Then there is hope for mine. Nice pix. Thanks for sharing.
Northwoodswis

Clearly you have the magic touch. I finally tossed my barely surviving female (two males had since gone by the wayside). They just would not grow for me, despite all the warnings about how they would "take over". Yours look so healthy! Mine looked like twigs :-(

Steve in CA,
They are also called Arctic Beauty. You are a long way from the Arctic, so you should probably try some of the varieties that those of us in the North wish we could grow.
Northwoodswis

So that's what they look like when they don't die the first year in the ground!

If you and your climate are like me and mine you will be infatuated with this species for a few seasons and than tire of them being killed off by normal frosts. Argutas taste about the same but leaf out a week later and are much less often frosted out. But then they are also more vigorous and require about 4 prunings during the growing season.

Nice plants!

I need to grow either one of the "new" Russian hardy Argutas or put in a kolomikta... I'm a big fan of kiwis.

I have a neighbor with a huge vine and have had them in the past. They are still rock hard in Sept, but you can ripen them off the vine and they are very good once they soften up.

ugh ive been trying to grow these things for 3 years, i think i finally have a pair thats surviving but not really thriving... any tips? how much sun do they get, using any fertilizer regimens or soil amendments?

I actually live in a very maritime climate zone where a "hot" day is pushing into the mid-seventies, rarely 80. The summer is mostly one lo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ng London fog (trust me....). But the winters are also not very cold and I am beginning to think that the kolomiktas really want some decent dormant time--something no one ever talks about (certainly not the various vendors).

I'm going to try the argutas. I have two smallish plants now in 1 gal containers which are looking way more happy that ever the kolomiktas did.

Having grown both, starting with 3 varieties of kolomitka- all large fruiting ones, I would say I prefer the selection of arguta varieties, even without considering the frost issue. I have one called Rosanne or something close to that that is from Italy and has red fruit, is very large and has a nice acid sugar balance that is the best kiwi I've tasted. I can't remember the nursery I purchased it from, however.

I was told by an Argentine Italian some years back that in Italy they are often grown for fruit- never heard that elsewhere and have never been to Italy.

I'm going to add as much insight on these as I can.I don't seem to have much problem with frost issues in the past 6 years I have grown this variety as our property runs along a small brook and 10 feet from the deck where this particular plant resides drops toward the brook at about 20% grade so air drainage is good.Last year on the other hand as I'm sure most of you on the eastern part of the US would have also experienced an early spring which was about 3-4 weeks early here, All arctic kiwis were in full bloom argutas ready to bloom then bam!Everybody got a really good nuking! no kiwis for you! only year it happened thus far.
As far as chilling requirements I can't give an exact figure but from experience germinating kolomikta and arguta seeds in the fridge is that they do seem to require a lot of chill,seeds go in end of Sept-Oct and they seem to want to lay in bed and hit the snooze button till around the end of February.
Another good feature of this variety is it that it can handle sudden drops in temp in late winter early spring.This spring at the end of March we started to melt and warmup as per usual with temps in the low 40s and mid 20s at night(that's +5 Celsius and -5c to all you canucks out there)Then BAM! it dropped down to-4F(-20c) one night and when the warmup started again I noticed that quit a few of the argutas were pumping sap out of their trunks.I lost a Ken's red(never fruited in the 3 years in the ground) And I have a dumbarton oaks that is very slowly dying had about 6 inches of trunk split.The Ken's red on the other hand had about 3 feet of messed up trunk and no kiwis for you:(The kolomiktas handled it no sweat, zero damage.
The kolomiktas start ripening here mid August and the dumbarton oaks(which is supposed to be an early arguta) I had would just barely ripen on the vine mid to late September.
So location and choosing the right variety for your climate is key I hope this info can can be helpful to someone.

Glen, as I recall, Ken's is known to lack cold hardiness even for an arguta (I'm not even sure it's an arguta).

Usually plants from more artic areas are quite susceptible to damage from warm winter spells followed by extreme cold so your experiences are interesting. They come from areas where winter temps are very constant and so they interpret warm spells in winter as the onset of spring and lose their hardiness.

Dumberton Oaks isn't one I've grown and I got my original plants from a New England grower so his stock was probably mostly hardy varieties. I planted them about 23 years ago so they've all seen temps below -20 F and none have shown any stress from winter cold.

Statistically, 6 years of success is a long ways from a reliable evaluation. Only convection freezes are helped by good drainage and coming out of dormancy more than a week earlier has to be a huge issue for frost over the long term. On the other hand, I only gave my artic varieties about 8 years after they froze out on half of those.