It's a monster!

I had a choice between Stark’s and PlantMeGreen to order my Ichi-Ki-Kei-Jiro persimmon(others were sold out). The second was $21 more expensive, but they promised a bigger(3-4’ tall) tree… Now I can see where the difference of $21 goes to… I received the tree from plantmegreen today. It is a monster. The problem now is what to do with it. It is already leafed out… And we may have a hard frost for the next 6-7 weeks. What should I do with it, keep it inside? I have south window in the unheated covered porch where temperature is around 50F. Does it also need artificial lights? I will need to train it back to the sun again before planting out. I really didn’t expect it it this way… Will it survive? I may take it outside for the day and take back for the night, but the pot it is in is kind of soft and I am afraid the movements every day will disturb the roots too much. Any ideas?

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Wow. That is a nice sized tree. Too bad it is already leafed out. Must be a southern nursery ?

No experience with this… but my instincts are thinking strap it to a dolly… and keep it outside on the north side (Shadyside) of your home if temps are 35+

Roll it back inside when below 35. Put it rightback outside when temps rise again to 35-40.

In my case my garage doors are on north side … so i would just temporarily roll it in the garage if too cold. Roll it back out when warm enough.

I do my tomatoes like that… and they dont mind.

Good luck !!!

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Can you explain why north side? I have deck on east side, but then I have roll it into the 70F room at night, not a healthy jump… . Garage has opening to west side and it is really warm spot second half of the day. Is that a problem?

I think I got a solution. I can put it in walkout basement entrance - kind of unheated sun-room on the ground level, the sun near it is only in the morning. But I will have to jump over a step to get in and out. May be I will place the pot inside a bigger hard pot, so it is not disturbing the root that much.

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I was thinking north side to keep it cooler and out of sunlight to slow down its progress some.

As you get closer to planting date you could let it get more sunshine.

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PlantMeGreen seems to send beefy plants. I ordered a Nikita’s Gift from them last year, came in and it was 3’ tall with a 1/2 caliper at the base. They are in Florida I believe? Anyway, I have been keeping persimmons in pots for a couple years now. I keep them in the house near a south facing window, bringing them in from cold storage right around this time of year. I don’t really give them artificial lighting. When danger of frost is passed, about June here, I start hardening them off to the sun. My schedule is 15 minuets of intense sun the first day, 30 minuets the next, 1 hour, 2, 4, then the live outside the rest of the season. Some of that may be unnecessary, but it works for me, and I live in a high UV area. I usually plant them outside after a year or two of “sizing” them up this way, since this is a cold area. Hope that helps. Here is a picture I took this week of the NG.

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