Astringent persimmons with good fall foliage recommendations

I’m thinking about starting to grow some astringent Asian persimmons this year. I’m in zone 7b in Edgewater MD. the persimmons would be located in my front yard in full sun and since they will be on display for the neighbors I want varieties that are known for good fall color. I reviewed the Wye Research & Education Center publication “persimmons for maryland” where they list Davie #3, Great Wall, Hagakushi, Inchon, Miss Kim, Niu Nai, Sung-hui, and Tecumseh as having notable orange red foliage in fall. cross referencing that list with the most cold hardy cultivars listed in publication narrows it down to Great Wall, Niu Nai, and Tecumseh, with possible cold hardiness to Davie #3, Inchon, and Miss Kim. Of this list, based on availability for grafted rooted trees, It seems Great Wall, Tecumseh and maybe Miss Kim are my best bets. does anyone have any experience with these cultivars and can provide recommendations? Anything I overlooked?

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Saijo with medium to small fruits but tasted real good.

I have Miss Kim and Tecumseh and agree with you on these trees. Tecumseh for me has grown a lot larger than Miss Kim but is a year older. Both have nice foliage in fall. Both of these survived a vortex cold for me where the temps were down to -2 to -4° without die back. I really like Miss Kim fruit and Tecumseh is good but I thought Miss Kim was better. Tecumseh shows really nice red color in fall. Miss Kim had more of a variety of colors yellow to orange.

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I’ll give a plug for Saijo too. It’s very tasty and shouldn’t have issues with hardiness in zone 7b.

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Miss Kim is a favorite now of mine after having the opportunity to try like a dozen various Asian persimmons.

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kostata has an intense red foliage in autumn and is very cold hard. but the fruits are rather good for drying. they taste is mealy when eaten fresh.
but has the prettiest fall color of my persimmons

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Any thoughts on how big of a tree you want? Saijo may be a larger tree and Inchon (seems to be one of the hardiest based on reports here) will be a smaller tree. Of hybrids, Kassandra (Great Wall is a parent) had very nice fall foliage when I had a small grafted tree. I gave it to my sister, so no longer have it myself, but people seem to like it a lot, although the fruit will be smaller than the pure kaki types.

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I can’t do ladders due to medical issues so they would need to be harvested from the ground. that’s the only height limit I would have. I have no other size restrictions.

@Bigmike1116 My Saijos shot up to around 12-15 feet tall after just 3 years with continued vigor. That might be a bad choice for you unless you use something long to clip/pick the fruit from the ground with.

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it sounds like most persimmons needed to be clipped to harvest and won’t fall freely, so maybe I would be best suited to the smaller varieties like miss kim and ichon. I believe great wall is considered a medium growth cultivar and tecumseh a large growth type. sounds like Saijo is medium or large. thanks.

Hi …You may want to look at the thread below. I have a Hachiya that has nice fall colors.

Persimmon Fall Color - General Fruit Growing - Growing Fruit

just ordered 2 miss kim from Edible landscaping on 8/24. 5 gallon pots so should be pretty big. fingers and toes crossed. gonna wrap these right away in hardware cloth instead of “playing it by ear” like I did with my jujubes. maybe I’ll be able to see what the fall color will be like this year.