http://www.pawpaw.kysu.edu/pawpaw/nurslst.htm

Be careful when using the KYSU list of sources. It's a good list, but it includes some real notoriously awful suppliers as well as the good ones. Check out possibilities through Garden Watchdog before placing orders!

Edible Landscaping www.eat-it.com

or England's nursery http://www.nuttrees.net/

before I would order from Starks. (I prefer to support smaller growers and have had better luck with these than with Starts personally)

~Chills

My other pawpaws were purchased from an ebay seller and they came in bare-root, I lost 2 (of 5) and broke just about every rule there is regarding planting trees. One of they fruited for me last year and I was relieved to find out the fruit was good.

I would second gonebananas advice about buying only potted pawpaws (or make sure you get a really good guarantee on the plants (and realize you will lose a year of growth if you need to use the guarantee)

~Chills

I've tried both methods with bare-rooted pawpaws and have found clearly that keeping them potted up for the first year is the way to go. Using a well draining medium, regular watering, and tall pots, I am able to keep them in full sun from the start and routinely get substantial growth that first year. This continues without setback the following year when planted in the ground. By comparison, some time ago, I planted several pawpaws that I had received from Hidden Springs directly in the orchard. These plants had healthy dense root systems but took several years in the ground before beginning to show the vigor of the plants that had spent a year in pots.

Arguments could be made either way from a semantics point of view, but I would call them pot-grown. The trees would retain much of their root system when treated this way and should establish much more quickly than field-grown, dug, bare-root trees.

"I can't imagine why maintaining them in pots would be preferable to growing in-ground"

In my experience I've found that pawpaws are more adversely affected by shipping bare-root than many other types of fruit trees - it appears that their root systems, consisting of many fine rootlets are more vulnerable to the various stresses inherent in this process, and transplantation shock to a greater or less degree is the rule.

The focus should be to prevent, or if necessary, to decrease the severity of the shock. So buying container grown plants shipped in their container would be best; these can be planted directly in the ground with good results. But if the tree is sent bare-root, there will of necessity be root damage and transplantation shock, and this setback can reduce the vigor of the plant for years. The best remedy I've found to lessen the shock is to provide an optimal environment for the stressed and damaged roots to allow quick recovery. This goal is much better achieved in a pot, where growing conditions, including most importantly the medium and the moisture content, are more readily controlled. It really makes no sense to plant a struggling shocked pawpaw in topsoil with resultant loss of many of the damaged roots and prolongation of the shock state. The focus here is on the short term problem of allowing roots damaged by bare-rooting to recover; once this has occurred, evidenced by vigorous vegetative growth, the tree is ready for planting in the garden.

I guess some additional control would theoretically be possible in containers, but in practice, where containers may not get daily monitoring and carefully controlled irrigation (like here at my place), I find in-ground planting to provide more stable and lower-stress conditions. Of course a lot of this depends on soil, climate, and vigilant care. Delayed establishment would also be a concern, in regard to container planting, for me.

One thing that I don't think was mentioned above, that might be important, is that pawpaws are best transplanted in early spring instead of fall or winter. Pawpaws experience a much greater root-growth dormancy than most other types of trees, and are more prone to root rot because of that. I wouldn't order a pawpaw in the fall, but if I did get one (in a container), I'd leave it until very early spring for transplant.

The only negative I can think of to a tall pot is the deeper hole and increased work it requires at planting out.

A couple of long fenceposts put in at an angle and some burlap or shade cloth can satisfy shading for the first year.

I'd avoid the root stimulator.