Jian

I sent you a message.

Tony

It's a good question. I looked to see how to send a private message and I don't see how it's done. Could you give a hint?

The two people have to follow each other then you can send a PM.

Tony

Thanks Tony. I can reply the message but not know how to start. I will figure out somehow if needed.

So. you can only send the message with people that follow you and you follow them. Just use your mouse and click at your houzz on the right upper corner then your profile will load up. On the left side of the profile there is a box that showed follow and following. Click on follow to see the list of people that follow you and click the one that you want to send a message. Click the word message then type the message then click send. I hope that helps.

Tony

Has anyone bought any new varieties this year. I just purchased 3 Halvins and hope to buy some more new varieties.

Boomer

Where did you get them?

England Orchard also sell Halvin.

Tony

Hi there,

I am trying to gather informations about the main named cultivars. The idea is to put on wikipedia a table with details informations on those cultivars like taste, growth, harvest ....

The gool of that is to give informations for people to decide which cultivar they want to grow.

So I initiated an excel google document (link below).

It is already filled with informations I found on the web. Please feel free to update it as you wish.

GoogleDocument

Thanks for your help,

Ben.

This is a good idea keeping in mind that some varieties perform differently in different areas of the country. Example - 'Rappahannock' produces medium and large sized fruits in North Carolina whereas reports from KY and OH report small fruits. Also the variety 'mango' might be good on a commercial scale if handled correctly. It is very productive with large fruits and good flavor however its fruits would never ship well because the flesh is quite soft and must be consumed shortly upon ripening. Quality drops very soon on this variety because of its soft flesh.

Gatorguy1885:

Are you still experimenting with pawpaw in N. Fla.? Curious as to your progress.

I also grow pawpaw and persimmons, in N. Fla. (Tallahassee -- Zone 8b).

Please contact me if you see this -- would love to compare notes.

scott

Finally looks like I will have pawpaws this year. Hand pollination did the trick. I ended up with so many fruit clusters that I had to thin them down to just 1-3 per cluster.

Hopefully, the fruit will hang on until ripe. I'll keep you posted . . .

@scottasnavely Nice looking little cluster. We had Spring snow that killed many flower bud. But I still got a lot of flower to hand pollinate them. May have to thin them later.

Great looking cluster.

Updated photo of first pawpaw clusters. This is a Shenandoah tree, about 6 years old. These are the same 2 clusters as shown above on 5/11/2016. Wow, they grow fast! The largest is now about 3.5" long and 2" in diameter.

Wow, just discovered that I am the only guy on my block to have fruiting pawpaw and fruiting cherimoya in the same yard! My cherimoya tree decided to fruit this year for the first time, as well. Crossing my fingers and hoping they take.

I posted the following a few months ago. Since it is now the begining of the pawpaw season, I am putting it back.

I am trying to gather informations about the main named cultivars.
The idea is to put on wikipedia a table with detailed informations on
those cultivars like taste, growth, harvest .... to help people decide which cultivar they want to grow.Please feel free to update this excel document as you wish.

GoogleDocument

Thanks for your contribution,

Ben.

I have a shanadoah and aSusquehanna in Northern VA but we got a frost late and the shanandoah lost its blooms so I had no pollinator for the susquehanna.

Susquehanna

Next time if the weatherman is predicting late frost. You can hang a light bulb in the center of your paw paw tree and turn it on and cover it with a large Home Depot tarp for the night. The flowers will be protected from the late frost and a good production from your trees

Tony

Hey everyone!

For the past month or 2, I have been obsessively trying to find any information I can on paw paws and especially the different known cultivars. I recently found this wonderful site that has the most comprehensive list of cultivar information that I have seen.

http://chathamapples.com/Pawpaws.html

Also, I found a forum where someone named shah8 listed a lot of great info on many different cultivars. Post #12 and 13, about halfway down the page.

http://www.figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post/ot-paw-paw-varities-6823069

PawPaws will be my holy grail for the next years ;)

I planted Prima 1216, Overleese, Shenandoah and Susquehanna this year ... now, all are about 90cm tall and will get blossoms next year!

I hope they will fruit soon in a few years.

Iam currently looking which cultivars are the best for our Austrian climate (Z7)

My Goal is to get about 8 Early Ripening PawPaws for a property we might buy in 1 or 2 years.

I have an eye on these cultivars : Kentucky Champion, Summer Delight, Halvin, VE-21, Allegheny, Rappahannock, Wabash, PA-Golden 4 (3)

Sadly, only PA-Golden 4 (3) and Rappahannock are currently available in Europe :(

I really hope that http://bambusarium.cz/kategorie-produktu/paw-paw/ will have those what i want in the next years, most of the time he doesnt have them!

And i hope Lubera gets the other PawPaws from Neal Peterson.

http://www.lubera.com/at/artikelsuche?query=pawpaw

The look of those trees is truly amazing.

Awesome that such a tropical looking tree can survive&fruit in a climate like this!

Also, i think iam addicted to the smell of the rubbed leaves ;D

The fruits will be an ultra bonus!

I love these plants :D

If someone wants to talk about these plants, just pm me :)

Iam excited to hear stories, experiences & recommendations!

Marvin

Does anyone know where Halvin pawpaw trees can be gotten this coming (2016-17) winter or spring?

You can call Cliff England at England Orchard and he will graft on for you.

Tony

I just posted on the wikipedia page of Asimina triloba, the table that you guys helped me to fil up. Here it is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asimina_triloba

If something is wrong or you would like to add information, you can still do it, anytime, from this wikipedia page with the 'edit' link located before each paragraph.

Thanks a lot for your help...

An update of a post from June 1, 2016. After several years of waiting, finally some success with pawpaws.

This is a photo of the largest Shenandoah pawpaw harvested from the cluster posted on 6/1/2016. This pawpaw weighted in at one (1) pound.

Zone 8(b), Tallahassee, Florida.

It can be done in Florida! With a Peterson variety! I have several growing here near Jax that are in their 4th year and they are very slow growing. I have Alkaline soil so I suspect that is why. Scott if I can ask, how long has the tree been in the ground? What are your soil conditions and what techniques did you use (water, fertilizer, soil amendments) I would greatly appreciate any tips. To my knowledge you are the first to get fruit from a Peterson variety in our state! Congrats!

Gatorguy1885:

I believe that tree was planted in Spring 2012, under the canopy of a patriarch live oak, and last year it was roughly 7' tall and 1.5" caliper. Actually, half of my back yard is covered by the canopy of that oak tree, which helps young trees with partial shade, but challenges others (like persimmon) to grow quickly.

I planted 15 additional grafted pawpaws in 2015, some of which have grown quickly (e.g., Mango, Overleese, Sweet Virginia) and some of which have grown more slowly (e.g., Pennsylvania Golden, Tollgate, Belle). Most of the 16 trees planted in the ground flowered this year, but I have learned from last year's experience not to allow the smaller trees to fruit too early (definitely seems to stunt their growth).

Soil conditions: rich sandy humus (presumably from the decayed oak leaves for years). I mulch around each pawpaw with pine bark mulch 2-3 inches deep, and work it into the soil every time I replace the mulch. I think that helps keep the soil just slightly acid, which the pawpaws seem to like. I fertilize with Osmokote 14-14-14, around bud-break (generally 1st week of April here) and again around June 1. The whole side of my back yard with the Shenandoah tree is a nursery, with heavy nursery groundcloth, so I water with elevated rainbird type sprinklers whenever the container trees need it, usually every 2-3 days in hot, dry weather.

I have a handful of container grown grafted pawpaw trees up to 30 gallon size (fruiting size trees), most of which are in root-pruning pots planted in an 70-20-10 planting mix (70% composted pine bark - 20% peat - 10% sand). I have become a believer in root pruning pots for pawpaws -- the resultant root system is impressive, although you must water more often if you use them.

Frankly, it seems to me that the most important elements in growing pawpaws in this area seems to be time (e.g., age of tree) and adequate water. If planted in well-draining soil, and particularly with my container trees, you cannot water too often. I have roughly 20 or so 5-6-year-old seedlings that are 4-6 feet in height, and a half-dozen or so of the seedlings flowered for the first time this year. Grafted trees flower earlier, but from my observations, are not really ready to set fruit until they are 1" plus diameter and 6' height.

I just grafted 70 pawpaws this past weekend, so I am playing the waiting game to see what takes.

So which varieties did you plant? Container or in the ground? Soil type? Any shade?

Scott

That is a beautiful and quite large shenandoah! I am curious about the trees you have in 30 gallon pots, are they fruiting for you? I remember seeing a pawpaw tree at a NC nursery several years back that was growing in a container and was fruiting. If I remember correctly it was likely in a 20 or maybe 25 gallon container. I was very surprised to see it fruiting but it looked quite happy. I don't remember if it was a grafted variety or seedling. I would love to see photos of your trees if you are able and have the time.

Shane:

The 30 gallons are Mango that I grafted in Spring 2012.

They flowered last year and have flower buds again this year.

I intend to hand pollinate both, its just that the trees are about 9 feet or so tall, so I need to pull out the stepladder!

I'll let you know if they pollinate successfully -- last year, neither was successful.

Despite having quite a few flowering trees, it seems that the timing was off for the Mangos, as they opened bloom later than just about everything else.

I'll take some photos after everything leafs out -- right now, only a few have started to leaf, so nothing much to see.

Thanks for sharing. It is really neat to see fruiting pawpaws growing in containers.

Mine are loaded this year. I will have to thin them. Tony

Looking great!

Tony:

Your trees always look so healthy and happy to be there.

Hope your harvest is bountiful.

Can you grow paw paws in containers permanently? Any dwarf varieties?

There are no dwarf varieties that I am aware of. I guess you could grow them in a container as long as you could any other type fruit, however it would need to be a large container at least 25 gallon or larger for long term growing. Growing it in a container would keep the tree more dwarf. And depending on your climate it may need more shade to do its best, especially the hotter your summers are.

A 2017 pawpaw update:

The pawpaws this year were markedly smaller than last year and have ripened a couple weeks later than last year.

We had a pretty violent storm on Monday night 8/21/2017, and I didn't think to check until yesterday.

Unfortunately, I had several pretty nice Shenandoah pawpaws on the ground that bugs had helped themselves to, so I lost out on the pulp from those fruit.

Here is a photo of several Mango (the lighter colored papaws on the left), one Shenandoah (center top) and two smaller pawpaws from unnamed seedling trees in their first year of bearing that I picked up Tuesday 8/22/2017:

Few of the 2017 pawpaws are close in average size to the 2016 pawpaws, and none of the 2017 pawpaws are remotely close to the size of the Shenandoah from my March 28, 2017 post above.

Zone 8B, Tallahassee, Florida.

scott

Scott, thanks for sharing. Good harvest.

zone 9b central Florida... Some type of caterpillar eating my baby pawpaws! I thought the swallowtail butterfly was one of the few that are the leaves? Can anyone identify the type? When picked up it immediately released a clear green liquid and promptly defecated. My 20 baby plants are in a screened in area so they are probably fine. I wonder if I should be concerned in two years when I plant them in the forest garden on my property.

For those who live in cold climates, don't give up! The tallest paw paw tree at the left has survived several years of -30 degree temperatures or lower (extreme northern Utah).

Hi everyone! I've followed this thread with growing interest, and finally took the next step by posting hete :) . I am a professional gardener, and my interests lie heavily on pomology and dendrology (yup, a tree hugger!). I have a vision to introduce cultivars of mulberries, american persimmons, paw paws, nuts, and cornelian cherries to my country of Finland.

Now to many it would seem that being as far north as alaska might impose some challenges, but thanks to gulf stream, our southern end is beginning to be the equivalent of USDA 5b/6 ..but of course that's regarding only the low temperatures. At Köppen-Geiger climate we at the south are at Dfb , for those who use that. I'd like to talk about all potential plants, but let's focuse on paw paws...now we have of course insane amounts of light at the peak of the summer, will that help or hinder paw paws, I'm not sure. Last two summers have been wet and cold, and I suspect that no paw paws would have ripened. But then again, I remember summers with +30 Celsius (86 F) , and some winters that went as low as -30C (-22F) . Most of the time however we stay near the -20 C (-4F) at winter, so the low temperatures really are not an issue. However the growing degree days might be...and so I am especially interested in trying the absolutely most earliest cultivars! I really don't care about the size right now, I just want to PROVE to me and to others here that you can actually grow paw paw in the open and outside :D

The excel sheet that someone posted is most excellent tool and I thank for that. Now to questions:

-Do you have any special recommedations to try?

-Should I also focus on growing seedlings ( I have four one year old seeldings, and 50 seeds in the fridge, all from Oikos) to find special case that grows well here?

-Do you think that root stock will make a real difference?

-When do you think is the best time to graft paw paw, and how thick the trunk should be before I try that?

I thank everyone for any help bringing paw paws (and others) to my country :)

-Janne

Jane,

If you have a chance to get fruits, it will be with SummerDelight and Kentucky Champion that are the 2 earliest cultivars known. Halvin is a little later.

You can buy trees from Cliff England (nuttrees.net), bare root. He ships them to Europe.

However I have no idea if it will work. May be adding some winter protection at the end of the season will be enough to get the little push they need to ripen.

For sure not all the fruits will have time to ripen.

For the -30°C (-22°F) it should work on established trees. But a protection is probably better for the first years.

From what I know, pawpaw are grown as high as Montreal region. You have greenbarnnursery.ca that might have one of the best cold hardy genetics from what they say. Could be good seeds for seedling. They have as well persimmon that resist to -40°C/-40°F

You can do grafting on 2 years seedling (about 1.5 feets / 50cm high), when the plant is actively growing. I usually do it mid-may, when I have afternoon around 22°C /72°F.

But I think the best thing is to get 2 trees from nuttrees.net and then you will see.

Ben.

I think Ben offered a lot of good advice.

To add to what he said, I've never heard of anyone trying to be selective with regards to genetics of pawpaw rootstock. So I don't think there's any known reason to worry about the genetics of the seeds you use to grow your rootstock. In other words, I think any seed is as good as any other for rootstock, at least as far as anyone knows.

I've successfully grafted tiny (much smaller than pencil diameter) pawpaws before, so it's possible to graft very small trees. I don't have a lot of experience grafting pawpaws, so I can't offer very good advice on when to graft, but my current preference with pawpaws is whip and tongue grafts, the bigger the better, but limited by the size of my scions.

Thanks a bunch everyone! I have read some bad stuff on bare roots paw paws, the tap root being brittle and long. So I am hesitant to get such a challenging plant from across the ocean. There are some nurseries already in central europe that sell paw paws, the difficulty being that they are in german, french, dutch, czech etc. so googling to find them is a bit challenging, heh.

On grafting: should the rootstock be in full leaf, or just leafing out? I've heard that this is not the easiest tree to graft.

P.S: On a sidenote, my name truly is Janne, with two n-letters...and being a bearded hunk of a male, it always makes me chuckle when I'm called Jane :D .Then again, if I went to the US, that's propably the way my name would be said.

I have 4 pawpaw trees from nuttrees.net and they are growing fast. They had a good quality root system so no problem with them.

You will not find SummerDelight and Kentucky Champion else where.

If you don't want to purchase grafted trees from North America, can't you just purchase scion wood of Summer Delight? Won't Cliff England sell scions? And scions can be shipped internationally, right?

That is a good point, cousinfloyd! One difficulty in buying plants from outside of EU is the (possible) need of Phytosanitary Certificate, that costs 100 dollars (Ken from OIKOS told me this). Paw paw might not be one plant that needs one though, I have to ask this from the officials here.

And scionwood would be good idea. Interestingly enough, the scion swap of fruitiers.net (French page that I use for swapping) already has few people offering Summer Delight and Kentucky Champion scions, have they really been available for so long that people might have wood available? I thought these were pretty new cultivars!

Janne,

grafting pawpaw is not difficult. When your rootstopck/your tree starts to leaf out, you can graft. Cleft graft works well.

Scott! I apologize for the late reply! Haven’t been on here in quite some time! My pawpaws were planted 5 years ago. I ordered container grown ones from One Green World. Of those 6-8 I planted only 4 have survived (Rappahannock, mango, wabash, and sunflower). I also planted 6-8 I grew from seed that are still slowly coming along. This year they have accelerated growth and the sunflower even set its first fruit!

This gives me hope this can be done in north Florida! Thank you for sharing information.

Chad

Hey everyone. Old thread here but hoping to rejuvenate it instead of starting a new one. Clearly you are all into paw paw trees. I think they are beautiful. I am not so much interested in the fruit as the ornamental look. I am hoping to see some mature trees and your opinion if their hardiness. I am in Pennsylvania zone 7a. I am strictly planting native trees on my property. I love their shape and how full they look. But google usually shows the best of the best images. Please post pics of your trees ! Hopefully others will see and look into this underused tree.