Rhizo, are you advising protection this winter because I'm planting it in August instead of April or May, thus giving it less time to establish before winter? I'm willing to do that for its first winter, but I'm hoping to find an oleander that will be hardy & not burn at least down to the mid to upper teens......with no protection. I'm definitely going to plant it in a high spot in my garden for good drainage.

water when a plant needs water ... insert a finger.. and find out how it all works in your soil ... some needle loss is not uncommon are transplanting ... and after the first winter.. the future is all in the buds.. and what they do this spring ... and you dont mention how big the transplant was .. nor if it was ball and burlap ... you need to provide pix if you want anything more than WAGS ... and no one can tell you how it works in your soil .... in your yard... in your area ... ken https://sites.google.com/site/tnarboretum/Home/planting-a-tree-or-shrub

If you are diligent about pruning you can control the weight of the vines. You will want your male's flowers pretty close to the females, bees don't always do a good job of pollinating kiwis (I think they are mostly wind pollinated, but bees do visit the flowers). You could train your male down the middle and keep your females along both outside edges and you'll be fine. I may sound like a broken record but ONE FEMALE VINE can produce 180 POUNDS of fruit. Now this may only start happening on about the tenth year but seriously - 180 POUNDS OF FRUIT!!!! I have two female vines. I don't even bother picking all of it because there is just too much. On a year with super high heat and no rain you won't get as much and the fruit will be tiny and on years with single digit winter cold you may lose large sections of the vine and therefore a reduction in fruit, but in a normal year you can plan on 180 POUNDS OF FRUIT!!! I have heard of gardeners grafting their male onto the female and just keeping the male vines under control. I chose not to build a wooden trellis system because I didn't want to do all the deep digging and cementing to make it sturdy, so I used 10 foot t-posts and pounded them 3 feet into the ground. I made braces every 10 feet or so by pounding in two of them in an "X" pattern. I strung metal wire down the middle where the "X's'" meet (about 4.5 feet off the ground) and one wire down the outside edge on both sides the length of the trellis. It has worked okay but the heavy vines are starting to pull it over. So my plan is to just pound in more "X" frames, like every 5 feet and do a better job of pruning to reduce the weight. For my hardy kiwis I just use 8' t-posts pounded into the ground 2.5 feet in a single row like a fence and string two wires, one at the top and one about 18 inches below that. These have also started to sag due to the weight of the vines but I think adding more t-posts will solve it. I use a LOT of t-posts in my garden. You will need to figure out a way to "cure" your fuzzy crop because they aren't good for fresh eating when you pick them. They need to sit a while in order to get sweet and to soften enough to bite into them. If you want to make jam's or jellies or pie filling then they are better while kinda hard and sour, the cooking solves the problem. I harvest in November, usually after the first mild frost and store them in my basement on tables. Some of them rot but enough of them cure that I get sick of them by this time of the year. They get pretty ugly from this sort of curing, very wrinkled and shrunken but they taste wonderful and sweet. The grocery store ones are cured with precision chillers that manage the humidity and the temps. Kiwis are great long storage fruits because you can control when they soften by keeping them cool and then only bringing up to the kitchen the amount you want to eat that week. The warmth will speed up the ripening. 180 POUNDS OF FRUIT is more than a heaping wheel barrow load!

Gregg and Sue - yes, thanks, the trees are happy. One thing not often mentioned is the age of the gardener. When I was younger, I bought any size bucket and any tree/shrub height that would fit into my Volvo wagon and handled it all myself. When I bought larger mature trees from John in 2018, it was for very specific reasons; building a Spirit Garden because my spouse had passed, the neighbors had installed a very large above ground pool that didn't appeal to my view, and after 45 years here, we had lost many mature trees. When the gardener is mid-70s and the Volvo wagon is gone, it was time for instant gratification. So hauling in 31 yards of soil and with my favorite landscaper chap, 3 large gardens were made. It took 2 trailer loads from John's to get all 14 trees here. It was a once in a lifetime buy. Took a big chance, but it is all good. 😊 I fully agree that younger gardeners should buy smaller as it is best for the tree/shrub and a joy to watch them grow. Enjoy your visit to John's, Gregg - tell him Jane said Hi. 😊 He'll remember the woman who bought the pinus sylvestris aurea, lol. Jane