For the last several years, our yard-based pawpaw orchard has been made up of five cultivars: a Wells, a Shenandoah, a KSU Atwood, and a Susquehanna. The oldest of these, the Wells, was planted in spring of 2011, so ten years old this May. We've gotten fruit from the Wells for the past six seasons, and all the others have chimed in bounteously, except for the Mango, which along with the Susquehanna is the youngest.
This spring of 2021, on March 5, we had five more pawpaw trees arrive: the Potomac, two Maria's Joy, a KSU Chappell, and a KSU Benson. Below, I'm including some pics of the yard, labeled to show the new pawpaws among the old pawpaws. All of them are from One Green World in Oregon, which is where we've always bought pawpaws from.
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| The Potomac, which is one of the Peterson pawpaws, was planted from a 5.5 inch banded pot. |
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| The Maria's Joy was planted from a 5.5 inch banded pot. |
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| KSU Chappell: 1 gallon pot Maria's Joy: 5.5 inch banded pot KSU Benson: 1 gallon pot |
We've always planted pawpaws in May, and they've all grown well except one (which is no longer with us). This year, One Green World sent them at the very beginning of March. So...finger crossed!
I live seeing what you are doing! I have a Davis Paw Paw that produces that was planted in 2009. I also have a 3 year old seedling that is trying to hang on. I will be adding a Sunflower and a KSU Chappel this year.
ReplyDeleteWill you have your Paw Paw event this year? If so, I would love to come.
I am in Seattle and a couple years ago encountered a pawpaw at the Farmer's Market. Based on the lavish description in _Trees of Seattle_ I thought it would be fun to try to grow one. So I wrapped the seeds in wet paper towels and put them in the fridge marked "plant in February". That, uh, didn't happen; they probably got planted in March. The pots just sat there, empty.
ReplyDeleteI finally had some carrot tops I was trying to sprout, so I put them in those empty pots of dirt. They keeled over, but then up came some tiny sprouts. I figured they were carrots, until the leaves came out--not carrot like at all.
I put one outdoors where it instantly dried up and died. (I am not a very good gardener.) I kept the other indoors. It got to two leaves; then they turned an ugly brown and fell off. I was pretty pessimistic as I thought pawpaw leaves should turn yellow. But I kept that pot in the windowsill all winter and watered it twice a week, just in case.
In May, the shoot which had had the leaves was still dead. But a tiny green tendril came up next to it, and now has five leaves!
I can't believe this plant is still alive. I found your blog because of the keywords "bonsai pawpaw" because I daren't put this one out to dry, so it's likely to be stunted. But hey, it's like a miracle that it's growing at all.