(Imperfect translation from persimmon language)
Sleep, my little Persimmon,
I have built you a house.
I have mulched you with leaves,
Shielded you from the mouse.
I have wrapped you with burlap
And protected with tarp.
Now let you sleep sound
Under winter wind’s harp.
Let the winter be steady,
Let the months flow on by.
I will see you in spring,
Sleep my baby, bye-bye.
Strong work covering that persimmon tree.
Tony
Galina,
Nice work.
You would laugh out loud if you saw how I “winter-protected” my Nikita’s Gift.
Sleep tight and don’t let the voles bite!
Does Nikita’s Gift need winter protection ? I have a small plant I bought from Slovakia, this year planted in the ground and I did not put any protection. Today i bought pipe insulation and I thought I would isolate it at least half the height to see if the tip will freeze. With roseyanka the same thing. Am i going to make a mistake and it will be better to protect them the first years ?
That put a smile on my face. Thanks!
I thought they were very resistant to cold, and that’s why I got them from abroad, and it was very difficult by the way. Looks like I’m going to have to look for some American persimmon.
Martin,
I am in zone 6a but sometimes, temperature appears to be 5b. Last two years the top part of my NG that were not covered were dead.
Also, there are a few other members in zone 6 that did not cover their NG and the trees are dead in harsh winters. I think @BobVance may be one who NG died.
I also think that the age of the tree could contribute to cold hardiness. The younger, the more vulnerable. This is my 3 yrs old tree. I am not sure if I would cover it next year when it’ll be 4 yrs old. Roseyanka is hardier.
Folks like @SMC_zone6 and @tonyOmahaz5 are trialing their persimmon hardiness. Maybe, they can chime in.
American persimmon is definitely hardy for zone 5 and 6.
I should be in zone 8a according to http://www.plantmaps.com/interactive-serbia-plant-hardiness-zone-map-celsius.php but in my place last year was below -20 celsius for few days. Then I`ll be in zone 6b, because I’m in the valley after all. This winter, however, will be very mild. We did not have cold days so far,only at night go to the minus and we will have plus 15 celsius next week.
No matter what I will protect them with pipe insulation or something else. Thanks a lot.
NJ had back to back harsh winters a couple years ago, during the polar vortexes. My NG fared the best, and is located in a wind tunnel. No winter damage to NG, while fuyu imoto and Saijo had significant damage. Jiro died to the ground. All trees were purchased approximately 5 feet tall at just about fruit bearing age. I think NG’s size helped it survive those two winters.
I’m in 6b, have several kakis and haven’t seen any damage in 3 years. Among them is Nikita’s Gift. I think you’ll be fine.
I may have had a graft which failed to take. But I haven’t lost any Nikita Gifts. I have lost plenty of others though.
This year, I have a grafted root sucker from a Tam Kam which has been sending up a lot of suckers after being heavily damaged for the two winters before last winter. The NG graft grew pretty well and I wasn’t planning on protecting it- I was hoping that it would be fully hardy around here and I could transplant it to a rental.
If I protect anything, it would be a non-astringent, like Tam Kam. Last year it only got down to about 0, which TK can take without issue, so I may just take my chances.
I did see this product last week at Home Depot and immediately thought of persimmons…They have a 6 and 12’ version as well…
Maybe it would damage the tree by being too hot? Maybe the solution would be to insulate the trunk with the foam tubes used for pipes, then wrap the heating wire around it? But then you would be losing most of the heat- maybe it would be better to run the wire up the crack in the foam, so that it is halfway between the tree and the outside.
You could use a temperature control to power it, with the sensor inside the foam to turn on the wire when it goes under 10F. If I do something like that (which I’m leaning against), I would probably only need to run it for 1-2 nights. As there is often only a brief dip in Jan or Feb which does all the damage.
Bob,
Thanks for clarifying it.
Re. A new “tool” you posted. Only us that think of our trees before our water pipes. Thanks for posting. It gets me thinking.
Bob, you might consider Christmas lights. Of course, they can’t be new style high efficiency lights or they won’t hardly give off any heat. I wrapped Christmas lights around as many individual stems of two figs bushes as I had lights for last winter, and those stems of those bushes came through the winter noticeably better than the other stems of those bushes and than any of the bushes I didn’t protect at all. Like you said, there were only a couple nights where I needed to plug them in. I definitely don’t think you’ll damage the tree by heating it up too much on those coldest nights, certainly not with Christmas lights, and I doubt with the device you photographed either. It seems to me that Christmas lights buy approximately 5 degrees of protection.
I am using a 80 feet cable for 4 trees in the winter and may use them at spring for my early vegetable.
A cable that prevents freezing would be far too warm if next to the tree with insulation like is recommended on the product. A thermostat would definitely be the cat’s meow to just come on and keep the temperature at the tree around 10 to 20 degree F.
After your suggestion I picked up a couple strands ahead of time and was poised to be prepared. Of course, I then didn’t string them until it the temp was hitting close to 0F. So, at 3am on New Years day, I was out stringing up Christmas lights…
I found a couple 25’ strands of incandescents at Home Depot for $7/strand.
This is the first time I’ve tried this, so I’m not sure how it will work. I started with a few along the ground at the base of the tree. My thinking is that the heat from them can rise as a column of warm air. Then, I wrapped the lights around all 4 of the main trunks (it grew back from near the ground last year as a 4 stemmed tree). But, I only protected 3 of them up to a few feet. The 4th one, I protected all the way up. It is best positioned to lean away from my peach trees, which the others are getting a bit close to. I can use them as controls. It now occurs to me that I should have left one entirely unprotected too. But I didn’t think of that when stringing them at 3am in the 0F temps. I can only imagine what the neighbors would think it they had woken up and seem me putting up lights in the middle of the night, on a date where people start taking lights down.
Are those bulbs big enough to generate much heat? I used the ones about the size of your thumb, which get pretty warm. The ones in your pic look like some that I saw strung up at work. Yesterday I touched them and they weren’t really noticeably warm, even though they had been on for at least a day and possibly for weeks (not sure if they were off while people were out over the holidays).
Man, I totally forgot to wrap my persimmons, and we’ve had about a week of temperatures in the teens now. Am I doomed? I have a Fuyu, and Ichi on the line (I assume Prok and Rosseyanka will be ok).
Zone 6 (0 to -10 degree lows) is very borderline for Fuyu and Ichi, but if your nighttime lows have only been in the teens, then you should be totally fine.
