Transplanting Pawpaws

The week before last, after I got back from a trip, I went over and looked at how our new Susquehanna cultivar was doing, and I saw that two big shoots were growing up beside it, shoots that were stemming from the root of the lazy pawpaw tree that I removed from the ground in the spring, to clear a space for the Susquehanna. Of course, since they were shoots from the lazy pawpaw tree's roots, I wanted them gone, so I yanked and to my surprise, they came up out of the ground with maybe ten inches of root in tact.  

Since they had so much root in tact, I decided to have a go at transplanting them. I didn't do very much special for them, except placing them among the pawpaw seedlings that I've been growing (17 out of 20 germinated, by the way). I used a pencil to poke deep and narrow holes into the soil of two of the three containers whose seeds didn't sprout. And I threaded the long roots into the soil. Even as I did so, however, I thought about what I would do with the trees if they actually rooted. I remembered that these trees were from a root stock that wasn't worth cumbering the ground. So I determined that I would show no quarter to them if they did survive--this was an experiment in the interest of science and not a sentimental chance at redemption for the root stock. See below for the sprouts among the pawpaw seedlings.

Two days later, the root stock sprouts showed that they didn't have the stuff to survive in any case.

And it's probably the case that no pawpaw sprouts with 10-inch roots would have the stuff to survive, no matter how vigorous the plant itself were. Pawpaws, as you may know, are very tough to transplant successfully. (See here they are below, curled up on the cement.)

But I have seen at least one person online who has transplanted pawpaws successfully. It looks to me like she displaces about a ton of dirt in order to transplant plants that are less than about a foot tall. It's amazing to think about the work put in by these folks at Shady Oaks Butterfly Farm.