@PomGranny The wild ones in the shade…
Well …pawpaw seedlings can’t handle full sun the first year .
So the wild ones start in the shade . But will fruit best in full sun.
Try a good strong dose of high nitrogen organic fertilizer.
That usually perks them right up
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PawPaw seeds/seedlings seem to not like full sun…and that is evidenced by the fact that in the wild they are always an understory tree or shrub. I have found by trial and error that new seedlings can take quite a lot of sun though, so long as you have some partial shade in some of the mid-day hours.
They usually grow well in shade, unless the trees shading them are huge or have lots of roots near the surface to compete. But, they have many more leaves and fruits in full sun areas.
The biggest crop of pawpaws I ever saw was where an older fellow had cleaned all the brush and trees that were growing on the banks of a small stream and made a huge brush pile. He had left pawpaw and persimmon trees, and a black walnut or two. The year after that, they all had heavy crops!
A neighbor tried growing pawpaw in pots. Gave up … because he didn’t realize it takes them 2 or 3 months to pop through the ground after temperature rise to summertime levels. So, he dumped them over a south-facing hillside with weeds and blackberry briars. Several years later, he has pawpaws – a whole thicket of them. And I liked one well enough that I now have a seedling plant of it. (The weeds provided baby pawpaw trees the necessary shading, and now that they have out-grown the briars and weeds, they are simply thriving.)
Around 5 feet in hight is about when pawpaws begin to have blossom or two. Height seems to be more important than how old the plant is.
ksu.gov (Kentucky State University) has lots of info on pawpaws…….and the largest experimental orchard of them in the world. (Maybe on my ‘to-do’ for a visit someday.)
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To make it easy I just plant them in full sun. First year, sometimes second year too, I put a tomato cage on top of each little tree. Put burlap around the outside of the cage but leave the top of the tomato cage open to the sun. Mulch wide and deep, wider and deeper than you normally do. Gobs of compost under the mulch. Water weekly for a couple growing seasons unless 1 inch of rain that week. They love N, compost, mulch and water.
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I think they are good to go in full sun after the first hardening. A small one foot grow tube would be easy the first year. The best wild ones come up in full sun from the start.
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Mine are on the edge of the woods and have never heard of having very good luck in direct sun.
Not sure if anyone else is reading these old topics but here is a new link to that deprecated Peterson webpage on Cultural Advice.
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