After the quinces (still an ongoing experiment) and persimmons (Mohler & Meader),I would like to try planting some cold hardy pawpaws but I don’t believe they exist, right? As a second questions about pawpaws: someone here has experience growing pawpaws in greenhouse and getting fruits?
Thanks! Marc P.S. I’m zone 5, Canada. Oups!.. I just put the nail in my own coffin, right?
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Cold hardy is relative of course. Pawpaws are hardy to something like -20 F. (?)
They grow in southern Ontario I believe. Somewhere north of the border- don’t quote me 
I’ve heard some talk of growing them in greenhouses. They need chill hours to fruit, on the order of 400 hours I believe.
I guess you’d want northern-pedigreed varieties or seedlings and/or early season ones.
There are lists/topics out there on this - I don’t have the info off the top of my head 
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I think if you can get past the first 2-3 years you might be alright in the ground. Paw paw are pretty tough trees. They ripen about sept. in zone 6B. You need more than one for pollination. In your zone I would focus on early ripening varieties.
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So I’m in zn 5a, E Iowa. I’ve had pawpaws of several cultivars and seedlings of cultivars survive -36f (ambient) with little or no damage. Seedlings need their roots protected with thick (3in or more) mulch the first few winters, and graft unions also. I’ve lost some grafts to unprotected unions. Since you likely have a lower growing degree day accumulation than I do, early ripening cultivars would more likely to ripen fruit where you live. PA Golden ripens early and Shenandoah also starts fairly early but has a longer total ripening period than other cultivars from what I’ve heard. A derecho knocked off all my fruit (first year any set) so I don’t have personal experience with ripening order.
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We’ve had a record cold in my town of -31 F
So pawpaws didn’t go extinct!
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I agree that northern pawpaw growers need to pay attention to ripening time and grow early ripening varieties. There is no point to grow pawpaws but can’t eat the fruit because they ripen too late for your zone.
The pawpaw lady who lives in zone 5b told me Shenandoah ripens in time consistently for her. She has other Peterson’s varieties like Susquehanna and others. They do not always ripen in time.
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i just ordered 2 pawpaw seedlings for spring. im in z4a so really pushing it but i plan to plant them on the south side of my house . should protect them from the cold n.w winds and have at least a z5 microclimate there. now i have to find scions of early ripening varieties to graft. heard allegeny is one of the earliest but havent found a source for them. anyone here grow allegeny or any other early ripeneing cultivar and can spare a few scions?
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Hi Steve:
From inland Maine? You’re the right person to ask about hardiness, right? Have you heard about Campbell NC-1? They were developed in Ontario so hardiness should be involved. Search into Whiffletree nursery online catalogue to have complete info about this cultivar. I have already 4 of them growing (very slowwwwly) in my greenhouse. Fruits are supposed to be ready by mid-September.
KSU-Benson and KSU-chappell are supposed to be late September, so good choices also.
Cheers. Marc
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hi Marc. im on the border strait across from Edmunston, N.B. yes ive heard of NC-1 and the KSU pawpaws. ive heard they are slow growing until established well. we get alot of snow here so i plan to use that to help over winter my young paw paws. i plan to prune them to keep them under 3m. to keep them protected by the house. the siding is light gray so should encourage good growth in the summer. i think if i can keep them alive the 1st few years i have a good chance. by the way, my family on both sides were farmers that immigrated here in the 1920’s and 30’s from easten Quebec. i grew up in a town that has a large Lamarre family. 
im a Bosse.`
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Hi Steve:
I gather there are a lot of U.S. citizens of Québécois origin… the historical truth must be told that when the Quakers were busy carving their first turkey, my ancestors had already discovered half of North America (well…almost…) You know: coureurs des bois resembling a bit such a character in that (bad) movie: the revenant. One sure element is that coureurs des bois are responsible for having fathered a ton of métis people…
If not mistaken your actual governor LePage is from Cajun extract? Whenever you see a family name beginning with Le or La followed by a capital first letter it’s mean they are Acadian (Cajun) origin but not from Québec background. Acadian and Québéçois are both people speaking French (we are indeed cousins!) but we have no cultural common past or ties (except political) before New France felt to the Brits… It had to be said that we (from Québec) have a (huge) tendancy to laugh at the way they speak. Not a nice thing to do. Also sometimes I go to Youtube and listen to Cajun people from Louisiana. I have to listen closely because many French words that they use are now pronounced in an English form but I can understand 90% (very old French words and expressions that people from France could never understand) of what they say and the rest is English so I can understand 100% Wow! I just have to visit them one day.
Once i was on Cape Cod and a plumber truck was waiting at a red light. It was written: Lamarre plumbing in huge letters on side of the vehicule. I ask the driver if he was a Lamarre? He replied: yes I’m a Lamar-ray. The poor soul didn’t know how to prononce his ancestor family name correctly. It’s sounded Italian… Why not? We all are citizen of the world.
So, you’re a Bossé? Here we have also some Bossy like the former hockey player Michael. The two different family names could have a common heritage. Deformation of family names is a national sport here: Blanchet or Blanchette, Carpentier or Charpentier etc.
I have a huge tendency to speak/write too much because of my History (as an academic discipline) background). I will respond (from French: répondre) to your private email soon.
Marc
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Are your zones in Canada different? Varieties of Paw Paw around the internet like stark bros say zone 4-8. Here in Colorado the limiting factor of Paw Paws for me is that they require at least 30 inches of water a year and you need 2 of them. We have the coldness but not the water.
Try them anyhow…with a little hand watering the first 2 or 3 years, you might find they can live on less water. They tend to have a taproot.
I generally grow in pots because I don’t own my house otherwise I would. I am trying to save up enough to move somewhere like Kansas or Missouri.
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most of the people here in the St. John valley are Acadians that came here in the 18th early 19th century. my ancestors came to Quebec in the same time period and many immigrated here for the cheap land in late 19th/ early 20th century. the Quebecqois in Canada still call Acadians ‘’ ploye eaters’’. the language is quite different from both sides of the border. both have intermingled so much now that there isnt the spats like there used to be. your either French American or French Canadian. we see alot of french names from people in southern Maine that butcher their names like that. my mothers sisters went to Louisiana to meet our relatives down there 25yrs ago. my uncle recorded it. its funny to see them speak the 2 types of French and laugh at each other. most Americans dont realize how much people were in Canada in the 18th and 19th centuries or the wars fought then. unfortunitly my French is very poor as my parents moved to C.T when i was born and French people were discriminated against so my parents never taught us the language. then we moved back when i was 10. 1 of my brothers speaks it fairly well but us other 2 ,not so much. really wish i had tried harder to pick it up. my wife is a Cyr and is Acadian. we share some culture but some is completely different. she speaks it fluently but says the Quebecqois speak too fast. lol! when we cross shes my translator for what i dont understand. my name was Bosse but when my grandfather moved to CT for work, he changed the spelling to Bossie because the english couldnt say Bosse properly and its stayed like that. i accept either spelling as correct unless its a legal document. my apologies to the mods. we are definitly off topic. .
My relatives grew pawpaws in the northern part of Indiana. They bought them from SE Kentucky and they survived. Plenty of cold there in Indiana upper part toward Chicago area. They brought them from the pawpaw trees from my grandparents.
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While I have heard that NC-1 is grown in southern Canada successfully, my NC-1 trees here in central Ohio don’t ripen early. For quality early fruit, my Overleese is probably my earliest of many varieties. You might try it. It also has a long ripening window, with large mild-tasting fruit. There are different strains of Overleese so YMMV.
Marc
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Hi Marc;
I do have a ton (well 6) of NC-1 that are supposed to have been ‘engineered’ in Ontario so supposedly hardy but they are only 2 yers old and you’re telling me that they don’t ripen early? Ouate de phoque? French for wtf… As for Overleese never head or read about them. Looks like I’m screwed…
I could order KSU-Benson and KSU-Chappell that are supposed to be ripped by late September but I can not go after late September that’s for sure. Not here…Marc
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Yep its definitely the water here that the paw paws need and i just do not believe we could ever get.
I started a bunch of paw paws under a tree of hell i believed at the time to be a staghorn sumac. It was hard to keep them happy and required lots of mulch and winter/spring/summer/fall shallow watering which i truly dislike. Eventually after 4 years i gave up knowing that i could never get their roots deep enough to naturalize. I did give it a good try however.
Yup. I thought about growing it and thought it would not be worth it. Water is very expensive here where I live in Colorado because we get 15 inches of rainfall a year. Most of our water comes from snow runoff. Paw Paw are great if you live somewhere like Washington where it constantly rains but not good in regions with little rain. I could try growing it in the ground hoping for it to get deep enough like you but when I did some research I realized I could not grow them and if I did grow them the expense would just not be worth it. Paw Paw are extremely cold hardy with most going down to zone 4 though.
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I hate dissuading people from trying stuff as eventually someones going to figure it out for sure, however they just do not do well with our climate and would need consistent micro irrigation to be successful. My most successful native american fruits i can grow are raspberries, serviceberries, alpine strawberries and thimbleberries
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