of 20 or 40 feet of vine). I'm hoping thinning it out will eventually cure the fungal mummy problem without using chemicals. Question is, I read I should maybe have cut them back to the trunk and let new vines come each year? And that'll actually produce more grapes and is better for the tree? Should have done that in Spring though I guess. Also, a lot of the vine wood closest to the trunk doesn't seem to be budding, IOW I have 14ft vines X 4 coming off the trunk in both directions but like the first 8 ft of the vines closest to the trunk don't have new growth or grapes forming on them, so will they eventually bud out or do older grape buds not produce? I was hoping maybe they didn't bud out because they were shaded by other vines before I recently pruned a lot out. I could google this probably but figured I'd ask here since I know some of you really know grapes. thank you lastly, how hard is it to air layer concords? should I use old or new wood? I have good success with fig air layers but not sure about grapes. I have already layered (branch stuck straight down into the ground and rooted) from this concord but not sure how long that took because I think I discovered it by mistake, I read 2 years needed for regular layering and I prefer much faster, I do have a few branches from these vines buried 1ft in the ground starting early Spring but I won't pull them out to check any time soon. Prefer air layer anyway if do-able.

We enjoy the rose of Sharon so we're going to try pruning hit following the steps and the article shared. We I also found a video that was pretty helpful it basically said to prune the suckers, any branches growing inward, any dead branches, any rubbing branches and then that I could trim from the top. When looking up the Russian sage I got all sorts of advice some said that I could keep 12" other said 6-8 " and then others said that I could cut it all the way back and it would continue to grow back from the crown. But basically the consensus was that I couldn't over prune the Russian sage. I'm going to try cutting it back 4-6 " today and take a picture and see if you guys think that I should cut it back any further. Since the branches at the base are really thick and woody I feel like cutting it all the way back might be the way to go here especially snce it's never been pruned before. As for transplanting it... I think it's worth a try to prune it first. Depending on how it looks at the end of the season I might transplant it next year

I agree with both of you, but the state of CA (which these rules came from) seems to have a theory that fires will not leap from tree to tree if the trees are not touching each other. You and I know, and anyone who has seen strong winds knows, that this is nonsense. If it is bone dry and over 90 degrees F, and the hot wind is blowing very fast, dainty pruning around the garden will not stop a large fire, no matter how much you prune. It might stop a fire if it was, as you say, very small and very shy, or if the fire was actually a single house fire, not a wildfire, and was being fought by 5 fire engines all for that one house, which happened to our house once. We do have friends who have enormous properties of 5-10 acres, and do not have gardens at all, but rather acres of watered and mowed lawns with tiny low flower beds around their houses, and only a very few trees. That will help, of course, but we live in an old neighborhood with lots and lots of mature lovely trees, and mostly older, large and/or historic homes on quarter acre lots with lots of bushes, etc. (One of the "rules" is to remove ...this and that... "out to 100 ft away from your house" My comment to the fire person was that to follow that rule, I would have to knock down 3 of my neighbors nearby houses, and I think they would object). The written rules if actually enforced would make everyone have to bulldoze their properties and cover them with concrete, so they don't try to enforce them as written - the fire person told us that our local fire department decided what part to enforce - I am glad of this, but it is NOT good governance. (One town actually passed a law saying 100% of the homes in that town had to clear a space of 5' entirely around their houses, and pave it with concrete. They decided to rescind that law after the outraged residents circulated a petition to get a measure put on the ballot to recall the entire City Council (which you can do for any ror no reason in CA). I regard the exercise as mostly cosmetic, but so far it has made me get some work done which was needed in the garden any way, and that is OK. Jackie