Zendog, I have pom envy of those of you with a variety of poms.

I have had one outside in central SC for at least 5 years. It is(or was) supposed to be a Wonderful, but I wouldn't count on that since I got it from a local nursery that doesn't always have things labeled correctly. It grew in bush form, much like C5Tiger's picture, but the stalks are thicker.

This is the hottest part of SC.Hotter here than in NOVA. It endured one summer where the temps went up to 113 for a few days and stayed in the 90's and 100's all season. That was an unusually hot year. The past two winters have reached lows of 13 and 12, though the 12 degree reading was of very short duration this year. The nights when it hit 13 last year were during cold weeks where the daytime temps hardly broke freezing. The ground here does not freeze. So, roots were safe.This year's unusually late freeze did not harm the pom, which was still dormant, even though the freeze damaged other tree's new growth -including hardy figs.

This pom withstood a lot. I left it in the pot while deciding where to plant it. In the meantime, yellow jackets built a giant nest in the pot and the ground beneath. So I had to attempt to eradicate them. Once it was cold enough that I was sure that the yj's wouldn't be active enough to harm me even if any were alive, I found the pom rooted into the ground. At that point, I just cut off most of the pot and heaped a bit of soil around it. It competes for nourishment where it is, mostly from a monster trumpet vine root deep in the ground that is always trying to send up vines to choke the life out of anything they can climb, and wild blackberries, and a weeping butterfly bush that was not supposed to be invasive. It's just not a good spot for most cultivated plants to grow well.

But the pom did grow well there, sending out lots of gorgeous blooms each year. The hummingbirds found it attractive. I found it worthwhile for looks alone. It did set few fruit compared to the number of blooms. That may be because there was but a single bush. But each year it set more fruit. Last year we got about 10. There were no problems with fruit rotting before ripening, or with birds attacking fruit. The only problem was when I would pick them one at a time, and when left on too long the over-ripe fruit would crack.

The fruits were full size. Taste and texture of seeds were about that of store bought. The white pulp was somewhat thicker, with slightly less overall juice content than store bought. That may be the type of pom, or may be the effect of our lack of rain during fruit development. I have never watered that area. So, everything in that part survives on what nature provides, even during the summers when we are in drought conditions.

The whole family enjoyed that pom. This weekend I bought two more. One simply labeled "Russian". The other, Wonderful. They were in order to help me get over my mourning for the destruction of the original. Three weeks ago, the day before our late freeze, tree cutters dropped a large pine directly onto our pom.It was still dormant. Every single limb was torn down into the roots. I was going to do what little in my ability I could to try to save some of it, but they followed that up (while cutting trees that weren't supposed to be removed) by leaving me with a concussion and other injuries that prevented me from doing much of anything for a few days.

I don't give that pom any long term hope because of the extent of its injuries, but even though split limbs are barely connected to the cracked root, they still came out of dormancy, even if they don't have much to sustain themselves besides their own stored energy.

I hope my eulogy to our pom helps you. Just sharing its life story helped me.