Here’s a picture of native persimmons I gathered this morning. These trees are all in moderate to dense shade in a mixed hardwood forest. They grow tall and fruit mostly in the top portion of the tree, which of course gets more light. The reason they look so beat up is I have to shake the trees, then they drop from 30 or 40 feet, then I gather them. Absolutely delicious.
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Mine look beat up sometimes and only drop from 5 or 6 ft but I wait until they drop on their own. grass seems to protect them better than mulch.
Very nice Saijo. Saijo is my all-star this year. I’d be very concerned about that Izu not leafing out by now.
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Yes , Nursery said wait until Aug it will leaf out. Mine doesn’t but the bark still green I keep waiting.
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I hope it leafs out for you!
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I will updating about Izu when it leaf out later.
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Vincent, your Izu looks dead to me… If it never leafed out, I’m pretty sure it’s dead. Try to scratch test… Even if the underbark is green, your tree will fully die if the buds never opened. At least that’s my advice…
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Thank you. It’s still so green underneath its bark. I would like to wait until next Spring in April. If still not leaves out I will take it back the nursery where o bought it. I will keep updating by that time.
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I’d make sure now that the nursery won’t tell you next spring that you waited too long to ask for a refund.
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They would not refund after 90 days. But they might give me a credit to buy some thing else. I really like to have Izu because not much choice in Seattle area. Some information on web said some time not leaves out for the whole year as well. I kept well watered during summer time. Hopefully it will wake up next Spring.
Hi! I would love to hear how your persimmons did unwrapped as I am in the same zone as you and am considering the same thing this year.
Terribly. That was the polar vortex year. We got down to -16 and everything either died or was damaged down to the snow-line. I’ve since started over and have protected most of my persimmons so they can put on a little size before being exposed to such harsh conditions again. The hybrids might be your best bet (excluding Nikita’s Gift). Although Cliff England introduced a few kaki that are supposedly very cold-hardy. Mine have all been protected the past few winters so I can’t speak to that from personal experience. I have a bunch of my own hybrids that have survived the past few winters unprotected with no die-back, but none of them have flowered/fruited yet.
Yikes!! That’s disappointing. I hope you’re having better luck now. I wanted to plant my trees at a very windy, exposed site, but only wrap with a heavy frost blanket in terms of as much effort I’ll go to protect things over the winter. Do you think that might suffice? I have the hybrids already but wanted to try Hana Fuyu and Iche this way. I didn’t have their spot ready this spring, so debating whether to plant them now or just wait until next spring.
I’ve been protecting mine by covering them with a trash can wrapped in insulating aluminum bubble wrap (an idea I got from Scott), and piling mulch up around the sides. It’s worked very well with no problems.
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Most of you guys, from what I’ve read, stuff with leaves etc is there a reason you have to use the leaves/tarp/garbage can method as opposed to a heavy frost blanket? Is it a matter of them not being sufficient, or just simply having it on hand for use?