I live in Central Texas (zone 8b) and I would like to grow some soft-seed pomegranates that ripen at different times.
My question is: when selecting varieties, do I need to take cold hardiness into account, or is my climate mild enough that I don’t have to worry about it? Of course I’m thinking about cold-hardiness for fruit, not just survival.
Central Texas hit -0F last winter so I would say no.
I had two “Wonderful” pomegranate trees in DFW and I did not have problem. But that was many years ago.
Search the A&M site. It has several recommendations for pomegranate based on region of Texas.
I’ve got surh anor, wonderful, and Texas pink. One survived snowpocalypse, the others were planted after, but survived last winter and the winter before. I’m between Waco and Cleburne.
Oh, wonderful is the one that survived snowpocalypse.
I am growing poms in the DFW area in 8a. While still in progress seeing how they do I will share what I have found if it is helpful. These spellings probably won’t be right, the russian names throw me off spelling wise. Of the soft seeded varieties I am trialing here the most cold hardy of the ones I have is Gissarskii Rozovyi. Keep in mind it is not as cold hardy as the most cold hardy hard seeded varieties but has survived some cold that it in theory should not have. With 0F it will get killed to the ground. But this variety more than the soft seeded ones grows very robustly, very fast. So if killed to the ground it grows right back to it previous size. This has not been the case with my other soft seeded ones. Last year I had 5F for several hours one night and I did cover it with a planter to try to protect it some but don’t think the planter did much. Amazingly Gissarskii Rozovyi did not get totally killed to the ground but it took damage. Maybe 60-70% of top growth took damage, but the rest survived, so not killed the ground. No other soft seeded did that, and some of those had better protection than this one. Further we had a late frost too after many were starting to leaf out. Gissarskii Rozovyi actually handled that well and again the top growth that survived the winter freeze, survived this mostly too.
The least cold hardy soft seeded has been Sverkranny, AC Sweet (nurseries suggest you could grow this in zone 6, not a chance, nor zone 7). AC Sweet is not even as cold hardy as my most cold hardy soft seeded varieties. At best among soft seeded, it seems middle of the pack for cold hardiness, so likely 10-12F range as the lowest, but for me, it is not quite average, but a bit more sensitive to cold. Other less than average cold hardy for soft seeds have been Fleischman, Auk Post Ghermez Saveh, Sin Pepe. Sumbar I am not sure on this as I one got killed at 0F totally, my second went in last year with brief 5F and top killed but regrew from roots. All I have data wise. If it is just a bit better than average I haven’t had the right temps to test it. Other about average was Parfianka, and Desertny. Sirenevyi might be a bit more cold hardy within the range but not like Gissarskii Rozovyi which stands out. For me the cold hardy temp range seems to 9F-14F very roughly. As I said, maybe 30% of above ground growth of Gissarskii Rozovyi survived a brief 5F temp that lasted 3-4 hours at night. This killed all of the other soft seeded to the ground. I have killed 3 AC Sweet planted at different times, with some being older 3 year old plant, in different locations with low temps. They all died in different years from varying temps from 0F, 5F and 10F. That one I am confident is definitely not more cold hardy like the absurd nursery claims and they should stop claiming this. Other than nursery listings I have seen no data of any kind supporting AC sweet being more cold hardy. I have also killed 3 Sverkhranny similarly over a range of temps, and one of those had it buried under a pile of compost for the night at 5F, still killed it, and AC Sweet buried in compost was also killed. Sumbar was a small plant and top killed in 5F, but did grow back from the roots. Small plants are less hardy than larger mature plants so it is hard to get a feel for how cold hardy it is. Supposedly it is a bit more cold hardy than other soft seeded. Could it? Sure, I don’t have the ideal data set on this one over a few years.
If you are interested at all in hard seeded varieties I bought some larger more mature plants of these and so far they have only been through 5F. In order of cold hardiness, Sur Anor no damage, Kaj Acik Anor took some damage on the top but I guess half survived, and my one Salavatsky was top killed, another was 80% top killed which was surprising. This one is always touted as one of the most cold hardy. Sur Anor being a smaller plant, maybe two feet I for sure thought would be killed to the ground but it was unaffected. Salavatsky was a 5 ft tall plant in both cases so maybe 3 years old. Kaj Acik Anor was a 3.5-4ft plant so not that small. Sur Anor taking the cold hardy crown for me at least so far.